That had been my fault, I thought, but decided not to say so.
‘Do you have runners every day?’ I asked.
‘Not every day,’ he said, ‘but we usually do on a Saturday during the season. Many owners like their horses running on Saturdays. Makes it easier for them to be there.’
Joe said it in a way that made me think that he didn’t really like the owners getting in the way. I wondered if Mr Reardon’s horse had been one of those due to run. That wouldn’t have done anything to placate him either.
So, with Declan out of the equation, that just left the three remaining Chadwick men for me to hassle. There was something they were all hiding. I was sure of it.
It will all come out. I can’t stand the shame.
I decided it was time to confront that directly.
I’d arrived at the racecourse well before the first race so I paid my entrance fee and then wandered around the enclosures getting my bearings.
On the previous evening, for obvious reasons, I hadn’t been properly concentrating on the racing. I hadn’t appreciated, for example, how the horses for each race are brought from the stables to the pre-parade ring before being taken to be saddled in one of the nearby line of saddling boxes. Then they are led into the parade ring proper for the punters to gawp at like contestants in a beauty pageant.
Except these beauties had to run fast rather than simply look good, although Kate had told me that a fit horse was also an attractive horse.
Attractive?
I would have to take her word for it.
As the time for the first race approached, I bought a racecard and checked that I’d remembered correctly that Ryan had a runner. He did. A horse called Momentum, number 8, and, to my surprise, it was also listed to be ridden by Tony Chadwick.
Several horses were already being led around the preparade ring by their grooms but I had no way of knowing which one, if any, was Momentum as they were not yet wearing their numbers and I was clearly no tout, nor Lester Piggott. So I hung around outside the saddling boxes waiting for the trainer to arrive.
However, it was not Ryan but Oliver I saw first, walking towards me with what appeared to be a minuscule saddle over his arm. There was a fractional hesitation in his stride when he spotted me but then he came on over.
‘Hello, Harry,’ he said quite amicably. ‘Having a good time?’
‘Yes, thank you, Oliver,’ I replied. ‘Are you?’
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘It feels good to be back on a racecourse after the week we’ve had. What with the fire, then Zoe and now Arabella. Never mind annus horribilis, this has definitely been a week to forget.’
I, on the other hand, would remember it fondly, but for a different reason.
‘Where’s Ryan?’ I asked.
‘He’s bringing Momentum over from the stables with the stable lad. This particular horse can be a little skittish so we’re leaving it as late as possible.’
I held up my racecard. ‘I see Tony is down to ride it.’ My voice gave away the surprise I felt.
‘Yes,’ Oliver said slowly. ‘Ryan had declared the jockey before.’
He didn’t have to explain that it was before Tony had told his brother he was a fucking idiot. And I remembered how Ryan had come into the yard office on Wednesday morning when I’d been talking to Janie. He had sent the declarations off without checking the information first, trusting Janie to have got it right. And she would have put Tony down as the rider.
‘Couldn’t Ryan have changed the jockey?’ I asked.
‘He could have done easily up to one o’clock Wednesday afternoon, but he obviously forgot. After that you have to get permission from the stewards, and a family tiff is unlikely to be a good enough reason in their eyes. Anyway, they’re both over it now.’
I wondered if that was true, or was it just Oliver’s wishful thinking. It would be interesting to watch the body language when Ryan had to give his younger brother a leg-up.
Oliver and I stood side by side waiting for Ryan and the horse to arrive and it seemed to me to be too good an opportunity to miss.
‘Why did Ryan break Declan’s nose at Doncaster?’ I asked.
Oliver jumped as if I’d stabbed him with an electric cattle prod.
‘Where did you hear that nonsense?’ he said, trying to force a laugh.
‘Ryan told me.’ I paused while that bit of news sank in, before I hit him with my next question. ‘And, if they hate each other so much, why didn’t Declan press charges?’
Oliver was silent for a moment as he clearly thought what to say.
‘Because it was an accident,’ he stated finally.
‘It didn’t sound like an accident to me,’ I retorted. ‘According to the police report, Ryan punched Declan square in the face. Laid him out proper.’
‘Yes,’ said Oliver, back-pedalling madly. ‘But it was nothing more than a misunderstanding.’
‘Over what?’ I asked.
‘Nothing important,’ Oliver said.
‘So tell me,’ I said.
‘Ah, here they are.’ The relief in Oliver at seeing Momentum and Ryan arriving was palpable and he rushed forward towards them.
Ryan, however, was not so keen to see me, and well might he not be.
‘Hello, Ryan,’ I said. ‘Have you insulted anyone else today? Or maybe you punched them in the face instead.’
Oliver looked at me with horror.
‘Harry,’ he said sharply. ‘That was not called for.’
No, I thought, it probably wasn’t, but I had to do something to get them riled up, to get them to say something they’d regret, to reveal their big secret.
Ryan, however, was calmness personified. He appeared to completely ignore what I’d just said and went about the task of readying Momentum for his race, a task he performed with the speed and ease of someone well practised in the art.
First, off came the horse’s rug, then a thin chamois leather was placed on the horse’s bare back. ‘To prevent slippage,’ Oliver explained. That was followed by a saddle pad, weight cloth, number cloth and then, finally, the tiny saddle, all held in place by a wide girth pulled tight around the horse’s belly and connected to the saddle on each side by substantial buckles.
All the while this was going on further back, Momentum’s head was being held firmly by his stable lad, not that it stopped him trying to tear himself free, and only quick reactions by the lad prevented huge chunks of the poor boy’s hands and arms being bitten off.
Momentum had a small white star in the middle of its forehead and it somehow gave the horse an even more manic look, as if it had three eyes.
Skittish, Oliver had said. I thought that was a rather mild description. In my eyes, the animal was completely off its rocker and I kept well out of reach of both the chomping teeth and the flailing hooves.
Satisfied that all was finally in order, Ryan gave the horse an encouraging slap on its hindquarters and almost got a kick on the knee in return. Ryan then told the unfortunate stable lad to lead him out of the saddling box and into the parade ring, not that the horse was making that an easy task as it constantly tried to pull itself free while, at the same time, kicking out wildly at anything remotely within reach.
Oliver and Ryan followed the horse at a safe distance and, much to Ryan’s obvious annoyance, I tagged along with them.
There were a couple waiting for us on the pristine grass of the parade ring.
‘Hello, you two,’ Oliver called out as we approached. ‘Lovely to see you.’ He kissed the woman on each cheek and shook hands warmly with the man.
‘We couldn’t find you in the pre-parade ring so we came through here,’ the woman said.