For Kicks - Страница 10

Amused, I fetched Sparking Plug, mounted, and followed all the other horses out of the yard, up the lane, and on to the edge of the moor.

As usual on a fine morning the air and the view were exhilarating. The sun was no more than a promise on the far distant horizon and there was a beginning-of-the-world quality in the light. I watched the shadowy shapes of the horses ahead of me curving round the hill with white plumes streaming from their nostrils in the frosty air. As the glittering rim of the sun expanded into full light the colours sprang out bright and clear, the browns of the jogging horses topped with the bright stripes of the lads' ear warming knitted caps and the jolly garments of October's daughters.

October himself, accompanied by his retriever, came up on the moor in a Land Rover to see the horses work. Saturday morning, I had found, was the busiest training day of the week as far as gallops were concerned, and as he was usually in Yorkshire at the weekend he made a point of coming out to watch.

Inskip had us circling round at the top of the hill while he paired off the horses and told their riders what to do.

To me he said, "Clan; three-quarter speed gallop. Your horse is running on Wednesday. Don't over-do him but we want to see how he goes." He directed one of the stable's most distinguished animals to accompany me.

When he had finished giving his orders he cantered off along the broad sweep of green turf which stretched through the moorland scrub, and October drove slowly in his wake. We continued circling until the two men reached the other end of the gallops about a mile and a half away up the gently curved, gently rising track.

"OK," said Wally to the first pair.

"Off you go."

The two horses set off together, fairly steadily at first and then at an increasing pace until they had passed Inskip and October, when they slowed and pulled up.

"Next two," Wally called.

We were ready, and set off without more ado. I had bred, broken, and re broken uncountable racehorses in Australia, but Sparking Plug was the only good one I had so far ridden in England, and I was interested to see how he compared. Of course he was a hurdler, while I was more used to flat racers, but this made no difference, I found; and he had a bad mouth which I itched to do something about, but there was nothing wrong with his action. Balanced and collected, he sped smoothly up the gallop, keeping pace effortlessly with the star performer beside him, and though, as ordered, we went only three-quarters speed at our fastest, it was quite clear that Sparking Plug was fit and ready for his approaching race.

I was so interested in what I was doing that it was not until I had reined in not too easy with that mouth

and began to walk back, that I realized I had forgotten all about messing up the way I rode. I groaned inwardly, exasperated with myself: I would never do what I had come to England for if I could so little keep my mind on the job.

I stopped with the horse who had accompanied Sparking Plug in front of October and Inskip, for them to have a look at the horses and see how much they were blowing. Sparking Plug's ribs moved easily: he was scarcely out of breath. The two men nodded, and I and the other lad slid off the horses and began walking them around while they cooled down.

Up from the far end of the gallop came the other horses, pair by pair, and finally a bunch of those who were not due to gallop but only to canter. When everyone had worked, most of the lads remounted and we all began to walk back down the gallop towards the track to the stable. Leading my horse on foot I set off last in the string, with October's eldest daughter riding immediately in front of me and effectively cutting me off from the chat of the lads ahead. She was looking about her at the rolling vistas of moor, and not bothering to keep her animal close on the heels of the one in front, so that by the time we entered the track there was a ten-yard gap ahead of her.

As she passed a scrubby gorse bush a bird flew out of it with a squawk and flapping wings, and the girl's horse whipped round and up in alarm. She stayed on with a remarkable effort of balance, pulling herself back up into the saddle from somewhere below the horse's right ear, but under her thrust the stirrup leather broke apart at the bottom, and the stirrup iron itself clanged to the ground.

I stopped and picked up the iron, but it was impossible to put it back on the broken leather.

"Thank you," she said.

"What a nuisance."

She slid off her horse.

"I might as well walk the rest of the way."

I took her rein and began to lead both of the horses, but she stopped me, and took her own back again.

"It's very kind of you," she said, 'but I can quite well lead him myself. " The track was wide at that point, and she began to walk down the hill beside me.

On closer inspection she was not a bit like her sister Patricia. She had smooth silver-blonde hair under a blue head-scarf, fair eyelashes, direct grey eyes, a firm friendly mouth, and a composure which gave her an air of graceful reserve. We walked in easy silence for some way.

