Hands Down, page 13
Would Usain Bolt be considered the greatest 100-metre sprinter of all time if he had lost more than three-quarters of the races he had run in? Even the tennis greats, Nadal, Federer and Djokovic, all of them playing in the same era, have each won more than two-thirds of the tournament finals they’ve played in, to say nothing of their earlier-round victories to get to the final in the first place.
Only in horse racing do even the very best have to get used to losing far more often than they win.
Marcus looked across at me and smiled broadly. ‘But there’s no feeling on earth like that of winning. Winning is everything. No one ever remembers who comes second – or cares.’
He was so right. I thought back again to my time in the saddle. I’d chased the same dream as him for almost ten years. My attitude then had undoubtedly been ‘win or nothing’, and I’d been a dreadful loser, blaming myself, the trainer, the ground or the opposition, but never my horse, who I always felt had done its best, even if its best wasn’t good enough to win.
‘So what happens now?’ Marcus asked, bringing us back to the serious matter in hand. ‘I’m not going to the BHA if that’s what you’re after.’
‘It’s not, at least not for now. My first suggestion is that you change your agent.’
‘I’ve tried that,’ he replied. ‘But he tells me that the video of me counting the money will be posted on social media if I do.’
‘Have you actually seen this video?’ I asked.
‘Sure have. He showed it to me right here in this room. I’m standing over there by the window,’ he pointed, ‘counting the wedge. Course, he gives me the two hundred quid in tenners, doesn’t he, so it takes me a while to count them.’
‘But you could just be counting money that is legitimate, maybe obtained from a cash machine.’
He looked at me. ‘Use a bit of common. I don’t hardly have twenty quid in my bank account, let alone two hundred. So how do I get twenty ten-pound notes from a cash machine?’
‘But it still doesn’t prove you have done anything wrong.’
‘It does when you add the bloody voice recording to it.’
‘So what does that say?’
‘It’s basically me agreeing to prevent a horse called Second Yellow from winning the two-and-a-half-mile novice hurdle at Catterick on New Year’s Day.’
‘But isn’t Valance’s voice on the recording as well?’
‘Course not. He’s far too fucking clever for that. Edits himself out of it, doesn’t he. It’s just mine. He even got me to repeat back to him what he wanted me to do just to make sure I got it right. I’m too damn stupid for my own good.’
And too trusting, I thought. Just as he’d trusted that Charles was calling from the BHA the previous evening, in order to get his name and address.
‘But the video will still be on his phone,’ I said. ‘That must prove that he’s involved.’
‘But it won’t be on his phone after he uploads it onto YouTube, and then deletes it, will it? It’s all a fucking disaster.’
I wasn’t so sure. Deleting things from phones or computers was not as easy as people thought. Devices had a habit of remembering what was done to them, especially if they automatically back up files to the cloud.
‘I still think that the video alone doesn’t prove you’ve done anything wrong,’ I said, trying to raise his spirits.
‘But it doesn’t need to prove it,’ he said miserably. ‘Even if the BHA takes no action against me, Mr Kline and every other trainer will. I’ll be instantly out of a job with no prospect of ever getting another one.’
Unfortunately, he was almost certainly correct on both counts.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘In that case we have to prevent Valance from posting the video on social media.’
‘And how do we do that, other than by me doing exactly what he wants?’
That was a good question, and one I hadn’t yet worked out the answer to.
Marcus stared at me and, once again, he was close to tears. ‘Why do you care anyway? It’s my problem, not yours. And it’s all my own stupid fault.’
I thought for a moment.
‘I care, Marcus, on a number of different levels,’ I said. ‘Firstly, I care passionately about our sport of horse racing, particularly jump racing. Second, I care very much that someone is trying to manipulate the fair running of racing for their own advantage. And third, I care that you are being used as an unwilling pawn in a much bigger chess game, simply because you naively made one silly mistake.
‘Valance knew exactly what he was doing. He probably heard that you were short of money and offered you some manna from heaven at a time when you were absolutely starving. Who wouldn’t take it, especially as you both knew the horse was a no-hoper anyway? That’s why he asked you to stop that particular one. To knock you off your guard. If it had been the favourite, or any other with a decent chance, you’d have probably told him to bugger off.’
He nodded, although I wasn’t altogether sure he would have done.
‘So don’t beat yourself up too much. I intend to defeat this man and I need your help to do it.’
He suddenly looked less willing.
But I wasn’t finished. ‘I need you to tell me everything he says to you. If he calls and says you are not to turn up at the races or not to win on a certain horse, I need to know about it. Not the following day, but straight away.’ I emphasized the point. ‘Everything he says, without fail. Do you understand?’
‘But why?’
‘Because if you don’t, you can kiss goodbye to your riding career for good. Even if Valance doesn’t ruin it, I will. If I’m to help you keep your jockey’s licence and your job, I need to know everything. Do you understand?’
He nodded again, if one can nod and also hold one’s head down in shame at the same time.
‘Look at me,’ I said, slapping him on the arm.
