THE OFFICIAL ATTENDANCE numbers showed that there were slightly fewer people at Royal Ascot on Friday than there had been for the Gold Cup the previous day, not that you would have noticed it.
Not having an invitation to lunch or a complimentary meal on offer as one of the day’s owners, I didn’t arrive at the racecourse until after the Royal Procession, to avoid the worst of the traffic.
I had spent the rest of the morning, after my trip to Didcot, ensuring that all was as it should be in the house. I had stripped the guest-room bed and put the linen in the washing machine, and placed all our dinner and breakfast things in the dishwasher.
Georgina was a stickler for having everything in the kitchen just as she wanted it, and she was not happy if anyone put something back in the wrong place. So, I’d been through all the drawers checking that Toni hadn’t inadvertently put a wooden spoon back in with the metal ones, because Georgina would have noticed.
I’d had a good look at the sheepskin rug in front of the fire to search for any stray blonde hairs, and I checked for the same in the plugholes of the family bathroom where Toni had showered.
Satisfied that everything was in order, and there were no traces of Toni’s perfume lingering in the air, I changed into my morning dress and set off for the races.
The highlights for Friday were two Group 1 races: a six-furlong dash for three-year-olds of either sex, and a mile trip for three-year-old fillies only, the girls’ equivalent of the St James’s Palace Stakes for the boys, which Potassium had won on Tuesday.
There are currently eight Group 1 races over the five days of Royal Ascot, but age and sex restrictions, and differing distances, mean that for any given top horse there is really only one Group 1 race on offer, even though a few horses have raced in the five-furlong sprint on Tuesday and then again just four days later in the six-furlong Jubilee Stakes on Saturday. Some have even won both, a five-year-old bay stallion called Blue Point being the most recent, in 2019.
All the races are part of the British Champion Series of thirty-five Group 1 races, which culminates in the championship finals on British Champions Day, back here at Ascot in October.
I wandered into the enclosures as the first race of the day was being run.
I had two appointments with potential future syndicate members in addition to the one with Malcolm Galbraith to watch Casillero’s race from Market Rasen.
Even though I had not been invited to lunch, a long-standing multi-syndicate member of mine, Jim Green, had rented a private box for the day, and he wanted me to pop along for a drink, to have a quiet word with a friend of his. The friend was considering dipping his toes into horse ownership, and Jim thought that his joining one of my syndicates was a sensible first step.
“Come up after the first race,” Jim had said when he’d called me earlier. “Box 359. We’ll have finished lunch by then.”
So I now made my way up to the third level, to Box 359 at the far eastern end of the grandstand, knocked on the door, and went in.
Eight people were sitting around a table down the centre of the box and, of course, they hadn’t finished their lunch, but at least they were on dessert. There were four men and four women, with Jim Green at the end closest to the door.
“Come in, Chester. Come in,” Jim said effusively, standing up. “May I introduce Patrick and Lucinda Hogg, Geoff and Virginia Sterling, Martin and Elizabeth Atherton—and you know Gemma. This is Chester Newton, who runs the syndicates I was telling you about.”
I waved at them. “Good to meet you.”
“What would you like to drink?” Jim said.
“A small red wine would be great,” I replied.
One of the two catering staff in the box handed me a glass of red, which no one could ever claim was small. It must have contained about a third of a bottle.
“Sit here,” Jim said, pointing at his chair. “I’ve finished anyway.”
He stood to the side.
“Now,” he said loudly, “Chester is going to talk you all into becoming racehorse owners by joining one of his syndicates. Isn’t that right, Chester?”
“If you say so, Jim,” I responded with a laugh.
It was hardly the “quiet word” I’d been promised.
I gave them my usual spiel about how, by signing up with Victrix Racing, they could have all the excitement of horse ownership but without the huge outlay or the worry of ever-expanding bills to pay.
For between eight and thirty thousand pounds initially, and about half of that in the second year, depending on the cost of the horse, they could enjoy all the benefits and fun of being an “owner.” And they would get to share not only in the prize money but also in any resale proceeds.
I explained how each of the twelve shareholders of Potassium had received fifty thousand pounds in prize money as a result of him winning the Derby, with another twenty-one thousand for his victory here on Tuesday, all of it completely free of tax, and all for an initial outlay of only nineteen thousand, to say nothing of the millions that the horse was now worth.
“So what’s the catch?” the man at the far end of the table asked bluntly.