"Isn't it a gorgeous morning," she said eventually.

"Gorgeous," I agreed, 'but cold. " The English always talk about the weather, I thought: and a fine day in November is so rare as to be remarked on. It would be hot ting up for summer, at home… " Have you been with the stable long? " she asked, a little farther on.

"Only about ten days."

"And do you like it here?"

"Oh, yes. It's a well-run stable…"

"Mr. Inskip would be delighted to hear you say so," she said in a dry voice.

I glanced at her, but she was looking ahead down the track, and smiling.

After another hundred yards she said, "What horse is that that you were riding? I don't think that I have seen him before, either."

"He only came on Wednesday…" I told her the little I knew about Sparking Plug's history, capabilities, and prospects.

She nodded.

"It will be nice for you if he can win some races.

Rewarding, after your work for him here. "

"Yes," I agreed, surprised that she should think like that.

We reached the last stretch to the stable.

"I am so sorry," she said pleasantly, 'but I don't know your name. "

"Daniel Roke," I said: and I wondered why to her alone of all the people who had asked me that question in the last ten days it had seemed proper to give a whole answer.

"Thank you," she paused: then having thought, continued in a calm voice which I realized with wry pleasure was designed to put me at my ease, "Lord October is my father. I'm Elinor Tarren."

We had reached the stable gate. I stood back to let her go first, which she acknowledged with a friendly but impersonal smile, and she led her horse away across the yard towards its own box. A thoroughly nice girl, I thought briefly, buckling down to the task of brushing the sweat off Sparking Plug, washing his feet, brushing out his mane and tail, sponging out his eyes and mouth, putting his straw bed straight, fetching his hay and water, and then repeating the whole process with the horse that Patricia had ridden. Patricia, I thought, grinning, was not a nice girl at all.

When I went in to breakfast in the cottage Mrs. Allnut gave me a letter which had just arrived for me. The envelope, postmarked in London the day before, contained a sheet of plain paper with a single sentence typed on it.

"Mr. Stanley will be at Victoria Falls three p.m. Sunday."

I stuffed the letter into my pocket, laughing into my porridge.

There was a heavy drizzle falling when I walked up beside the stream the following afternoon. I reached the gully before October, and waited for him with the rain drops finding ways to trickle down my neck. He came down the hill with his dog as before, telling me that his car was parked above us on the little used road.

"But we'd better talk here, if you can stand the wet," he finished, 'in case anyone saw us together in the car, and wondered. "

"I can stand the wet," I assured him, smiling.

"Good… well, how have you been getting on?"

I told him how well I thought of Beckett's new horse and the opportunities it would give me.

He nodded, "Roddy Beckett was famous in the war for the speed and accuracy with which he got supplies moved about. No one ever got the wrong ammunition or all left boots when he was in charge."

I said "I've sown a few seeds of doubts about my honesty, here and there, but I'll be able to do more of that this week at Bristol, and also next weekend, at Burndale. I'm going there on Sunday to play in a darts match."

"They've had several cases of doping in that village in the past," he said thoughtfully.

"You might get a nibble, there."

"It would be useful…"

"Have you found the form books helpful?" he asked.

"Have you given those eleven horses any more thought?"

"I've thought of little else," I said, 'and it seems just possible, perhaps it's only a slight chance, but it does just seem possible that you might be able to make a dope test on the next horse in the sequence before he runs in a race. That is to say, always providing that there is going to be another horse in the sequence. and I don't see why not, as the people responsible have got away with it for so long. "

He looked at me with some excitement, the rain dripping off the down-turned brim of his hat.

"You've found something?"

"No, not really. It's only a statistical indication. But it's more than even money, I think, that the next horse will win a selling 'chase at Kelso, Sedgefield, Ludlow, Stafford, or Haydock." I explained my reasons for expecting this, and went on, "It should be possible to arrange for wholesale saliva samples to be taken before all the selling 'chases on those particular tracks it can't be more than one race at each two-day meeting and they can throw the samples away without going to the expense of testing them if no… er… joker turns up in the pack."