Almost all horses slow down in the latter stages of a race as they begin to run out of puff. Those that appear to be increasing their speed towards the finish are actually the ones that are sustaining their gallop for longer, and therefore slowing down the least.
Now I was banking on the fact that Potassium’s large lungs would be able to sustain his gallop long enough for him to reach the winning post while still in front.
At the two-furlong marker, his lead had been cut from eight lengths to six, and that was halved by the time he reached the one pole.
At Epsom, the ground rises again in the final half furlong, further depleting a horse’s stamina, but as Owen Reynolds had said in the parade ring, Potassium loved to race in front, and he hated to be caught.
As two of the other runners closed in on him rapidly, he stuck his neck out and found more. But would it be enough?
Come on. Come on. Hang on. You can do it.
The three horses flashed past the winning post side by side, with Potassium closest to the far rail.
‘Did we win? Did we win?’ shouted one of the other syndicate members, grabbing me from behind and sending my top hat spinning off my head.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied.
‘Photograph. Photograph,’ announced the judge over the public address.
Had Potassium held on? Or had he been caught?
I stared at the screen as it showed the slow-motion replay of the finish.
It looked worryingly that Potassium might have been headed right at the death, but the TV camera position was some ten yards short of the finish, which meant it wasn’t looking straight along the line, as the photo-finish camera would be.
The replay was run over and over on the screen and, the more it was shown, the more convinced I became that Potassium had lost. But the length of time the judge was taking to declare the result meant it must be very close.
The noise level of the crowd swelled again as everyone was discussing the possible outcomes, and some bookmakers were even shouting their odds for bets on which horse’s head had reached the line first.
‘Here is the result of the photograph,’ announced the judge through the loudspeakers, causing the crowd to fall silent in expectation. ‘First number nine. Second number two. Third number ten. The distances are a nose, and the same.’
I leaned down and calmly picked up my top hat from the grass.
Potassium was horse number nine.
We had just won the Derby.
My moment of isolated calm quickly evaporated as I was swamped by other syndicate members, all of them cheering loudly and slapping me on the back.
‘We won! We won!’ shouted the man who had previously grabbed me.
His name was Nick Spencer, a millionaire London property lawyer who owned many shares of Victrix horses. He was usually a quiet and measured man, but now he was literally jumping up and down with excitement.
‘Indeed we did,’ I replied quietly, still hardly daring to believe it.
All my racing life, my burning ambition had been to win an Epsom Derby, and now it had finally happened. Yet strangely, at this moment of triumph, I was totally relaxed, subdued even. I realised that my overriding emotion was one of relief rather than elation. Maybe that would come later.
‘Come on, Chester,’ said Nick, seizing my left arm and dragging him with me. ‘Winner’s circle, here we come!’
Unlike at many British racecourses, such as Ascot, York, Cheltenham, and Aintree, where the unsaddling enclosures for the first to fourth placed horses are positioned within the parade rings, Epsom had a space reserved exclusively for the race winner — a railed circle situated right in front of the Queen Elizabeth II grandstand.
As Nick and I moved through the throng, I was accosted by the same BBC radio journalist as had met me at the racecourse entrance earlier, again with his live microphone at the ready.
‘So, Chester Newton, owner of Potassium, do you think he was a lucky winner?’ he asked, thrusting his microphone in my direction.
‘In what way?’ I replied.
‘The TV images clearly show that in just another stride Potassium would have only been third. So don’t you think he was lucky to win?’
I stopped walking and looked straight at him.
‘But the race distance wasn’t another stride long,’ I said in a strong but measured tone, resisting the urge to get angry about such a ridiculous question. ‘The winner of the Derby, as in every other race, is the horse that gets from the starting stalls to the finish line in the shortest time, and today, here, that horse was Potassium. So he’s a worthy winner. There was no luck involved. The race was run exactly as we had planned it, right down to that last winning stride. It is a famous victory for Potassium, and also for Victrix Racing.’
The reporter seemed quite taken aback by the forcefulness of my reply, and I was a bit surprised by it too, but I was determined not to allow Potassium to be labelled as a ‘lucky winner’ when he’d won the race fair and square. But I suppose it was better than being labelled as an ‘unlucky loser.’
By the time I’d elbowed my way through the crowd to the winner’s circle, Nick Spencer and all the other Potassium syndicate members were already in there, many with their partners, such that there was hardly room for the horse.
Owen Reynolds had a grin on his face as big as that of the Cheshire Cat as he led the winner in. Why wouldn’t he? Never mind anything else, he’d just won twenty-five thousand pounds from his bet.
The jockey, Jimmy Ketch, raised his arms above his head in a victory salute that sent the other syndicate members into greater raptures.
I, meanwhile, leaned quietly on the white rail, taking in the ebullient scene. Inside me was forming a warm glow of satisfaction, and I could feel that a smile was slowly spreading across my face.
Surely my business would be safe after this?
If only.
Chapter 3
‘Where are you?’ Georgina asked when I called her from the car as I drove it out of the car park at a quarter to five.
‘I’m just leaving the racecourse,’ I replied.
‘I thought you’d be nearly home by now.’
‘I’ve been busy doing post-race media interviews and getting the Derby trophy packed up and into the car.’
‘So Potassium won, then?’
‘Didn’t you watch it?’ I asked in disbelief.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I forgot. I was busy changing the seating plan. My mother has decided not to come after all as Dad’s not feeling very well today, and she doesn’t want to leave him overnight.’
Georgina’s parents were now in their mid-eighties, and her father suffered from angina and a failing heart, meaning he was effectively housebound by his need for additional oxygen provided to a mask through a long plastic tube from an oxygen-generating machine.
‘But at least that means I won’t have to pick her up from the station,’ Georgina went on. ‘Bloody Richard and Sarah Bassett have also let us down again. Sarah rang to say they think they may have caught a cold and aren’t coming, but I think it’s just an excuse not to bother to come down from London. Who does that on the day of a party, especially when we’ve already had to pay for them?’
I wasn’t really listening to her.
How could she have forgotten to watch the Derby when I had a runner, let alone the favourite?
‘Did either James or Amanda see the race?’ I asked.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Georgina said. ‘They’ve both been absolutely useless. That wretched Darren turned up at midday in a taxi. Then, about an hour later, Amanda announced that they were going down to the pub for some lunch. And James went with them. None of them are back yet.’