clients as they wore their racing silks and I positively ached to be one of them again. Even after all this time, I would sometimes sit in my car at the end of a day and weep for what I had lost. Why? Why? Why had this happened to me?
I shook my head, albeit only slightly, and told myself to put such thoughts of self-pity out of my mind. I had much to be thankful for, and I should be happy to be twenty-nine years old, alive, employed and financially secure.
But oh how I wanted still to be a jockey.
I watched the first race from a vantage point on the grandstands, the vivid harlequin- colored jackets of the jockeys appearing bright in the sunshine as they cantered down to the two-mile-hurdle start.
As always, the undiminished longing to be out there with them weighed heavy in the pit of my stomach. I wondered if it would ever go away. Even though Cheltenham had been the scene of my last, ill-fated ride, I held no grudge towards the place. It hadn’t been the racetrack’s fault that I had been so badly injured. In fact, it was only due to their paramedics’ great care after the fall that I wasn’t paralyzed, or dead.
Cheltenham had been the first racetrack I had ever known and I still loved the place. I had grown up in Prestbury village, right alongside, and I’d ridden my bicycle past the backstretch every morning on my way to school. Each March, as the Steeplechasing Festival approached, the excitement surrounding not only the track but the whole town had been the inspiration for me first to ride a horse, then to pester a local racehorse trainer for holiday jobs and finally to give up a planned future of anodyne academia for the perilous existence of a professional jockey.
Cheltenham was the home of jump racing. Whereas the Grand National was the most famous steeplechase in the world, every racehorse owner would rather win the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
The Grand National was a handicap, so the better horses carried the greater weight. The handicapper’s dream was that all the horses would cross the finish line in a huge dead heat. But it would be a bit like making Usain Bolt run the Olympic 100 meters in Wellington boots to even up the chances of the others. However, in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, other than a slight reduction for female horses, all the participants carried the same weight, and the winner was the true champion.
I had only ridden in it once, on a rank outsider that’d had no chance, but I could still recall the tension that had existed in the jockeys’ Changing Room beforehand. The Gold Cup was not just another race, it was history in the making, and one’s performance mattered even if, as in my case, I had pulled up my horse long before the finish.
Away to my left, at the far end of the straight, the fifteen horses for the first race were called into line by the starter. “They’re off,” sounded the public-address, and they were running.
Two miles of fast-paced hurdle racing with the clatter-clatter from hooves striking the wooden obstacles clearly audible to those of us in the grandstands. The horses first swept up the straight towards us, then turned left- handed to start another complete circuit of the track, ever increasing in speed. Three horses jumped the final hurdle side by side, and a flurry of jockeys’ legs, arms and whips encouraged their mounts up the hill to the finish.
“First, number three, Fallen Leaf,” sounded the public-address system.
Mark Vickers, the other jockey in the race to be the champion, had just extended his lead over Billy Searle from one to two.
And Martin Gifford, the gossip, had trained the winner in spite of his expressed lack of faith in its ability. I wondered if he had simply been trying to keep his horse’s starting price high by recommending that other people should not bet on it. I looked down at my race program and decided to invest a small sum on Yellow Digger in the third race: the other runner Martin had told me would have no chance.
I turned to go back to the Weighing Room, looking down at my feet to negotiate the grandstand steps.
“Hello, Nicholas.”
I looked up. “Hello, Mr. Roberts,” I said in surprise. “I didn’t realize you were a racing man.”
“Oh yes,” he said. “Always have been. In fact, my brother and I have horses in training. And I often used to watch you ride. You were a good jockey. You could have been one of the greats.” He pursed his lips and shook his head.
“Thank you,” I said.
Mr. Roberts-or, to use his full title, Colonel The Honourable Jolyon Westrop Roberts, MC, OBE, younger son of the Earl of Balscott-was a client. To be precise, he was a client of Gregory Black’s, but I had met him fairly frequently in the offices at Lombard Street. Whereas many clients are happy to leave us to get on with looking after their money, Jolyon Roberts was one of those known to have a hands-on approach to his investments.
“Are you on your day off?” he asked.
“No,” I replied with a laugh. “I’m seeing one of my clients after racing, you know, the jockey Billy Searle.”
He nodded, then paused. “I don’t suppose…” He paused again. “… No, it doesn’t matter.”
“Can I help you in some way?” I asked.
“No, it’s all right,” he said. “I’ll leave it.”
“Leave what?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing,” he said. “Nothing for you to worry about. It’s fine. I’m sure it’s fine.”
“What is fine?” I asked with persistence. “Is it something to do with the firm?”
“No, it’s nothing,” he said. “Forget I even mentioned it.”
“But you didn’t mention anything.”
“Oh, right,” he said with a laugh. “So I didn’t.”
“Are you sure there is nothing I can help you with?” I asked again.
“Yes, I’m sure,” he said. “Thank you.”
I stood there on the grandstand steps for a few seconds, looking at him, but he made no further obscure reference to whatever was clearly troubling him.
“Right, then,” I said. “No doubt I’ll see you sometime in the office. Bye, now.”
“Yes,” he replied. “Right. Good-bye.”
I walked away leaving him there, standing ramrod straight and looking out across the track as if in deep thought.
I wondered what that had all been about.
Mark Vickers won twice more during the afternoon, including the big race on Yellow Digger at the relatively long odds of eight to one, giving Mark a four-winner lead over Billy Searle in the championship race, and me a tidy payout from the Tote.
Billy Searle was not in the least bit happy when he emerged from the Weighing Room after the last race for our meeting.
“Bloody Vickers,” he said to me. “Did you see the way he won the first? Beat the poor animal half to death with his whip. Stewards should have banned him for excessive use.”
I decided not to say that I actually thought that Mark Vickers had been rather gentle with his use of the whip in the first race, and had in fact ridden a textbook finish with his hands and heels to win by a head. Perhaps, in the circumstances, it wouldn’t have been very diplomatic. I also chose not to mention to Billy that Mark was a client of mine as well.
“But there’s still plenty of time left for you to catch him,” I said, although I knew there wasn’t, and Mark Vickers was bang in form while Billy was not.
“It’s my bloody turn,” he said vehemently. “I’ve been waiting all these years to get my chance, and now, with Frank injured, I’m going to bloody lose out to some young upstart.”
Life could be hard. Billy Searle was four years older than me and he’d been runner-up in the championship for each of the past eight years. Every time, he’d been beaten by the same man, the jump jockey recognized by all as the best in the business, Frank Miller. But Frank had broken his leg badly in a fall the previous December and had been out of action now for four months. This year, for the first time in a decade, it would be someone else’s turn to be champion jockey, but, after today’s triple for Mark Vickers, it seemed likely that it wouldn’t be Billy. And time was no longer on Billy’s side. Thirty-three is getting on for a jump jockey, and the new crop of youngsters were good, very good, and they were also hungry for success.
