“HAVE YOU SEEN the front of today’s Racing Post?”
Owen almost shouted it down the phone at me when I called him at eight o’clock.
“What about it?” I asked.
I would normally have glanced through the electronic version of the paper on my computer by this time of the morning, but my computer was at home—and I wasn’t.
“I should bloody well sue them for libel.”
“Why?” I said, somewhat alarmed. “What does it say?”
“The banner headline on the front page reads ‘Mystery of the Missing Weights.’ ”
I went cold.
“What does it say under that?”
“It implies that the two-pound underweight Tim Westlake weighed in after riding Dream Filler at Lingfield last Saturday must have been done on purpose.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” I said, trying to keep my heart rate down.
“Of course it is, but this bloody man, Jerry Parker, who wrote the article, claims that Tim Westlake weighed out correctly at nine stone seven, but he weighed in at nine five, because two one-pound lead weights had been taken from his weight cloth sometime between the two. It’s all total nonsense.”
“How does he come up with that crazy idea?”
“Parker claims that the weighing-room manager at Lingfield told him that two one-pound weights were missing from his stock after Saturday’s racing, and he says that’s too much of a coincidence not to be connected with Tim Westlake’s underweight.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“Couldn’t they have fallen out during the race?” I said.
“That seems rather unlikely.”
“But I’ve heard of it happening before.”
I could remember reading about a handicap hurdle at Catterick when the champion jump jockey, Brian Hughes, lost weights during the race through a hole in the weight cloth, and had consequently weighed in two pounds light. Brian Boranha, the disqualified horse, had also been a fairly short-priced favourite, just as Dream Filler had been at Lingfield.
“Does Jerry Parker specifically name you in the piece?” I asked.
“He names me as the trainer of the horse. He also states that the stewards fined me seven hundred and fifty pounds and that my appeal against that was dismissed last week. Both of which are true. But he doesn’t actually accuse me of having done it on purpose. Not in so many words.”
“That makes it rather difficult for you to sue him,” I said. “But don’t worry. It will all soon blow over. You watch—someone will find the weights somewhere out on Lingfield’s all-weather track.”
Or not.
“Come back to bed,” Toni said when I’d finished making my calls to the trainers.
“What time are the Farquhars picking you up?”
“Ten o’clock.”
I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to nine.
“How long do you need to get ready,” I asked.
“Half an hour.”
“So we have forty-five minutes to play with. Shall I order us some food?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, tapping the bed as encouragement for me to lie down. “I’m eating you for breakfast.”
Herb and Harriet Farquhar arrived at the hotel at ten o’clock precisely, and Toni was ready.
“Are you coming with us in the car?” she had asked as we dressed—my shirt not quite too creased or grubby to wear for a second day, and her yellow dress from Tuesday, now dry-cleaned and pressed by the hotel laundry service.
“I think I’ll catch the train. Then there’ll be fewer difficult questions to have to answer on the journey.”
I stood inside the lobby, half hidden behind a pillar, and watched as Toni climbed into the front passenger seat of the Farquhars’ private-hire Mercedes.
Even though I knew I would be seeing her later in the day, my body still ached desperately for her.
Georgina had never been fond of oral sex. Indeed, she found the whole idea rather abhorrent, so it had never been on our sexual agenda. But the American lady had no such qualms. Hence, this morning had been a revelation, my mind near exploding, both with ecstasy and the sudden realization of what I had been missing for so many years.
As soon as the Farquhar’s Mercedes was out of sight, I walked along to the local underground station, stopping off at a convenience store to buy a copy of the Racing Post.
The “Mystery of the Missing Weights” headline was printed over two lines in large bold letters, and seeing it there in black and white made me feel quite weak at the knees.
I leaned against a lamppost for support and read the article beneath the headline, from start to finish.
Just as Owen had said, the implication made by Jerry Parker was that the weights had been removed on purpose, without him actually accusing any specific person. I could imagine that a team of Racing Post lawyers had spent many hours scrutinizing his text to ensure the paper wasn’t opening itself to accusations of libel.
Indeed, the article didn’t mention me by name at all, only referring to the owner of Dream Filler as Victrix Racing, and then only in passing.
