‘We brought the horse over late from the stables,’ Oliver explained. ‘I thought it best to keep him away from the others for as long as possible.’ He laughed nervously, clearly hoping that they agreed with him.
The two of them looked at me.
‘Sorry,’ Oliver said. ‘This is Harry Foster. Michelle and Mike Morris.’
The three of us shook hands. Michelle was an attractive blonde with sparkling blue eyes and she was elegantly attired in a figure-hugging double-breasted black coat plus calf-length suede boots. Mike wore a sober suit with a blue tie and had neat short dark hair that was going slightly grey at the temples.
‘They own Momentum,’ Oliver said to me.
‘We don’t just own him,’ Michelle said with a certain degree of pride. ‘We bred him too.’
‘So do you have your own stud farm?’ I asked.
‘Nothing that grand,’ Mike said with a laugh. ‘My business is construction but, as a hobby, Michelle and I keep a few brood mares at the National Stud here in Newmarket. Momentum was one of our foals. We just kept him to race.’
We all watched as the animal in question continued to twist and turn his head in an attempt to break free.
‘Lively, isn’t he?’ Michelle said.
‘Dangerous more like,’ I replied.
‘Oh, no,’ she said with a smile. ‘He’s only playing.’
It didn’t look much like playing to me, I thought, as the horse tried once again to take a chunk out of his hapless groom’s arm.
‘He’s an entire colt,’ Mike said to me. ‘But Oliver thinks we should geld him. Reckons it might calm him down a bit. Michelle is dead against it. His breeding is excellent and she thinks he still might have a future at stud.’
Oliver gave me a sideways look that said no chance, but he was much too diplomatic to say that out loud.
‘We can’t cut our poor baby’s balls off,’ Michelle said in horror. ‘How would you like it?’
Good point, I thought, but I wasn’t trying to bite the hand that fed me.
‘I think we should have a good chance today,’ Oliver said. ‘I believe Momentum is well handicapped in this company.’
My face must have given away the fact that I didn’t understand what he meant.
‘This race is a handicap,’ Oliver explained. ‘So the horses carry different weights according to their ability.’
‘Who decides which is the most able?’ I asked.
‘The official handicapper. Every Thoroughbred racehorse in the world is rated each Tuesday.’
‘What, every horse?’ I asked.
‘Just about. Other than a few young ones that haven’t run enough times.’
‘But that’s amazing.’
‘It certainly is,’ Oliver agreed. ‘There are fourteen thousand racehorses in training in this country alone, never mind the rest of the world. The official rating determines how much weight the horse will carry in a handicap. Take this race, for example. It’s a Class Five handicap over a mile for three-year-old horses with an official rating of less than seventy-five. The top weight has an official rating of seventy-two but Momentum’s is only sixty-three. That’s nine less, hence he carries nine pounds less weight on his back.’
‘And you think that will make a difference?’
‘Certainly should,’ he said. ‘About a length per pound over a mile. It’s like Momentum having a nine-length start over the highest-rated horse. And I tend to think that he’s better than the official handicapper does.’
It sounded simple but it was, in fact, far more complicated than I’d imagined. No wonder Ryan had needed to concentrate to do his entries — choosing the right horse with an appropriate rating to enter into a given class of race over a suitable distance at the most advantageous racecourse on a specific day, and all to give it the best chance of finishing in front.
The five of us stood and watched as the nine runners circled around us and, presently, we were joined by Tony wearing racing silks with a green body, light-blue arms and a matching light-blue cap. The Morris’s colours, I assumed.
Tony touched the peak of his cap in deferential greeting to the owners but without acknowledging his brother one iota. The atmosphere between them was cool, to say the least.
‘Hold him in the pack until the two-furlong pole and then let him go,’ Ryan ordered. Tony nodded. ‘And don’t get boxed in on the rail.’ Tony nodded again and grunted something I didn’t catch.
At least the two were communicating, even if the exchange lacked any social niceties.
An official rang a bell and Oliver, Tony and Ryan walked over towards Momentum. The horse was still doing its best to pull itself free from the lad but, eventually, Tony managed to collect the reins in his hands, and Ryan tossed him up onto the saddle.
‘It’s so exciting to have a runner,’ Michelle said to me as we stood some way off, out of range of both snapping teeth and thrashing feet.
‘Yes,’ I said. And it must be, I thought, with all the years of effort she and Mike must have put in to get their ‘baby’ to the racecourse, balls and all. But I wasn’t sure that the horse’s jockey was finding the prospect of the contest quite as thrilling as its owner.
Rather you than me, I thought, as Tony tried to control half a ton of crazy racehorse with nothing more than a few small pieces of leather, and with no seat belt.
‘Don’t mess it up,’ Ryan said to his brother as a farewell comment.
I watched as Tony mouthed an obscenity back along the lines that Ryan should go forth and multiply. The two might be communicating but it was clearly not the happiest of working relationships.
At least Momentum seemed to have calmed down a bit now that he had someone on his back, although he still gave a couple of token bucks as he left the paddock.
‘Do you think we’ll win?’ Michelle eagerly asked Oliver.
‘I hope so,’ he said, although without much enthusiasm. ‘Some of our results recently have been rather a disappointment.’
And the result of this race was a bit of a disappointment too.
Surprisingly, both owners and trainer remained in the parade ring to watch the race unfold on a large-screen television set up nearby, so, I stayed with them. Ryan didn’t like it one bit and he had a scowl on his face as if he’d swallowed a wasp.
Oliver and Ryan were very unalike, I thought. Oliver had charm and charisma whereas Ryan was coarse and uncouth. Ryan was also a bit of a thug, used to getting his own way and to hell with everyone else.
But I presented them with a major problem. I was the personal representative of one of, if not the most important of their owners. I had a direct line to Sheikh Karim, who they could hardly afford to lose at any time, and certainly not in their present circumstances.
Oliver was playing the game, swallowing his pride and being polite, explaining things to me when he’d probably prefer me to get lost. For Ryan, however, the situation was more of a challenge and, as he had so clearly demonstrated the previous evening, his natural aggression readily prevailed over logic and reason.
And, on top of everything else, Ryan was failing to measure up to his father’s reputation as one of the great Newmarket trainers. And both of them knew it.
Momentum jumped out of the stalls in line with the other runners and then Tony positioned him towards the rear of the pack.
‘Come on, baby,’ Michelle shouted at the screen, hardly able to resist jumping up and down. Mike just smiled and held her hand.
‘He’s too far back,’ Ryan hissed. ‘In the pack, I said, not at the back of it.’
The horses were running on the straight mile directly towards the grandstand, the camera angle tending to foreshorten the distance from first to last. Nevertheless, even I could see that the lead horse was getting away from the others.