“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.”
I could tell from her voice that Georgina was getting very stressed.
“Keep calm, my love,” I said. “It will all be fine. There shouldn’t be much more for you to do except to change clothes and beautify yourself.”
“You must be joking,” she said. “The caterers clearly have absolutely no idea about how to dress a table properly. They’ve put the wineglasses all over the place rather than in nice straight lines. I’ll have to go and sort it out.”
“Does it matter?” I asked.
“It matters to me.”
Yes, I thought, and the Derby had mattered to me, but obviously not to her. Not anymore.
I sighed.
Once upon a time, when we were first married and I was still trying to establish Victrix Racing, we had always gone to the races together, and Georgina had used her considerable charms on the then meagre number of my syndicate members, encouraging them to buy more shares in my horses. And she’d been good at it too, often flirting with the older men who had plenty of spare cash to invest in my bloodstock.
But that had all changed over time.
As Victrix had become more and more successful, she had become bored with the continuous need to kowtow to potential owners. She told me one day that we should start believing that it was us doing them the favour, not the other way around. And in a way, she was right.
Syndicate membership allows people to own a share of a horse that they would never be able to afford to own in its entirety.
Most of the flat-race horses I bought as yearlings were kept by Victrix for two years, running in races as two- and three-year-olds. After that, they were usually consigned to the “horses-in-training” sales and sold on to new owners to become stallions or brood mares, or to stay in training as older horses, sometimes as jumpers. Occasionally, we kept a horse ourselves to run as a four-year-old and, rarely, at five.
I charged a fixed annual amount that included all the training fees, vet, farrier, transport, race-entrance charges, and other costs, with the first-year amount including the price of the horse. For example, if a yearling had cost £100,000 at auction, I would likely syndicate it with twenty shares, each costing £10,750 in the first year and £5,750 in the second.
Only if the prize money won by a horse exceeded a quarter of a million pounds, or if it was subsequently sold for at least twice what it had originally cost, did Victrix take a ten per cent share. Otherwise, all prize money became the property of the shareholders, and the proceeds of any sale were also divided equally amongst them.
I insured all the Victrix horses against mortality during our ownership, and for all other eventualities prior to me selling the shares, but otherwise the company carried the risk over large veterinary or equine hospital bills.
But not every syndicate company worked to the same model. Indeed, there were a number of small-share syndicating companies that made it possible to buy a share in a racehorse for as little as a couple of hundred pounds.
Some did not even buy the horses in the first place, simply leasing them. Almost all of those were female horses, owned by breeders, who effectively rent out their horse to a syndicate while they raced, so having others pay the training fees. At the end of two or three years running on the track, the fillies returned to the breeders to become brood mares—to create the next generation.
Other companies invoiced shareholders only for the initial cost of the horse and then sent variable monthly statements to cover the training fees and other expenses, but I found that my members welcomed an all-inclusive fixed price, as it gave them certainty over their total outlay, with no unwelcome and unexpected extra charges. Indeed, I wasn’t able to ask them for more, whatever the reason—it was clearly printed in the share agreement that there would be no additional payments asked for.
Horseracing is always a gamble.
“So when will you be back?” Georgina asked.
“In about an hour and a half, depending on the traffic on the M25.”
“That won’t give you much time to change.”
“I can’t help that. As it is, I’ve left before I really wanted to. I would have liked to stay and celebrate with the other owners. They’re having quite a party in one of the restaurants.”
“But you’d have had to drive home anyway,” Georgina said.
I’d have arranged a taxi, I thought. And would have left my car overnight in the racecourse car park. Or maybe even slept in it.
Because it’s not every day you win the Derby.
As it was, I’d probably had one glass too much of champagne, but what was a man to do when offered another by the reigning monarch in the royal box, as had been the case after the prize giving?
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said with resignation. “Bye for now.”
I disconnected.
At least I would be having a party tonight, even if I might have preferred to be at the one in the racecourse rather than the one at home.
I tried to call James and Amanda, but there was no reply. The phone signal in our village was pretty poor at the best of times, and particularly so within the thick walls of our eighteenth-century local.
I called the pub’s landline, a number I knew by heart.
“The Red Lion,” said the man who answered.
“Jack,” I said. “It’s Chester Newton.”
“Ah. Our Derby winner. Well done.”
“Thanks.”
“It was on the TV here in the bar. We’ve been celebrating ever since. Are you coming round to join us?”
“I’d love to, but I can’t because we’re having a party at our place tonight. But are James and Amanda still there?”
“Sure are. They’ve been leading the singing.”
I could hear it in the background.
“Could you please tell them to go home before they get too drunk?”
“Might be a bit late for that.”
Oh God. That wouldn’t go down well with their mother.
“Tell them anyway and don’t serve them any more. They’re meant to be co-hosting tonight.”
“Okay. Will do.”
