‘I’d sure like to have bought a colt by Transporter,’ he said.
‘There’ll be another crop next year.’
‘Yeah...’
He said nothing more about me going along with the crowd, with conforming unless I got hurt. What he did say,though, with his mind clearly on his recent encounter, was, ‘You don’t want to stir up that Vic Vincent more than you can help.’
I smiled.
He looked at the smile and read it right. He shook his head.
‘He’s an angry man, and angry men are dangerous.’
‘That makes two of us,’ I said.
He soberly consulted his stock of inner wisdom and came up with a cliché. ‘It’s easier to start something than to stop it.’
12
Wilton Young came to the following Doncaster Sales not to buy but to see some of his horses-in-training sold. Cutting his losses, he said. Weeding out all those who’d eaten more during the just ended flat season than they’d earned. He slapped me jovially on the back and told me straight that slow horses ate as much as fast, and he, Wilton Young, was no meal ticket for flops.
‘Profit, lad,’ he boomed. ‘That’s what it’s all about. Brass, lad. Brass.’
I bought one of his cast-offs, a three-year-old colt with little form and a reputation for kicking visitors out of his box. I got him cheap for a Sussex farmer who couldn’t afford more.
His ex-owner said disparagingly, ‘What did you buy that for? It’s no bloody good. If that’s what you buy, what the hell will you buy for me?’
I explained about the poorish farmer. ‘He’ll geld it and hack it about the farm. Teach it to jump. Make it a four-year-old novice hurdler by April.’
‘Huh.’
Second rate jumpers were of less account than marbles to self-made tycoons with cheque books open for Derby prospects. I realised that whatever his fury against Fynedale he was still expecting to pay large sums for his horses. Perhaps he needed to. Perhaps he felt a reflected glory in their expense. Perhaps he wanted to prove to the world how much brass he’d made. Conspicuous consumption, no less.
Which meant that to please him best I would have to buy an obviously good horse at a shade above what I thought it worth. Given a bargain like Singeling he had rid himself of it within an hour, and for all his twinge of regret afterwards he would be likely to do the same again. Accordingly I picked out the pride of the sale, a two-year-old with near-classic expectations, and asked if he would like it.
‘Ay,’ he said. ‘If it’s the best, I would.’
‘It’ll fetch at least twenty thousand,’ I said. ‘How far do you want me to go?’
‘It’s your job. You do it.’
I got it for twenty-six, and he was delighted.
Fynedale was not.
From across the ring his eyes looked like stark black holes in his chalk-white face. The carrot hair on top flamed like a burning bush. The hate vibrated in him so visibly that if I could have seen his aura it would have been bright red.
Constantine had brought Kerry to the Friday sales, although the chief purpose of their journey to Yorkshire was to see Nicol try out River God in Saturday’s novice chase.
Constantine was saying authoritatively to whomever would listen that keeping a large string of horses in training was becoming impossibly expensive these days, and that he thought it a prudent time to retrench. Only fools, he intimated, were still ready to buy at the inflated prices of recent months.
I saw Vic Vincent go across to greet them when they came, Amicable handshakes. Smiles with teeth. A good deal of window dressing to establish that whatever some people might think of their agents, Constantine was satisfied with his.
Nicol came and leaned beside me on the rail of the collecting ring.
‘I told him,’ he said. ‘I said Vic had been rooking him of thousands. Vic and Fynedale, pushing up the prices and splitting the proceeds.’
‘What happened?’
He looked puzzled. ‘Nothing. He didn’t say much at all. I got the impression... I know it’s silly... but I got the impression he already knew.’
‘He’s nobody’s fool,’ I said.
‘No... but if he knew, why did he let Vic get away with it?’
‘Ask him.’
‘I did. He simply didn’t answer. I said I supposed he would ditch him now and he said I supposed wrong. Vic could pick horses better than any other single agent, he said, and he had no intention of cutting himself off from his advice.’
We watched the merchandise walk round the collecting ring. Nothing in the current bunch looked worth the outlay.
Nicol said gloomily, ‘They think I’m a traitor for listening to you at all. You’re absolutely persona non grata with my parent.’
Predictable. If Constantine wasn’t going to admit he’d been swindled, he wouldn’t exactly fall on the neck of the person who’d publicly pointed it out.
‘Is he really cutting down on his string?’ I asked.
‘Heaven knows. He’s not noticeably short of the next quid, though some big deal or other fell through the other day, which irritated him more than somewhat.’ He gave me a quick sideways sardonic glance. ‘My new step-mama will be able to maintain us in the style to which we are accustomed.’
‘Why don’t you turn professional?’ I asked with mild reproof. ‘You’re good enough.’
I had, it seemed, touched him on a jumpy nerve. He said angrily, ‘Are you trying to tell me I should earn my own living?’
‘Not really my business.’
‘Then keep your trap shut.’
He shifted abruptly off the rail and walked away. I didn’t watch him go. A minute later he came back.
‘You sod,’ he said.
‘I try.’
‘You bloody well succeed.’
He hunched his shoulders inside his sheepskin coat. ‘Professional jockeys aren’t allowed to own horses in training,’ he said.
‘Nothing to stop them running in your father’s name.’
‘Shut up,’ he said. ‘Just shut up.’
I shut.
I came face to face with Vic by accident, he coming out of the sale building, I going in. He was moderately triumphant.
‘You’ve got nowhere,’ he said.
‘Because you’ll soon find another stooge to replace Fynedale?’
His mouth compressed. ‘I’m admitting nothing.’
‘How wise.’
He gave me a furious look and stalked away. He’d said nothing this time about me toeing the line or else. Perhaps because with Fynedale out of action there was no effective line to toe. Perhaps the or else campaign was temporarily in abeyance. Nothing in his manner persuaded me it was over for ever.
Having Wilton Young for a client positively galvanised my business. During that one Friday I received as many enquiries and definite commissions as in any past whole month, mostly from Northern trainers with bustling would-be owners who like Wilton Young had made their own brass.
As one trainer for whom I’d ridden in the past put it, ‘They know eff-all about horses but the money’s burning their fingers. All they want is to be sure they’re getting the best possible. That they’re not being done. Get me ten good two-year-olds and I’ll see you right.’
Both Vic and Fynedale noticed the constant stream of new clients and the swelling of my order book: they would have to have been blind not to. The effect on them was the reverse of joyful. Vic’s face grew redder and Fynedale’s whiter and as time wore on neither of them was capable of ordinary social conversation.
Finally it worried me. All very well prospering in front of their eyes, but when success could breed envy even in friends, in enemies it could raise spite of Himalayan proportions. Several of my new customers had transferred from Fynedale and one or two from Vic, and if I’d wanted a perfect revenge, I’d got it: but revenge was a tree with sour fruit.