He lifted his head and looked straight into my eyes.
‘We will win. Trust me. And that will be a victory worth celebrating.’
But I’m not sure he believed me.
Perhaps I didn’t believe it either.
* * *
At four o’clock in the afternoon, Marcus had to go and do evening stables at Noel Kline’s yard.
By then, I think I had finally convinced him to call me whenever Anton Valance contacted him, but only time would tell if I had been successful.
He was certainly a very unhappy boy. He had foolishly got himself into something that was way over his head and getting out unscathed was going to be difficult, if not impossible.
Rosie, in contrast, was overjoyed to see me when I walked back to the Discovery in the marketplace. With her barking enthusiastically in the back, I climbed in and drove out of the town on the Coverham Lane. After about half a mile, I pulled off the road alongside the gallops on the Low Moor and let her out for a run.
Was it really only four short days since I had come this way in Marina’s Skoda to meet secretly with Gary Bremner just slightly further on at Pinker’s Pond? It felt like much longer ago than that.
I watched as Rosie ran fast along the edge of the gallops, her nose held low towards the ground as if following the scent of another dog or maybe a rabbit, or even a fox. Over the years, and in spite of my initial hesitancy at having dogs at all, Rosie had given Marina and me so much pleasure. If this marital separation of ours was to be made permanent, we would likely argue just as hard over custody of our dog as over custody of our daughter.
‘Oh, God.’ The very thought of it made me cry out in anguish.
I stood with my face pointed into the brisk, cold, northerly wind and enjoyed the spectacular views across Wensleydale towards the distant Bolton Castle on the far side, where Mary, Queen of Scots, spent some of her nineteen-year imprisonment prior to being executed in 1587, aged just 44.
Something about that, and also the thought of King Richard III strutting his stuff through the streets of Middleham more than a hundred years earlier, made me take stock of how transient human life can sometimes seem but, equally, how important it remains for every one of us. We may exist for only a fleeting moment in terms of the total length of human history, and for a much shorter period than that in comparison to the age of the hills and dales that were laid out before me, but how we each feel right now continues to be relevant and meaningful.
I wiped tears from my eyes with my sleeve and tried to tell myself they were caused only by the wind.
‘Come on, Rosie,’ I called out. ‘Time for us to go.’
But we didn’t go home. Not yet.
Instead, we went to see Simon Paulson.
17
I drove my Discovery into Simon Paulson’s yard during the height of evening stables, when his staff were either rushing about with sacks of dirty bedding slung over their shoulders or measuring out feed and carrying buckets of water for their charges.
‘Can’t you bloody leave me alone?’ Simon said bitterly.
‘Not a hope,’ I replied.
I glanced up at the dark, threatening edifice of Middleham Castle to my right, and wondered if anyone was watching me this time from up high on the viewing platform.
‘Why did you tell Anton Valance that I was at Catterick on Tuesday?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Two of his heavies were waiting with baseball bats to ambush me in the car park as I left to go home, and they hadn’t just turned up by coincidence. Someone tipped them off that I was there.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he replied, but there was something about his body language that told the real story.
‘Two runners, both favourites, and neither of them even came close to winning. They had no chance, did they, Simon? Because you made sure they wouldn’t win. I’m surprised the Catterick stewards didn’t hold an enquiry.’
I could tell he was frightened, as well he might be.
‘You and I need to talk,’ I said.
‘I’m not talking to you.’ He turned to walk away.
‘Oh, I think you will, Simon,’ I said to his retreating back. ‘Either that or you can talk to the Integrity Department of the BHA after I send in a report to them. Or perhaps I’ll tell Anton Valance that you have agreed to assist me in arranging his downfall. I’m sure he won’t be happy with that. Is your fire insurance up to date?’
He turned back to face me. ‘You wouldn’t.’
‘Try me.’
Rarely had I seen a man’s shoulders slump so much in resignation.
‘Shall we go to your office?’ I asked.
‘There’s too many people about,’ he said, waving a hand at his staff. ‘You’d better come into the house.’
The state of it was every bit as bad as he had said, worse even. There were stacks of unwashed plates everywhere, some of them growing a green mould, and the carpet in the living room was almost invisible under a mass of strewn newspapers and empty biscuit wrappers.
He should get together with Marcus Capes, I thought. He could learn a thing or two about being tidy.
Simon shifted one of the piles of papers spread out on the sofa to give me some room to sit, while he descended into an armchair.
‘I told Valance it was a bad idea,’ he said, before I even had a chance to ask him my first question.
‘What was a bad idea?’
‘To send someone to beat you up. He said it would frighten you off, but I knew it wouldn’t. I told him that you’re not like other people. All it would do would be to make you more determined.’
Simon had been right.
‘So you did call him to tell him I was at Catterick?’
‘That wasn’t why I called him – at least, not exactly.’ He looked away from me briefly, then his eyes returned to mine. ‘After you confronted Jimmy about his riding in the first, we both felt it was too dangerous to do it again in the fifth, so I called Valance to tell him that Night Shadow would be running on his merits. He went totally ballistic. Claimed they had too much invested on the race and I would be liable for their losses if Night Shadow won. It was then that Jimmy agreed to make the horse fall. But I didn’t like it. Not at all.’
