‘Oh,’ I said in sudden understanding. ‘Sorry, I don’t even know what’s running.’
He lost interest in me instantly, and went on studying the horseflesh on parade in front of him prior, no doubt, to making an investment with the bookies.
I went back upstairs to the box, telling myself to snap out of this daydreaming and pay attention to the racing.
‘How’s he doing?’ Francesca Dacey whispered in my ear as she stood behind me to watch the race on the balcony.
‘Fed up,’ I said, turning slightly. ‘But otherwise OK.’
‘Say hi to him for me if you get the chance,’ she whispered again before moving away to her left and talking to another of the guests.
The World Hurdle, the big race of the day, was a three-mile hurdle race for horses with stamina for the long distance, especially the uphill finish in the March mud. And stamina they had. Four horses crossed the last obstacle in line abreast and each was driven hard for the line, the crowd cheering them on with fervour, the result to be determined only by the race judge and his photographs.
There was a buzz in the crowd after the horses swept past the winning post, such had been the exhilarating effect of the closest of finishes; the adrenalin still rushed round our veins, our breathing was still just a tad faster than normal. Such moments were what brought the crowds back time and again to Cheltenham. The best horses, ridden by the best jockeys, stretching to reach the line first. Winning was everything.
‘First, number seven,’ said the announcer to a huge cheer from some and a groan of misery from others. Reno Clemens on horse number seven stood bolt upright in his stirrups and punched the air, saluting the crowd, who roared back their appreciation. How I longed for it to be me doing just that the following afternoon.
Most of the guests rushed off to watch the winner come back to the unsaddling enclosure, where he would receive a fresh wave of cheering and applause. I, however, decided to stay put. I had done my share of aimlessly wandering the racecourse wishing that Eleanor had been with me to share it.
The lunch table had been pushed up against one wall and was now heaving under large trays of sandwiches and cakes ready for tea. I looked longingly at a cream-filled chocolate éclair and opted instead for the smallest cucumber sandwich I could find.
‘I hear you are a lawyer,’ said a female voice on my right.
I turned to find Deborah Radcliffe standing next to me. Why did I think she didn’t like lawyers? Maybe it was the way she looked down her nose at me. Lots of people didn’t like lawyers, that is until they got themselves into trouble. Then their lawyer became their best friend, maybe their only friend.
‘That’s right,’ I said, smiling at her. ‘I’m a barrister.’
‘Do you wear a wig?’ she asked.
‘Only in court,’ I said. ‘Lots of my work is not done in courts. I represent people at professional disciplinary hearings and the like.’
‘Oh,’ she said, as if bored. ‘And do you represent jockeys at enquiries?’
‘I have done,’ I said. ‘But not very often.’
She seemed to lose interest completely.
‘How is Peninsula?’ I asked her.
‘Fine, as far as I know,’ she said. ‘He’s now at Rushmore Stud in Ireland. In his first season.’
Retired at age three to spend the rest of his life treated like royalty, passing his days eating, sleeping and covering mares. Horse paradise.
‘But he wasn’t born himself at Rushmore?’ I said.
‘Oh no,’ she replied. ‘We bred him at home.’
‘Where’s home?’ I asked her.
‘Near Uffington,’ she said. ‘In south Oxfordshire.’
‘Where the White Horse is,’ I said. The Uffington White Horse was a highly stylized Bronze Age horse figure carved into the chalk of the Downs a few miles north of Lambourn.
‘Exactly,’ she replied, suddenly showing more interest in me. ‘I can almost see White Horse Hill from my kitchen window.’
‘I’ve never actually seen the horse,’ I said. ‘Except in photos.’
‘It’s not that easy to see unless you get up in the air,’ she said. ‘We are forever getting tourists who ask us where it is. They seem disappointed when you show them the hill. The horse is almost on the top of it and you can’t even see it properly if you walk up to it. Goodness knows how they made it in the first place.’
‘Perhaps it was the fact that they couldn’t see it properly that made it such a weird-looking horse,’ I said.
‘Good point,’ she said.
‘Do you remember Millie Barlow being there when Peninsula was born?’ I asked.
‘Who?’ she said.
‘Millie Barlow,’ I repeated. ‘She was the vet who was present.’
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘We have foals being born all the time. We have a sort of maternity hospital for horses. They come to us to deliver, especially if they are to then be covered by a local stallion.’
‘But I would have thought you would remember Peninsula,’ I said.
‘Why?’ she said. ‘We didn’t know at the time that he would turn out so good. He had good breeding but it was not exceptional. We were just lucky.’
It made sense. After all, the world knows that William Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, but it is not known for sure exactly where and on which day he was born, although it is often assumed, for neatness, to be the same day of the year as his death. All that is actually recorded is that he was baptized on 26 April 1564.
‘Why do you ask about this vet?’ Deborah asked me.
‘It’s just that she killed herself last June and I wondered if you remembered her at Peninsula’s birth,’ I said.
‘Not that vet who killed herself during the party?’ she said.
I nodded.
‘I remember her doing that, of course,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t know it was the same vet who had been there to foal Peninsula.’
‘So you didn’t see a photo of her with Peninsula after the birth?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she said emphatically. ‘Why? Should I have done?’
‘It seems to have gone missing,’ I said.
‘Sorry,’ she said, losing interest again. ‘I can’t help you.’
A large group of the other guests suddenly returned to the box for their tea and I decided to go back outside onto the balcony rather than be continuously beguiled by the chocolate cream éclairs.
I woke early the following morning with butterflies rather than éclairs hovering in my stomach. I was used to that feeling. It happened almost every time I had a ride in a race but this time it was something special. The Foxhunter Chase at Cheltenham is known as the amateur riders’ Gold Cup. It is run over the same course and distance as its big brother, although, while the Gold Cup had the highest prize money at the Festival, the Foxhunter Chase had the lowest. But it wasn’t the prize money that mattered. For me as a jockey, winning the Foxhunters would be like winning the Gold Cup, the Grand National and the Derby all rolled into one.
I spent some of the morning on the phone, chasing some information for the Mitchell case that we had requested several weeks before. As a matter of course we had received copies of Scot Barlow’s bank statements with the rest of the prosecution disclosure, but I had also asked for those of his sister, Millie. The bank had kicked up a bit of a fuss about confidentiality and I had needed to go back to court and argue in front of a judge as to why they were needed.
It had now been two weeks since the hearing. I had referred to our Defence Case Statement in so far as we believed that Mitchell had been framed and that therefore, in our opinion, some unknown third party had been involved in the crime. Thus Barlow’s bank statements had been needed to determine if any unusual or relevant transactions had occurred between him and an unknown third party. I further pointed out that Millie Barlow, sister of the victim and lover of the accused, had, according to her friends, seemed quite well off prior to her suicide the previous June. More well off than might have been expected from her salary alone. I had argued that she might have been receiving an allowance from her brother, a successful sportsman who, at the time, had been earning near the top of his profession. Millie Barlow’s bank statements were needed therefore to cross reference with his, so as to be able to eliminate transactions on his statements made by him to her during her lifetime.