She and the Farquhars were lunch guests today of the Ascot Authority, the organisation that runs Ascot Racecourse on behalf of the sovereign, who owns it.
All the train passengers, including me some way behind them, walked up the quarter-mile-long steep pedestrian pathway to the racecourse, to join the throng waiting to gain entry though the turnstiles.
I made a short detour to Car Park 2 first, to check that all was well with my car, that it hadn’t been towed away overnight — it hadn’t — before gathering up my daily owners/trainers badge, lunch voucher, and parade-ring pass from the collection marquee at the east end of the car park.
The nice lady who gave out the badges looked up and smiled at me. ‘Hello, Mr Newton. I greatly enjoyed reading that lovely piece about you in today’s Racing Post.’
‘Lovely piece?’ I said, confused.
‘Yes. The piece about you and Potassium. On page five.’
I realised I hadn’t looked past the horrors of the front.
I unfolded my copy of the paper, which was still tucked under my arm, and opened it to page five.
‘Chester Newton and the Ever-Rising Star of Victrix Racing’ was written across the top of the page, with a large colour photograph beneath, taken at Owen Reynolds’s yard, of me with Potassium.
Meanwhile, a queue of impatient owners was forming behind me.
‘Thank you for telling me,’ I said to the lady, taking my badge and lunch voucher from her hand. ‘I’ll go outside and read it.’
She smiled at me again, and then her gaze moved right to the next person in the line.
Overall, Jerry Parker had been true to his word in the feature, and very kind about Victrix Racing and about me. Only at the end did he refer obliquely to his own front-page story of the missing Lingfield weights as being the only blemish on an otherwise spectacular three weeks for the company.
I didn’t know whether to be happy or fearful. Maybe a bit of both.
It would be the front-page story that everyone would see. For most people, after that, they would only be interested in the runners for the races ahead and the tipsters’ views on each horse’s prospects, to help them decide on which to stake their cash.
The feature would pass them by completely.
I closed the newspaper, refolded it carefully with the front-page headline well hidden, and went through the turnstiles into the racecourse.
Once inside, it was very easy to tell that everywhere was much busier than it had been during the first two days. In fact, some twenty-five thousand more people would be here today, compared to yesterday.
The queue to have your photograph taken against a Royal Ascot floral backdrop was noticeably longer, and even though it was not yet one o’clock, the spaces around the parade ring from which to watch the Royal Procession were already full.
My phone rang.
It was James.
‘I’ve spoken to the letting agency. They said they really need to see my actual passport to satisfy the regulations, but they’re happy just to have a scanned copy of it for the moment. But they need that by first thing tomorrow, at the latest, or they can’t hold the flat for us any longer.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll scan it this evening when I get home, and send the scan direct to them by email. Text me their email address. I’ll copy the email to you.’
‘And you’ll also send the physical passport to me?’
‘I’ll do that tomorrow morning by post. Text me your address again to be sure I have the right one.’
We disconnected.
Not having had any breakfast other than sex, I realised I was hungry. So I made my way to the Owners and Trainers’ Dining Room to get some lunch.
Even that was busy, with a queue for tables.
‘Hello, Chester,’ said the man joining the line behind me.
I turned around.
‘Oh, hi, Richie.’
Richie Mackenzie, the Newmarket-based trainer of five Victrix horses, including Balham, who had been beaten a nose at Windsor ten days ago, and also of Cherwell Edge, my runner of this afternoon. As usual, we had spoken on the phone earlier, albeit briefly.
‘All well?’ I asked.
‘Fine. Edgie arrived safely, and he’s raring to go. He’ll be doing his best.’
I felt he was being tactful.
‘I’m not really expecting too much,’ I said.
Cherwell Edge had only run twice before, both in Class 4 novice stakes. He had finished second in one and fourth in the other, but today’s race was a huge step up to a Class 1, Group 3 contest against some highly rated horses.
Both Richie and I knew that I had entered him under pressure from one of the syndicate members, who had desperately wanted just to have a Royal Ascot runner to impress his friends, even if the horse had little or no chance of winning.
‘He’s been working really well at home, and he might surprise you yet,’ Richie said. ‘As long as the jockey weighs in at the same weight as he weighed out.’
I looked at him.
‘Are you referring to the front page of today’s Racing Post?’
‘I certainly am,’ he replied. ‘How did that happen?’
‘What exactly?’
‘That someone removed weights from Dream Filler’s weight cloth.’
‘I don’t believe anyone did,’ I said, trying to keep my voice calm, even though my heart was beating fast. ‘Why would they? I think that either Tim Westlake sweated off two pounds — after all, it was an extremely hot day — or some weights fell out of the weight cloth during the race.’
‘And you really believe that?’ he said, sounding very sceptical.
‘I don’t know what to believe,’ I said. ‘Owen Reynolds reckons they must have made a mistake when weighing Westlake out.’
‘Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he, if he was the one responsible.’
‘Come on, Richie,’ I said. ‘You can’t possibly think that a trainer of Owen’s standing would do such a thing on purpose.’
‘I reckon it was the jockey who did it,’ said the large man in front of me, who had clearly been listening to our conversation. ‘It’s always the jockey who’s at fault when they lose. Untrustworthy little people.’
I thought he was joking, but he obviously wasn’t.
This unwelcome bigoted intervention seemed to put a stop to any further discussion on the matter between Richie and me. And for that, at least, I was grateful.
Finally, a table for two became free, and I was invited to sit down.
‘Can I join you?’ Richie asked. ‘As we’re both on our own.’
‘Sure,’ I said. I wanted to say Just as long as we don’t talk about missing weights, but that might have sounded a bit suspicious.
But we didn’t talk about it anyway, other than to discuss the large man who had intervened into our conversation and who was now sitting far enough away for us to talk about him without him hearing.
‘It’s people like him that give racing a bad name,’ Richie said quietly. ‘Do you know who he is?’
‘No idea,’ I replied. ‘I don’t think he’s a trainer.’
‘I’m sure he isn’t. Must be an owner. One of the old school who still believes that the jockey is their servant.’
As it had always been back in the bad old days.
But even now, professional jockeys are still considered somewhat inferior by some organisations. The Jockey Club is a hugely influential self-elected group that had regulated British horseracing well into the twenty-first century. However, in spite of its name, there is not one current or former professional jockey amongst its membership.