I sat there in silence for a few moments, not quite believing or wanting to believe what I was hearing. Making any horse intentionally fall could easily result in unnecessary injury, or even a fatality.
‘What is the hold that this man has over you and Jimmy that would make you take such drastic action not to win a lowly Class Five handicap chase?’
He sighed deeply.
‘I think I’ll retire,’ he said. ‘Right now. This minute. The BHA can’t take away my licence if I haven’t got one.’
‘They can still warn you off.’
‘Warned off’ was the old-fashioned term for what is now called exclusion. It was originally called ‘warned off Newmarket Heath’ and it is the ultimate sanction handed out by the racing authorities to miscreants and cheats. It means that not only are they forbidden from entering any racing establishments, including their own stable yards, but they are also banned from associating with any other licensed individual, which includes all owners, trainers, jockeys, vets, farriers and stable staff – indeed, everyone involved in horse racing – on pain of those also losing their own licences.
The racing community is actually very closed, with everyone knowing everybody else, generation on generation, with outsiders rarely admitted. Those warned off are even banned from speaking with other licensed members of their own family, and may be forced to move out of their own homes.
Such sanctions are purposefully extreme, to act as a deterrent.
If he was warned off, Simon would not only have to retire from training, he would have to retire from all his friendships, to say nothing of having to leave his house.
‘Maybe there’s another way,’ I said, throwing him a lifeline. ‘But you will need to help me.’ He didn’t look very happy at that prospect. ‘And to start with, you must tell me how you got into this godawful mess in the first place.’
He took a little more persuading but, eventually, the whole sorry saga was laid bare.
‘My wife, Jackie, apart from always nagging me about my drinking and eating habits, she also did all the stable books – you know, staff salaries, paying bills, owners’ invoices, that sort of stuff. That’s how she met the accountant she’s run off with. Anyway, after she left, everything went a bit pear-shaped on that front. Still is, if I’m honest. I’ve been trying to sort out the mess but… it seems beyond me sometimes. See, I’m quite good with horses but less so with figures.’
I looked again at the piles of paper on the sofa, some of which I could see were unpaid utility bills with FINAL REMINDER stamped on them in red.
‘My secretary took on doing the payroll and paying some of our essential suppliers so we didn’t get caught out without staff, food or bedding, but sending out and chasing the owners’ invoices sort of fell between the stools.’
‘So you basically ran out of money?’ I asked.
‘Big time. Suddenly last summer I had my bank manager on the blower threatening to shut me down at once and foreclose on the house.’
‘So what happened next?’
‘I got offered a loan, just to pay off some of the urgent stuff like the bank mortgage payment and the salaries, to tide me over until I received what was owing to me from my owners. I mean, it wasn’t as if I didn’t have the funds coming in eventually. I wasn’t insolvent or anything. In fact, I made a decent profit last year, best in a long time, mostly thanks to Regal Monarch.’
But cash was still the king. Without sufficient cash in the bank you can’t pay your staff and your business will fold overnight as they desert you. And Simon’s wouldn’t have been the first profitable business to go bust from a lack of cash flow, far from it.
‘I assume this loan didn’t come from your bank.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It didn’t.’
‘Please don’t tell me you resorted to the loan sharks at some impossibly high interest rate.’
‘I actually wish I had. They would have only taken all my money, not rob me of my reputation and self-respect as well.’
‘So was this loan made to you by Anton Valance?’
‘Not ostensibly, but he organized it.’
‘How? I mean, how did he even know you needed a loan in the first place? Did you tell him?’
‘Of course not. But I did call all my owners to urge them to please settle their invoices immediately, and also to ask if any of them would consider paying a month or two of their training fees in advance. Doesn’t take rocket science for them to work out I was a bit short.’
‘Even so, it’s quite a big step for a jockeys’ agent to find out.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe I mentioned it to him. He was always calling me. Anyway, by then I didn’t care who knew, all I cared about was getting some fresh cash into my account.’
‘How much?’ I asked.
I could sense that he was reluctant to tell me.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘How much?’
‘Sixty grand.’
That was not too bad, I thought. At least it wasn’t a quarter of a million as I’d been half expecting.
‘Valance claimed he had a consortium of backers, current and former racehorse owners and such, who didn’t like to see people, especially trainers, be forced out of racing due to small downturns, or plain bad luck. He said they were prepared to help by lending me some money as a short-term contingency.
‘I thought the terms were pretty high, mind, but they weren’t excessive, not hundreds of per cent interest like the bloody loan sharks were offering. Trust me, I’d checked them too. And Valance also said his consortium didn’t want any form of surety over the loan, so I suppose I couldn’t really complain.’
‘Have you paid it back?’ I asked.
‘Some of it. The trouble is, it keeps growing due to the high interest rate.’
