The film flicked off abruptly and someone put the lights on again. I thought that the film was conclusive and that that would be the end of it.
‘You didn’t use your whip,’ Lord Gowery said accusingly.
‘No, sir,’ I agreed. ‘Squelch shies away from the whip. He has to be ridden with the hands.’
‘You were making no effort to ride him out.’
‘Indeed I was, sir. He was dead tired, you can see on the film.’
‘All I can see on the film is that you were making absolutely no effort to win. You were sitting there with your arms still, making no effort whatsoever.’
I stared at him. ‘Squelch isn’t an easy horse to ride sir. He’ll always do his best but only if he isn’t upset. He has to be ridden quietly. He stops if he’s hit. He’ll only respond to being squeezed, and to small flicks on the reins, and to his jockey’s voice.’
‘That’s quite right,’ said Cranfield piously. ‘I always give Hughes orders not to treat the horse roughly.’
As if he hadn’t heard a word, Lord Gowery said, ‘Hughes didn’t pick up his whip.’
He looked enquiringly at the two Stewards flanking him, as if to collect their opinions. The one on his left, a youngish man who had ridden as an amateur, nodded non-committally. The other one was asleep.
I suspected Gowery kicked him under the table. He woke up with a jerk, said ‘Eh? Yes, definitely,’ and eyed me suspiciously.
It’s a farce, I thought incredulously. The whole thing’s a bloody farce.
Gowery nodded, satisfied, ‘Hughes never picked up his whip.’
The fat bullying Stipe was oozing smugness. ‘I am sure you will find this next film relevant, sir.’
‘Quite,’ agreed Gowery. ‘Show it now.’
‘Which film is this?’ Cranfield enquired.
Gowery said, ‘This film shows Squelch winning at Reading on 3rd January.’
Cranfield reflected. ‘I was not at Reading on that day.’
‘No,’ agreed Gowery. ‘We understand you went to the Worcester meeting instead.’ He made it sound suspicious instead of perfectly normal. Cranfield had run a hot young hurdler at Worcester and had wanted to see how he shaped. Squelch, the established star, needed no supervision.
The lights went out again. The Stipe used his baton to point out Kelly Hughes riding a race in Squelch’s distinctive colours of black and white chevrons and a black cap. Not at all the same sort of race as the Lemonfizz Crystal Cup. I’d gone to the front early to give myself a clear view of the fences, pulled back to about third place for a breather at midway, and forced to the front again only after the last fence, swinging my whip energetically down the horse’s shoulder and urging him vigorously with my arms.
The film stopped, the lights went on, and there was a heavy accusing silence. Cranfield turned towards me, frowning.
‘You will agree,’ said Gowery ironically, ‘That you used your whip, Hughes.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘Which race did you say that was?’
‘The last race at Reading,’ he said irritably. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know.’
‘I agree that the film you’ve just shown was the last race at Reading, sir. But Squelch didn’t run in the last race at Reading. The horse in that film is Wanderlust. He belongs to Mr Kessel, like Squelch does, so the colours are the same, and both horses are by the same sire, which accounts for them looking similar, but the horse you’ve just shown is Wanderlust. Who does, as you saw, respond well if you wave a whip at him.’
There was dead silence. It was Cranfield who broke it, clearing his throat.
‘Hughes is quite right. That is Wanderlust.’
He hadn’t realised it, I thought in amusement, until I’d pointed it out. It’s all too easy for people to believe what they’re told.
There was a certain amount of hurried whispering going on. I didn’t help them. They could sort it out for themselves.
Eventually Lord Gowery said, ‘Has anyone got a form book?’ and an official near the door went out to fetch one. Gowery opened it and took a long look at the Reading results.
‘It seems,’ he said heavily, ‘That we have the wrong film. Squelch ran in the sixth race at Reading, which is of course usually the last. However, it now appears that on that day there were seven races, the Novice Chase having been divided and run in two halves, at the beginning and end of the day. Wanderlust won the seventh race. A perfectly understandable mix-up, I am afraid.’
I didn’t think I would help my cause by saying that I thought it a disgraceful mix-up, if not criminal.
‘Could we now, sir,’ I asked politely, ‘See the right film? The one that Squelch won.’
Lord Gowery cleared his throat. ‘I don’t, er, think we have it here. However,’ he recovered fast, ‘We don’t need it. It is immaterial. We are not considering the Reading result, but that at Oxford.’
I gasped. I was truly astounded. ‘But sir, if you watch Squelch’s race, you will see that I rode him at Reading exactly as I did at Oxford, without using the whip.’
‘That is beside the point, Hughes, because Squelch may not have needed the whip at Reading, but at Oxford he did.’
‘Sir, it is the point,’ I protested. ‘I rode Squelch at Oxford in exactly the same manner as when he won at Reading, only at Oxford he tired.’
Lord Gowery absolutely ignored this. Instead he looked left and right to his Stewards alongside and remarked, ‘We must waste no more time. We have three or four witnesses to call before lunch.’
The sleepy eldest Steward nodded and looked at his watch. The younger one nodded and avoided meeting my eyes. I knew him quite well from his amateur jockey days, and had often ridden against him. We had all been pleased when he had been made a Steward, because he knew at first-hand the sort of odd circumstances which cropped up in racing to make a fool of the brightest, and we had thought that he would always put forward or explain our point of view. From his downcast semi-apologetic face I now gathered that we had hoped too much. He had not so far contributed one single word to the proceedings, and he looked, though it seemed extraordinary, intimidated.
As plain Andrew Tring he had been lighthearted, amusing, and almost reckless over fences. His recently inherited baronetcy and his even more recently acquired Stewardship seemed on the present showing to have hammered him into the ground.
Of Lord Plimborne, the elderly sleepyhead, I knew very little except his name. He seemed to be in his seventies and there was a faint tremble about many of his movements as if old age were shaking at his foundations and would soon have him down. He had not, I thought, clearly heard or understood more than a quarter of what had been said.
An Enquiry was usually conducted by three Stewards, but on this day there were four. The fourth, who sat on the left of Andrew Tring, was not, as far as I knew, even on the Disciplinary Committee, let alone a Disciplinary Steward. But he had in front of him a pile of notes as large if not larger than the others, and he was following every word with sharp hot eyes. Exactly where his involvement lay I couldn’t work out, but there was no doubt that Wykeham, second Baron Ferth, cared about the outcome.
He alone of the four seemed really disturbed that they should have shown the wrong film, and he said quietly but forcefully enough for it to carry across to Cranfield and me, ‘I did advise against showing the Reading race, if you remember.’