The owner smiled wanly at his trainer but he was enviously eyeing those having their photographs taken in the winner’s circle. He had wanted to win this time.
‘Well done, Paddy,’ George said to me. ‘He looked nice.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said, although the horse’s smart appearance had mostly been down to Maria.
She had come to my rescue again, showing me where the racing bridles were kept, how to prepare the horse to look his best, and when and where I had to take him. In fact, she had stayed by my side all afternoon, walking Anchorage Bay with me through the horse tunnel that ran from the barn area under the main-entrance roadway to the paddock. She also helped take him back to Raworth’s barn afterwards.
Even though there was no touching of hands, or lips, it was clear to both Maria and me that some sexual chemistry did exist between us. We laughed and joked as we washed Anchorage Bay, and she sprayed me playfully with the hose.
Don’t get involved — I kept telling myself. It was far too dangerous.
‘Stop it,’ I said seriously, cutting short her antics. ‘Let’s get the horse back in his stall.’
By which point it was four o’clock and time for evening stables.
I finally finished work at six having been on the go continuously for over thirteen hours. I was exhausted.
‘Do we get double-rate for overtime?’ I asked Charlie Hern as I collected the feed for my horses.
He laughed. ‘Be thankful you have a job in the first place.’
I took that to mean that no, we didn’t.
‘We’re classified as agricultural workers,’ said one of the other grooms who had overheard the exchange. ‘Overtime doesn’t apply until you’ve done more than sixty hours in a single week, and then they don’t count meal breaks or time spent waiting over at the track.’
The European Union Working Time Directive clearly didn’t apply here.
I acquired a new-found sense of admiration for the humble stable lad.
‘They all travelled to Louisville separately,’ Tony said when I called him after supper. ‘Two flew in from California, but on different days and from different cities, while the third, Liberty Song, arrived by horse trailer from Keeneland racetrack in Lexington.’
So they hadn’t become infected with EVA on the journey.
‘When did they arrive?’ I asked.
‘The two from California came the previous week, one from LA on Thursday and the other from San Francisco on Friday. The one from Lexington also arrived Friday, eight days before the Derby.’
‘So they had to have been infected while at Churchill Downs,’ I said. ‘It would be too much of a coincidence if all three had been infected elsewhere, especially as there have been no other cases.’
‘There has now,’ Tony said. ‘Another horse at Churchill fell sick today. They’re doing tests to confirm it is EVA, although it has all the signs.’
It was Thursday. Five days since the others had first shown signs of illness.
‘It must be due to secondary infection from one of the original three.’
‘Most likely,’ Tony said. ‘The new horse that’s fallen sick had been in the next-door stall to Liberty Song up until last Saturday.’
‘Was that in the Stakes Barn?’ I asked.
‘No. Liberty Song was in his trainer’s own barn. One of the two from California was in the Stakes Barn but the other was in a separate barn right at the far end of the site that, ironically, the trainer had rented specifically to prevent his horse catching anything from others in the Stakes Barn.’
‘Is there any common denominator at all between the three?’
‘Not that I have found. As far as we can tell, they weren’t ever in the same place together. They had different training schedules so they didn’t even use the track at the same time.’
‘There has to be something,’ I said. ‘Assuming the incubation period was the same as for the latest case, they must have all been infected on the Sunday or Monday before the Derby.’
‘But how?’ Tony asked.
‘If there was no accidental coming together of the three,’ I said, ‘then there has to be another virus carrier that did come into contact with each of them on that Sunday or Monday.’
‘But other horses would surely also become sick.’
‘Not if it was deliberately targeted at those three,’ I said.
‘How?’ he asked again. ‘You can’t lead an EVA-infected horse over to three separate stalls in completely different parts of the backside and get it to snort some virus into the noses of only those three specific horses. You would have been seen and stopped for a start. And the virus doesn’t live long outside the body so, even if you could transfer the infection with nasal droplets, those would have had to come from an infected host, so where’s that horse?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said forlornly.
It was frustrating.
The only thing we knew for sure was that the three horses had somehow been infected — there was no doubt about that.
‘Anything else to report?’ Tony asked.
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘Other than to say that the life of a groom is bloody hard work. I ache all over.’
He laughed.
‘It is not a laughing matter,’ I said.
‘Then let’s get a FACSA raid sorted so that you can get out of there. Have you found anything suspicious for us to search for?’
‘Not yet. I’ve been so damned busy doing the job.’
He laughed again.
‘Give me a while longer,’ I said. ‘I’ve already seen some evidence of the drug regime Raworth uses but I’m not sure if it breaks the rules. I’ll have a proper scout round and see if I can spot anything else. It would be much better if I could actually find something dodgy going on rather than you just making it up. If Raworth is tipped off about an upcoming raid, there would only be a major reaction if he was really doing something wrong.’
‘OK,’ Tony said. ‘I’ll do nothing yet. Will you call tomorrow?’
‘I’ll try. If not tomorrow, then Saturday.’
‘Harriet and I are out to dinner with friends that night, but you can call earlier if you want. I won’t be at work Saturday.’
I would, I thought.
This Saturday was an important day at Belmont Park. It marked the annual running of the Man o’War Stakes, one of the major races of the year for horses aged four or over. It was named after the great champion racehorse and sire of the 1920s, and George Raworth had two runners.
‘Enjoy your dinner,’ I said to Tony and we disconnected.
I had walked well away from the track kitchen to make the call and now I started to return.
I didn’t make it.
There were four of them and Diego was their leader.
The Puerto Rican mob.
‘No toque Maria, gringo!’ Diego shouted at me. ‘Dejarla sola!’
They didn’t wait for me to reply.
Instead, they rushed at me before I had a chance to react, two of them grabbing me by the arms and a third placing his arm round my neck from behind. I was trying to crouch down and make the target as small as possible but the man with the headlock hauled me up straight. The two holding my arms then spread my legs wide with their feet.
Diego ran up and kicked me hard in the groin, scoring a direct hit on the family jewels.
The pain was excruciating, running up into my abdomen and right down to my toes.
The three men behind let go and I collapsed to the dusty ground, tucking myself up to try to ease the fire that was now raging between my legs.