We went on to discuss how I chose the trainers for each horse and my daily routine. Finally, he stopped and switched off the recording he’d been making on his phone.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That was great. Very interesting. The feature should run in the paper either this Saturday or one day next week, depending on the space available with Royal Ascot.’
We stood up and moved towards the door of the office.
‘So, tell me,’ he said casually, as if as an afterthought, ‘what happened to Dream Filler on Saturday at Lingfield?’
‘The whole thing was ridiculous,’ I said. ‘He was clearly the best horse in the race, and the stewards placed him last.’
‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘But why did the jockey weigh in light?’
His journalistic instincts were in full force, hoping for some insight or revelation.
‘Owen thinks they must have made a mistake when they weighed him out.’
‘Don’t they have CCTV to check for that?’
‘They said they did, but I never saw the footage. Tim Westlake claims he might have easily lost two pounds during the race. It was a very hot afternoon, and I saw his skull cap after the race. It was soaked with sweat, and of course none of that sweat gets weighed.’
‘It still seems very odd to me,’ Jerry said.
He looked me straight in the eyes, and I was worried that he could see right through them into my guilty conscience.
‘It’s the first time it’s ever happened to a Victrix runner,’ I said, turning away. ‘And I sincerely hope it’s the last.’
It certainly would be the last time that I’d do anything so stupid.
‘I’m so angry I could spit,’ Georgina said when I got home.
‘What about now?’ I asked, doing my best to keep the frustration out of my voice.
‘Amanda.’
‘What’s she done?’
‘She turned up here just after you went out.’
I wondered if she had been watching and waiting for me to go.
‘What did she want?’ I asked.
‘Money.’
‘And did you give her any?’
‘No. I told her that she could have all the money she wanted, but only if she came back to live at home instead of staying in that awful flat with that horrible boy.’
I bet that hadn’t gone down well. Amanda was a very headstrong teenager, and she wouldn’t have taken kindly to such an ultimatum from her mother.
‘She told me that I didn’t understand what it was like to be young these days, what with all the pressures on them. I told her to get used to the real world.’
‘What did she want the money for?’ I asked.
‘She didn’t say.’
For drugs, I thought gloomily.
I could tell that Georgina was upset, but this time, anger had displaced the usual tears.
‘And she also wouldn’t give me her new phone number. Said she didn’t want to speak to me. So I told her that was just fine by me.’
The tears were closer now.
‘She’ll soon see the error of her ways,’ I said, trying to be comforting. ‘You watch. She’ll be back home before you know it.’
And I prayed it wouldn’t be in a body bag.
Chapter 16
Newbury races was very sparsely attended on Thursday afternoon, almost as if the public were also taking a rest before the big five days ahead at Royal Ascot that started the following Tuesday.
Hameed’s race, the Class 3 Novice Stakes for two-year-olds, was the second race on the card, over a straight six and a half furlongs.
As usual, I had emailed all the syndicate members and had arranged to meet those attending before the first race in the Owners Club, situated close to the West Entrance.
The lawyer, Nick Spencer was amongst them, as he also owned a share in Hameed.
‘Hi, Chester,’ he said jovially as I arrived. ‘The atmosphere’s a bit different here today compared to that at Epsom on Derby day.’ He laughed.
‘But let’s hope for the same result,’ I replied.
‘Do you think we have a chance?’ he asked.
‘Owen believes we have a good one. He says the horse has come on well at home since coming second at Goodwood last month.’
‘Worth a punt then?’
I looked up Hameed’s probable starting price, as printed in the racecard. It stated that his likely price would be four-to-one, second favourite.
‘Maybe worth a bit each way,’ I said. ‘But don’t stake your house.’
‘I’d never do that. I’m a lawyer, remember. All lawyers are cautious by their very nature.’ He laughed again.
I remained in the club to have some lunch with him, and we watched the first race on the racecourse’s closed-circuit TV network.
The pre-parade ring at Newbury is right next to the Owners Club, and immediately after the race, we wandered outside to watch Hameed being walked around.
‘Looks great, doesn’t he?’ Nick said.
‘Splendid,’ I agreed.
Some young horses grow in spurts, with different rates front and back, leaving them sometimes looking rather gawky and ungainly, but there was nothing awkward about Hameed. He moved in a smooth easy manner like a well-oiled machine.
When Owen Reynolds appeared carrying Jimmy Ketch’s saddle, pad, and weight and number cloths, I remained leaning on the white rail and resisted the temptation to go anywhere near the saddling box.
I did not want to jog free any hidden memory Owen might have of me being left alone with Dream Filler’s weight cloth for a full three minutes while he had fetched the parade-ring vet at Lingfield.
To that end, I had also chosen not to wear my blue-checked sports coat, opting instead for a more formal dark suit. And I certainly had no intention of repeating my wrongdoing of last Saturday.
This race was a novice stakes, not a handicap, so all the male horses, the colts, were to carry an equal weight of nine stone seven pounds, while the three females, the fillies, each had a five-pound allowance, carrying nine stone two pounds.
Horseracing is one of only a very few sports where males and females regularly compete against each other. Sure there are some races specifically for one gender or another, such as the Oaks at Epsom for fillies only, or the St James’s Palace Stakes at Ascot for colts only, but most races are for both male and female horses racing together, and each can be ridden by a male or female jockey.
However, everything in racing is not quite equal between the sexes. Although no special allowance is made for a female jockey, female horses carry less weight than their male counterparts in the same race, even in the major ones like the Epsom Derby, where the allowance for fillies is three pounds.
The allowance is designed to give the girls an equal chance of winning against the boys, but even so, in the first two hundred and forty-four runnings of the Derby, only six fillies have ever won it, the most recent being back in 1916.
Owen finished saddling Hameed, and then he and his stable lad led the horse out of the saddling box and across into the main parade ring. Nick and I, together with the other members of the owning syndicate, walked over to join them.
There were twelve runners in total, and the connections were soon joined on the grass by the twelve jockeys, their vivid silks brightening up what had become a rather gloomy afternoon under a cloud-filled sky.
Jimmy Ketch, in the blue-and-white-striped Victrix colours, touched the peak of his white cap with his riding whip, as a deferential greeting to the owners, before Owen gave him some last-minute race instructions.
‘He was rather slow out of the stalls last time out at Goodwood,’ Owen said to him. ‘There he gave the field a couple of lengths start, so keep your wits about you this time, and jump off fast. Otherwise, use your initiative as to whether to make the early running, and do your best.’