“The catch is that you might very well lose the lot,” I said, looking straight back at him. “Horses as good as Potassium are extremely rare. Don’t go into horse ownership if you are looking for a sound investment, one that gives you a safe return on your capital. It may, but that will be only if you are very, very lucky. Far more owners lose money than make any. Look upon it as buying into a way of life—an indulgence—and then you might enjoy losing your cash.”
I could see some of the women shaking their heads, as if they had other plans for between eight and thirty thousand pounds of surplus family funds.
I wondered if Gemma had the slightest idea how much Jim had invested in horseflesh through me over the years. Perhaps I wouldn’t ask her.
“I like you, Chester Newton,” said the man at the far end. “You talk straight, which is more than I can say for most of the bloodstock agents I’ve met.”
I didn’t think of myself as a bloodstock agent, but I wasn’t going to argue.
The second race, the Group 1 six-furlong dash, The Commonwealth Cup, was about to start, so we all went out onto the balcony to watch it.
Such is the length of the huge grandstand at Ascot that Jim Green’s box was almost nearer to the start than it was to the winning post.
I found myself standing next to the man who had asked me about the catch.
“Patrick Hogg,” he said, holding out a hand.
“Good to meet you,” I said, shaking it.
“I think Jim asked you here because of me,” Patrick said. “I’ve been interested in becoming an owner for some time.”
“They’re off,” shouted the commentator over the PA system.
The thirteen runners jumped out of the starting stalls in a jagged line.
Patrick and I watched the race unfolding in front of us.
“Have you had a bet?” I asked him.
“Just a small one,” he replied. “To make it interesting.”
“It would be more interesting if you owned one of them,” I said, turning to him.
He laughed. “Okay, okay. Enough. You have me already. Where do I sign?”
Now it was me who was laughing. “Nowhere yet. But I’ll send you an invitation to our yearling parade in October, when I’ll be showing off the horses that Victrix will buy at this autumn’s sales. We also have a good lunch. You can sign up then if you still want to.”
We watched the end of the race together.
“Hopeless,” he said, screwing up his betting slip.
“What do you do for a living?” I asked.
“I’m a lawyer,” he said. “A barrister.”
“Like in court?”
He nodded. “Wigs, gowns, and wing collars. But, thankfully, no longer white lace cuffs, black britches, and silver buckled shoes—except on very special occasions.” He smiled.
“Do you do criminal work?” I asked.
“Most of the time these days,” he said. “I did do civil stuff in the past—mostly highly contested divorces—but I got fed up with dealing with people who were consumed with hate for someone they once loved enough to marry. So I switched to criminal work. Not that the hate disappeared completely. But in recent years, I seem to have found my niche in fraud, where the hate is minimal.”
I wondered if race fixing was fraud, and decided it probably was.
“Prosecuting or defending?” I asked.
“Both,” he said. “But obviously not in the same case. It depends on which side’s solicitors instruct me first. But I also do quite a lot of prosecution work for the government—tax evasion cases mostly.”
“Do you always win?” I asked.
“What sort of question is that from someone involved in horseracing?”
“I’ll take that to be a “no” then.”
“Some juries just don’t seem to understand what I’m telling them.”
He laughed again, and I laughed with him.
I liked him, and I felt that the feeling was mutual.
“Here,” he said, smiling. “Take this.”
He handed me one of his business cards—Patrick J Hogg, KC, Middle Temple. I took it and put it in my pocket.
“Thanks, Patrick,” I said. “I’ll be in touch about the yearling parade.”
Malcolm Galbraith was at the Owners and Trainers’ Bar ahead of me.
“What are you having?” he asked as I arrived. “A pint?”
He held up his own.
“No, thanks. Just some fizzy water. I have to drive later.”
And I hadn’t got out of Jim Green’s box without having a second large glass of red wine thrust into my hand, even though I’d hardly touched it.
The two-mile five-furlong Summer Plate Trial Handicap Chase was the feature race of the day at Market Rasen.
As its name suggested, this race was a trial for the Summer Plate Handicap Chase, the premier steeplechase of the summer months, which would be run at the same course in four weeks’ time. A good showing in today’s trial might encourage Malcolm and me to enter Casillero for the main one.
In the past, jump racing had always been a winter sport while flat racing took place in the summer, but both now occur pretty much throughout the year.
When I was a child, the thought of there being a jumps fixture on the same day as Royal Ascot would have been laughable, yet this year, three of the five days were now shared with a jump meeting somewhere in the country.
“How do you think Cassy will go?” I asked Malcolm.
“Fair to middling,” he replied.
Malcolm was never one to be overly confident about any of his horses’ chances. “Fair to middling” was about as good as I could have expected, and was certainly a step up from his other favourite prediction: “Should get round.”
