I was woken the next morning by the sound of Mr. Fetlock’s voice outside my door.
“Time to get up,” he called. “We’ll be leaving for the races in half an hour. No time to waste.”
I leapt out of bed and climbed into my jockey clothes. It was hard work putting on the riding boots, as boots like that are always tight, but at last I succeeded and made my way out into the yard. I wanted very much to talk to Mr. Fetlock—to tell him what had happened and to warn him that Black Lightning’s hooves were stuck to the floor of his stable—but the trainer was busy talking to Ed and Fred.
I picked up a bucket of oats that looked as if it needed to be carried somewhere, but at just that moment, Ted came around the corner, and to my absolute astonishment I saw that he was leading Black Lightning! So the hooves had become unstuck overnight, or even been unstuck by somebody while I lay sleeping next door. It was all very mysterious.
“Hey!” shouted Ted. “Leave those oats, please. They’re for Black Lightning. He’s got a big race ahead of him today.”
Mr. Fetlock looked over in my direction.
“Get into the truck with the other jockeys, Harry,” he called out. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”
So I would not have the chance to warn Mr. Fetlock about what had happened. Still, I thought, I might be able to speak to him about it later, if I managed to get him by himself. Or I could tell my aunts. But where were they? There was no sign of them in the truck.
I climbed into the cab of the truck with Mr. Fetlock and the other jockeys. The horses had already been loaded into the back, and now that Black Lightning was also on board, we were free to leave.
“We’ve got three runners today,” Mr. Fetlock said as he started the engine. “Fred, I want you to ride Silver Streak. Ted, you ride Nifty Dancer, and, Ed, you’re on Black Lightning again. Harry, you just watch today.”
“Right-oh, boss,” said Fred. “That suits me. Silver Streak’s due for a win.”
“All my horses are due for a win,” sighed Mr. Fetlock. “I can’t understand why they’ve been losing so badly. Can any of you?”
I glanced from under my helmet at the faces of the three jockeys, wondering whether one of them would give himself away as the cheat. People often go red in the face if they’re trying to hide something, but not one of them moved a muscle.
It could have been any of them, I thought. Ted looked honest, though. He had a cheerful grin on his face, and he smiled nicely whenever I looked at him. I wasn’t so sure about Ed, and when it came to Fred, well, there was something about him that I just did not trust. He looked a little bit like a rat, I’m afraid to say, with sharp teeth at the front of his mouth and little whiskers growing out of his ears.
I tried to look down at the boots that everybody was wearing. Perhaps if I saw the pair of boots again more closely, I might recognize the scratches, which I had noticed above the heel. Just as I was thinking this, an idea came to me. If I dropped something, a coin perhaps, I would be able to have a better look at everybody’s boots.
“Excuse me,” I said suddenly. “I think I dropped some money on the floor of the cab.”
“Then pick it up,” said Mr. Fetlock jovially. “There’s nothing down there to bite you.”
I leaned forward and began to scramble around on the floor of the cab. As I did so, I looked closely at the boots. Whose were those? Ted’s. But were they at all scratched? No. He had just polished them, as had Ed and Fred. So everybody was going to the races in freshly polished boots. There was no possibility, then, of working out whose legs I had watched in Black Lightning’s stall.
The journey seemed to pass very quickly. In no time at all, Mr. Fetlock was swinging the large horse truck into the racing grounds. As the truck came to a halt, Ted and Fred jumped out and opened the back door. Then, while Ed held the door, the two jockeys led the horses out and tied them securely to a nearby railing.
I stayed near Mr. Fetlock, hoping to have the opportunity to talk to him, but one of the other jockeys always seemed to be at his side. Eventually I gave up. Perhaps it wasn’t so important after all. I glanced down at Black Lightning’s hooves; there was nothing wrong with them, as far as I could make out. Perhaps gluing them to the floor of the stable was just some sort of practical joke among the jockeys.
The time came for the first race. This was the race in which Silver Streak was entered, and in good time Fred was up in the saddle, ready to make his way to the starting gate. I walked across to the railings with Mr. Fetlock and Ed, and together we watched the horses line up for the start.
The starter’s pistol took me by surprise and made me jump. Ed looked at me sideways.
“You should be used to that by now,” he said suspiciously.
“Oh, he is, aren’t you, Harry?” Mr. Fetlock blurted out jovially, trying to cover up for my mistake. “It’s just that he had a little accident with a starter’s pistol once, didn’t you, Harry?”
“Oh?” said Ed. “What happened?”
I looked up at Mr. Fetlock. I had no idea what to say.
“I … er … I … er …” I tried desperately to think of a likely story, but my mind was a blank.
“He sat on one,” said Mr. Fetlock quickly. “I mean, he, er, sort of stepped on it and … Actually he doesn’t like to talk about it, do you, Harry?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I don’t.”
Ed was still looking at me, and although he said nothing further, I could tell that he was very suspicious. But fortunately, or rather, unfortunately, his attention was distracted by what was happening on the racetrack. Several of the horses had collided with one another and fallen in a tangled heap. And at the bottom of the heap, struggling to get back on his feet, was Silver Streak.
“Oh, no!” wailed Mr. Fetlock. “That’s another race lost! Where will it all end?”
Well, it certainly did not end that day. In the next race, in which Nifty Dancer was being ridden by Ted, everything went very well until the horses were going around for the second time. Then, just as Nifty Dancer was coming up into second place, he reared and threw Ted to the ground. The jockey was unhurt, but that was the end of the race for Nifty Dancer.
“I’ll be a ruined man at this rate,” said Mr. Fetlock, holding his brow. “It just isn’t fair!”
Then came the final race, and with my heart in my mouth I watched Black Lightning being ridden out to the starting line. Ed gave us a friendly wave from the saddle, and I waved back, hoping against hope that the incident with the glue would have no ill effects on Black Lightning’s performance. But just as I thought this, I saw something that shattered any hopes I might have had. Standing at the starting line, Black Lightning put up his head and gave an unmistakable yawn!
In a flash the mystery was solved. With his hooves glued to the stable floor, the poor horse had been unable to sleep all night. So now, just when he should have been at his most energetic, he was absolutely exhausted, and even I knew that absolutely exhausted horses never won races.
And that is exactly what happened. Black Lightning could hardly bring himself to gallop, and when he did so, it was the slowest gallop I have ever seen. The crowd around the railings began to laugh.
“Wake up!” they shouted. “It’s only one o’clock!”
Mr. Fetlock turned red with embarrassment.
“I’m going back to the truck,” he said. “This is all too terrible.”
I walked back with him, but I was unable to say anything. Later, when Ed joined us again, I noticed that he was still looking at me very suspiciously.