loud, triumphant snort of laughter.
I walked back to my flat, collected the car, and drove down to Sandown. It was a pleasant day, dry, sunny, and warm for November, just right for drawing a good crowd for steeple-chasing.
I turned in through the racecourse gates, spirits lifting, parked the car (a Mercedes S.L.230 with automatic gears, power assisted steering, and a strip on the back saying NO HAND SIGNALS), and walked round to join the crowd outside the weighing room door. I could no longer go through it. It had been one of the hardest things to get used to, the fact that all the changing rooms and weighing rooms which had been my second homes for fourteen years were completely barred to me from the day I rode my last race. You didn’t lose just a job when you handed in your jockey’s licence, you lost a way of life.
There were a lot of people to talk to at Sandown, and as I hadn’t been racing for six weeks I had a good deal of gossip to catch up on. No one seemed to know about the shooting, which was fine by me, and I didn’t tell them. I immersed myself very happily in the racecourse atmosphere and for an hour Kraye retreated slightly into the background.
Not that I didn’t keep an eye on my purpose, but until the third race the Senior Steward, Viscount Hagbourne, was never out of a conversation long enough for me to catch him.
Although I had ridden for him for years and had found him undemanding and fair, he was in most respects still a stranger. An aloof, distant man, he seemed to find it difficult to make ordinary human contacts, and unfortunately he had not proved a great success as Senior Steward. He gave the impression, not of power in himself, but of looking over his shoulder at power behind: I’d have said he was afraid of incurring the disapproval of the little knot of rigidly determined men who in fact ruled racing themselves, regardless of who might be in office at the time. Lord Hagbourne postponed making decisions until it was almost too late to make them, and there was still a danger after that that he would change his mind. But all the same he was the front man until his year of office ended, and with him I had to deal.
At length I fielded him neatly as he turned away from the Clerk of the Course and forestalled a trainer who was advancing upon him with a grievance. Lord Hagbourne, with one of his rare moments of humour, deliberately turned his back on the grievance and consequently greeted me with more warmth than usual.
‘Sid, nice to see you. Where have you been lately?’
‘Holidays,’ I explained succinctly. ‘Look, sir, can I have a talk with you after the races? There’s something I want to discuss urgently.’
‘No time like the present,’ he said, one eye on the grievance. ‘Fire away.’
‘No, sir. It needs time and all your attention.’
‘Hm?’ The grievance was turning away. ‘Not today, Sid, I have to get home. What is it? Tell me now.’
‘I want to talk to you about the takeover bid for Seabury Racecourse.’
He looked at me, startled. ‘You want…?’
‘That’s right. It can’t be said out here where you will be needed at any moment by someone else. If you could just manage twenty minutes at the end of the afternoon…?’
‘Er… what is your connection with Seabury?’
‘None in particular, sir. I don’t know if you remember, but I’ve been connected’ (a precise way of putting it) ‘with Hunt Radnor Associates for the last two years. Various… er… facts about Seabury have come our way and Mr Radnor thought you might be interested. I am here as his representative.’
‘Oh, I see. Very well, Sid, come to the Stewards’ tea room after the last. If I’m not there, wait for me. Right?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
I walked down the slope and then up the iron staircase to the jockeys’ box in the stand, smiling at myself. Representative. A nice big important word. It covered anything from an ambassador down. Commercial travellers had rechristened themselves with its rolling syllables years ago… they had done it because of the jokes, of course. It didn’t sound the same, somehow, starting off with ‘Did you hear the one about the representative who stopped at a lonely farmhouse…?’ Rodent officers, garbage disposal and sanitary staff: pretty new names for rat-catchers, dustmen and road sweepers. So why not for me?
‘Only idiots laugh at nothing,’ said a voice in my ear. ‘What the hell are you looking so pleased about all of a sudden? And where the blazes have you been this last month?’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve missed me?’ I grinned, not needing to look round. We went together through the door of the high-up jockeys’ box, two of a kind, and stood looking out over the splendid racecourse.
‘Best view in Europe.’ He sighed. Mark Witney, thirty-eight years old, racehorse trainer. He had a face battered like a boxer’s from too many racing falls and in the two years since he hung up his boots and stopped wasting he had put on all of three stone. A fat, ugly man. We had a host of memories in common, a host of hard ridden races. I liked him a lot.
‘How’s things?’ I said.
‘Oh, fair, fair. They’ll be a damn sight better if that animal of mine wins the fifth.’
‘He must have a good chance.’
‘He’s a damn certainty, boy. A certainty. If he doesn’t fall over his god-damned legs. Clumsiest sod this side of Hades.’ He lifted his race glasses and looked at the number board. ‘I see poor old Charlie can’t do the weight again on that thing of Bob’s… That boy of Plumtree’s is getting a lot of riding now. What do you think of him?’
‘He takes too many risks,’ I said. ‘He’ll break his neck.’
‘Look who’s talking… No, seriously, I’m considering taking him on. What do you think?’ He lowered his glasses. ‘I need someone available regularly from now on and all the ones I’d choose are already tied up.’
‘Well, you could do better, you could do worse, I suppose. He’s a bit flashy for me, but he can ride, obviously. Will he do as he’s told?’
He made a face. ‘You’ve hit the bull’s eye. That’s the snag. He always knows best.’
‘Pity.’
‘Can you think of anyone else?’
‘Um… what about that boy Cotton? He’s too young really. But he’s got the makings…’ We drifted on in amiable chat, discussing his problem, while the box filled up around us and the horses went down to the start.
It was a three mile chase, and one of my ex-mounts was favourite. I watched the man who had my old job ride a very pretty race, and with half my mind thought about housing estates.
Sandown itself had survived, some years ago, a bid to cover its green tempting acres with little boxes. Sandown had powerful friends. But Hurst Park, Manchester and Birmingham racecourses had all gone under the rolling tide of bricks and mortar, lost to the double-barrelled persuasive arguments that shareholders liked capital gains and people needed houses. To defend itself from such a fate Cheltenham Racecourse had transformed itself from a private, dividend-paying company into a non-profit-making Holdings Trust, and other racecourses had followed their lead.
But not Seabury. And Seabury was deep in a nasty situation. Not Dunstable, and Dunstable Racecourse was now a tidy dormitory for the Vauxhall workers of Luton.
Most British racecourses were, or had been, private companies, in which it was virtually impossible for an outsider to acquire shares against the will of the members. But four, Dunstable, Seabury, Sandown and Chepstow, were public companies, and their shares could be bought on the open market, through the Stock Exchange.
Sandown had been played for in a staightforward and perfectly honourable way, and plans to turn it into suburban housing had been turned down by the local and county councils. Sandown flourished, made a good profit, paid a ten per cent dividend, and was probably now impregnable. Chepstow was surrounded by so much other open land that it was in little danger from developers. But little Dunstable had been an oasis inside a growing industrial area.
Seabury was on the flat part of the south coast, flanked on every side by miles of warm little bungalows representing the dreams and savings of people in retirement. At twelve bungalows to the acre — elderly people liked tiny gardens — there must be room on the spacious racecourse for over three thousand more. Add six or seven hundred pounds to the building price of each bungalow for the plot it stood on, and you scooped something in the region of two million…
The favourite won and was duly cheered. I clattered down the iron staircase with Mark, and we went and had a drink together.
‘Are you sending anything to Seabury next week?’ I asked. Seabury was one of his nearest meetings.