I suddenly felt very self-conscious, standing there dressed in top hat and tails amidst the scurrying Thursday-morning shoppers on Kensington High Street, reading about something of which I alone knew more than anyone else—far more than I should.
I looked around me, worried that those nearby might detect my unease.
I folded the newspaper in half, front page inwards, and tucked it under my arm before continuing my trek to the station.
I took the Tube to Waterloo, and from there I caught a very congested train to Ascot.
The Thursday of the royal meeting, with the running of the Gold Cup, was always traditionally the busiest day of the week, although, since the expansion of Royal Ascot from four days to five in 2002, to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee, the Saturday crowds have steadily grown and are now the largest.
Not that you could imagine that any more people could squeeze aboard this particular train. Not only was every seat taken, many of them with an occupant plus another sitting on their lap, but every available square inch of floor space was packed with men in morning dress or smart suits, and women in their colourful finery, all of them ready for Ladies Day at the races.
Fortunately, I had arrived at Waterloo just after the previous train had departed, so I was one of the first to board the next one, so I had a seat, tucked into one corner of the carriage.
One or two of the passengers were studying copies of the Racing Post, and I feared that the front-page headline was shouting out to those around me.
I could almost feel a large red arrow above my head, pointing straight down at me, with Guilty Party written on it in large letters.
When we arrived at Ascot railway station, there was a mad rush to get off the train, but I was so crammed in that I had to wait for everyone else to leave before I could even move. In fact, I waited almost until the doors began to close again before I finally stepped out onto the platform.
I was in no hurry.
Cherwell Edge, the Victrix horse I had running today, was in the Hampton Court Stakes, a Group 3 event for three-year-olds, over a mile and a quarter. It was the second-to-last race of the day, not due off until 5.35, and I hadn’t arranged to meet up with Toni until after the Gold Cup, because she thought she wouldn’t be able to get away any earlier.
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.
Richie and I collected our food from the buffet.
“So who do you think will win the Gold Cup?” he asked as we sat down again.
“I think that the Irish hurdler has a really good chance.”
“Manor House?”
“That’s the one. It won the Mares’ Hurdle at Cheltenham in March and the Irish Mares’ Champion Hurdle at Punchestown in April. And it will be at a good price too. Might be worth a punt.”
It was not unusual for horses that predominantly raced over hurdles to occasionally run on the flat. Many of the long-distance flat handicaps were regularly won by jumpers. The Ascot Gold Cup was not a handicap, but it was raced over two and a half miles, making it one of the longest flat races on the calendar—and the same length as the Mares’ Hurdle at Cheltenham.
“I’m not sure she’ll have the pace,” Richie said, taking another mouthful of excellent poached salmon. “I fancy the Johnson colt. Won the Yorkshire Cup last time out. He’ll surely start as a favourite.”
We took the opportunity to discuss the future plans for the other four Victrix horses in his yard, sorting out when and where they would run next.
“Right,” Richie said, standing up. “I must be off. I have one running in the Ribblesdale, so I must go and sort that out. See you later.”
The Ribblesdale was a mile-and-a-half contest for three-year-old fillies, the third race on today’s card. It was named after the fourth Baron Ribblesdale, who had served as Master of the Royal Buckhounds towards the end of the nineteenth century.
The Masters of the Royal Buckhounds had run Ascot Racecourse, on behalf of the Crown, from its inception right up to 1901, and several other races at Royal Ascot were also named after former masters, including the Coventry, Jersey, Chesham, and Hardwicke Stakes.
Richie walked away, but I decided to stay sitting at the table for a while longer and to watch the Royal Procession on one of the many televisions hung around the walls of the dining room. The TVs showed the afternoon’s racing, not only from here at Ascot but also from the day’s other meetings at Ripon and Chelmsford.
In order to keep the betting shops happy, race times at the various meetings were staggered so that races didn’t clash, with a new race starting somewhere every ten to fifteen minutes.
Remaining in the Owners and Trainers’ Dining Room would also mean I didn’t have to meet anyone else who wanted to talk about the Racing Post headline, at least for a while. So I lingered in the same spot to watch Ascot’s first race of the day, the Norfolk Stakes.
I hoped that now that the afternoon’s racing had finally begun, people might have something else to talk about other than the “Mystery of the Missing Weights.”