He hung up, and I smiled.
At least some of my family had watched the race.
The traffic on the M25 wasn’t too bad, but still I didn’t get home until gone half past six, and Georgina wasn’t happy as she met me in the hallway, already dressed and ready.
“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “I’ll be all set by seven.” I ran up the stairs. “Are the kids back yet?”
“Yes, but they’re all the worse for wear, especially that bloody Darren. He can hardly stand up.” She wasn’t amused.
“Has he got a suit?” I called, removing my shirt and tie on the landing.
“Charity-shop purchase by the look of it. But whether he can dress himself in it is anyone’s guess.”
I was laughing as I dived into the shower.
Did I care?
Not really. Because I’d just won the Derby.
Our first guests arrived at seven o’clock sharp, and I was down in the hallway wearing my black tie and ready for their all too prompt appearance.
“Chester, my boy. Well done. Well done, indeed. Saw it on the telly. I told Mary, here, that you’d probably still be at Epsom celebrating.”
But nevertheless, they’d arrived here bang on the dot of seven.
Duncan Matthews always called me “my boy” even though, to my sure knowledge, he was six months younger than I.
“I got home about half an hour ago,” I said.
I gave Mary a welcome kiss on the cheek, and one of the catering staff offered them each a glass of champagne from a tray.
Duncan looked around him at the empty house. “Are we the first?”
“Indeed, you are,” I said.
“Ah, well, someone has to be.” He took a glass from the tray and downed half of its contents in one go. “We have a taxi coming for us later.”
As well as being a good friend, Duncan was also our GP at a doctors’ surgery in Didcot, and while he was always quick to recommend to his patients that they should consume fewer units of alcohol per week, he never seemed to follow his own advice.
“Go on through to the terrace,” I said, pointing the way. “It’s a beautiful evening, so we’re having drinks outside.”
More guests arrived, and I also ushered them onto the terrace.
“Where are the damn kids?” Georgina asked, coming into the hallway.
“They’re still upstairs. James was coming out of the bathroom in his underpants when I came down. He told me that no decent party should start until at least nine o’clock, preferably ten, or even eleven.”
His mother looked appalled. “But we’re meant to be eating at eight thirty.”
“So let’s hope they’re down by then.”
“They’d bloody well better be.”
Maybe Darren had been right, and it had been stupid to mix the generations at the same party, but I wasn’t going to get stressed over it. Not now. Not today.
Yet more guests arrived, but there was still no sign of anyone young.
“Congratulations, Chester, with Potassium,” said a large man coming through the front door—his white dinner jacket a good two sizes too small for his expanding waistline.
“Thank you, Malcolm,” I replied.
Malcolm Galbraith was a local racehorse trainer. He claimed that he was originally from the rough end of Glasgow, but he had married a London girl called Barbara, and they now lived in a village over the hill from us. He trained jumpers almost exclusively, and had one of the Victrix steeplechase horses in his yard.
“He just hung on nicely. Owen must be pleased.” He said it without any great warmth.
The relationship between racehorse trainers was a strange mixture of camaraderie, rivalry, and envy. In some ways they were a tight knit group, bound together by their unique position between the owners on one side and their horses on the other, much like football managers sandwiched between the club’s directors and the players. But they were always in bitter competition with each other, and not just on the racetracks during the races. They also competed ferociously in the endless struggle to find owners prepared to send them enough horses to fill their stable yards.
“Owen was very happy when I left him at Epsom,” I said.
“Isn’t he here tonight?” Malcolm asked, looking around in surprise.
“No. He decided that, win or lose, his job was to look after the horse this evening.”
“Good for him,” Malcolm said.
In the lives of the best racehorse trainers, the horses came first, second, and third. Any human considerations came way down the pecking order.
By about quarter to eight, most of Georgina’s and my guests had arrived and were drinking champagne out in the garden, but there was little sign of anyone under the age of thirty.
I was still in the hallway when James came down the stairs, now appropriately dressed.
“You did tell your friends that the party started at seven?” I said.
“Sure,” he replied. “But they’re always late. Gary texted me that our uni group were all meeting at the Red Lion first for a beer.”
Gary was James’s best friend, Gary Shipman, a local lad who’d been at school with him in Didcot. They had then travelled the world together during their gap year and were now fellow students at Bristol University.
“I’m sure they’ll be here soon,” James said.
They’d better be, I thought. Or Georgina will explode.
“How about Amanda and Darren? What are they doing?”
“Bonking again, I expect,” James said. “I heard them at it in her room before lunch.”
It was too much information. Especially in my own home.
I took my glass of champagne through to join everyone else outside. If the young weren’t here by half past eight, their food would just get cold. I wasn’t going to worry about it. Instead, I just smiled at my friends and sipped my drink, deciding that I would not worry about anything at all tonight.
Sadly, it didn’t quite turn out like that.