Market Rasen is a slightly undulating, right-handed, ten-furlong oval track, with sharp bends at either end. There are four fences in the back stretch, two of which are open ditches, and three more plain fences in the home straight.
The two-mile five-furlong start is in front of the grandstands, and the ten runners in this race therefore had to negotiate two complete circuits of the course, jumping each of the seven fences twice, making fourteen in total.
Malcolm and I watched on one of the television screens as the horses circled before being called into line by the starter.
Unlike in flat racing, where starting stalls are used, jump races are started behind a tape, and there is no draw for starting position. When the starter was satisfied that all were ready, he lowered his flag and released the tape, and “They’re off!”
The early pace was rather pedestrian, and the group of ten were bunched closely together around the first bend, with Casillero running in fifth or sixth. They all negotiated the first plain fence in the back straight with no problem. Next up was an open ditch, but the fences at Market Rasen are considered fairly easy, and it also caused no concerns.
Only when the group turned into the home straight for the first time, did the tempo really pick up, and that was because Casillero’s jockey took the initiative and pushed her to the front.
“About bloody time,” Malcolm said under his breath. “I told him not to let it go too slow for too long. Cassy is well placed in the handicap, and we need to make sure that lower weight has its full effect.”
The injection of pace quickly spread out the field such that there were twenty lengths or more from first to last as they made their way along the back straight for the second and last time.
Casillero was still in front as they turned for home, but she hadn’t shaken off two of the others, and one of those came past her going into the last fence, in spite of it carrying six pounds more on its back.
“Second,” Malcolm said as they crossed the finish line. “Not too bad, I suppose.”
But I could tell he was disappointed.
“They went too slow on that first circuit,” he said. “I should have been there.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” I said. “Second is good. I think we should enter her for the Summer Plate next month.”
“It’s quite a step up,” Malcolm said, always being cautious. “Today’s trial was only rated as a Class 3 contest. The Plate itself is a Class 1.”
“I think we should still give it a go. Especially if she remains favourably handicapped.”
I had to be careful, though. Consistently aiming a fairly average horse too high could easily produce a string of mediocre results. No syndicate member would prefer their horse to be fourth or fifth out of twelve runners in a Class 1 contest, when they could have won at Class 4.
In horseracing, winning was everything, even if the prize money was small. And my number-one priority was keeping my syndicate members happy, to keep them coming back to me, year on year.
“Are you here tomorrow?” I asked Malcolm. “Victrix has a four-year-old called Wayleave running in the Wokingham.”
He laughed. “Well, good luck with that,” he said. “I’m taking a rare day off from the gee-gees tomorrow. I’m going to a wedding. Mind you, I’ll still be dressed up like this.” He waved up and down at his morning dress. “Barbara’s nephew is getting married in Bath.”
“Aren’t you wearing a kilt?”
He looked at me. “You’d do well to mind your language.” He laughed again. “Actually, I do have a kilt somewhere, but the waistband is a good eight inches too short for me these days. Can’t imagine why. It must have shrunk in the wash.”
He took another large swig of beer, and I reckoned I knew the real culprit.
My phone rang.
I looked at it: No Caller ID.
Oh God, I thought. Not again.
“I’d better take this,” I said to Malcolm, turning and walking away from him.
“What the bloody hell do you want?” I said, answering the call.
“I just wanted to know if you liked my piece about you in the Post yesterday,” said a normal voice.
“Oh, Jerry,” I replied. “I’m so sorry—I thought you were someone else.”
“I should hope so.”
“The piece was lovely, thank you. Although I wasn’t so happy with your front-page article.”
“I’m sure. And I have more news on that. I’ve managed to acquire a copy of the CCTV footage from the Lingfield weighing room from that day, and it clearly shows that Tim Westlake weighed out correctly at nine stone seven pounds. So Owen Reynolds assertion that they must have made a mistake weighing him out is definitely not correct.”
“So what are you going to do about it?” I asked, trying hard to keep the worry out of my voice.
“Not much I can do,” he said. “I’ve asked the online gambling companies, in particular the exchanges, to tell me if there was any unusual betting recorded on that race, especially any evidence of anyone taking large number of lays on Dream Filler or offering better lay odds than everyone else. I’m still waiting to hear. The lawyers won’t let me accuse anyone without cast-iron proof, and short of searching people’s houses, I won’t get that.”
“You can search my house, if you like.”
He laughed. “You had nothing to gain by fixing the race.”
“But why do you clearly think that Owen did?”
“Owen is a gambler,” he said. “Everyone knows that. But you’re not.”
That’s what he thought.