with a string of successes behind him, and his race on that day was a much publicised, much sponsored two-mile event which had cut up, as big-prize races tended occasionally to do, into no more than six runners: Icefall at the top of the handicap, the other five at the bottom, the centre block having decided to duck out for less taxing contests.
Icefall was an easy horse to ride, as willing as his brother and naturally courageous, and the only foreseeable problem was the amount of weight he carried in relation to the others: twenty pounds and more. Wykeham never liked his horses to be front runners and had tried to dissuade me sometimes from running Icefall in that way; but the horse positively preferred it and let me know it at every start, and even with the weights so much against us, when the tapes went up we were there where he wanted to be, setting the pace.
I’d learned in my teens from an American flat-race jockey how to start a clock in my head, to judge the speed of each section of the race against the clock, and to judge how fast I could go in each section in order to finish at or near the horse’s own best time for the distance.
Icefall’s best time for two miles at Ascot at almost the same weights on the same sort of wet ground was three minutes forty-eight seconds, and I set out to take him to the finish line in precisely that period, and at a more or less even speed the whole way.
It seemed to the crowd on the stands, I was told afterwards, that I’d set off too fast, that some of the lightweights would definitely catch me; but I’d looked up their times also in the form book, and none of them had ever completed two miles as fast as I aimed to.
All Icefall had to do was jump with perfection, and that he did, informing me of his joy in mid-air at every hurdle. The lightweights never came near us, and we finished ahead, without slackening, by eight lengths, a margin that would do Icefall’s handicap no good at all next time out.
Maybe, I thought, pulling up and patting the grey neck hugely, it would have been better for the future not to have won by so far, but the present was what mattered, and with those weights one couldn’t take risks.
The princess was flushed and laughing and delighted, and as usual intensified my own pleasure in winning. Victories for glum and grumbling owners were never so sweet.
‘My friends say it’s sacrilege,’ she said, ‘for a top-weight to set off so fast and try to make all the running after rain like yesterday’s. They were pitying me up in the box, telling me you were mad.’
I smiled at her, unbuckling my saddle. ‘When he jumps like today, he can run this course even on wet gound in three minutes forty-eight seconds. That’s what we did, more or less.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You planned it! You didn’t tell me. I didn’t expect you to go off so fast, even though he likes it in front.’
‘If he’d made a hash of any of the hurdles, I’d have looked a right idiot.’ I patted the grey neck over and over. ‘He understands racing,’ I said. ‘He’s a great horse to ride. Very generous. He enjoys it.’
‘You talk as if horses were people,’ Danielle said, standing behind her aunt, listening.
‘Yes, they are,’ I said. ‘Not human, but individuals, all different.’
I took the saddle in and sat on the scales, and changed into other colours and weighed out again for the next race. Then put the princess’s colours back on, on top of the others, and went out bareheaded for the sponsors’ presentations.
Lord Vaughnley was among the crowd round the sponsors’ table of prizes, and he came straight over to me when I went out.
‘My dear chap, what a race! I thought you’d gone off your rocker, I’m sorry to say. Now, you are coming to our box, aren’t you? Like we agreed?’
He was a puzzle. His grey eyes smiled blandly in the big face, full of friendliness, empty of guile.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thank you. After the fifth race, when I’ll have finished for the day, if that’s all right?’
Lady Vaughnley appeared at his elbow, reinforcing the invitation. ‘Delighted to have you. Do come.’
The princess, overhearing, said, ‘Come along to me after,’ taking my compliance for granted, not expecting an answer.