Proof - By Dick Francis Page 0,62
racecard, for the best turned-out horse.
‘It’s too bad,’ Orkney said impatiently. ‘We should be in the parade ring already.’ He turned away sharply and stalked off in that direction, leaving Isabella, Flora and me to follow as we would.
Isabella looked stoically unaffected. Flora began to scurry after Orkney but I caught her abruptly by the arm, knowing he’d think less of her for hurrying, not more.
‘Slow down, slow down, the jockeys aren’t out yet.’
‘Oh. All right, then.’ She looked guilty as much as flustered, and walked with small jerky steps between the long-legged Isabella and myself as we joined Orkney in the parade ring, no later than any other owner-trainer group.
Orkney was still in the grip of his outburst of bad temper, which failed to abate when Breezy Palm finally appeared in the ring looking polished. The jockey, approaching it seemed to me unsmilingly out of past experience, was sarcastically told not to leave his winning run as bloody late as last time and not to go to sleep in the stalls, if he didn’t mind.
The featherweight jockey listened expressionlessly, his gaze on the ground, his body relaxed. He’s heard it all before, I thought, and he simply doesn’t care. I wondered, if I’d been a jockey, whether I would have ridden my heart out for owners who spoke in that way, and concluded that possibly not. Breezy Palm’s uncertain prospects developed a certainty for me at that moment: and I wondered what Orkney would be like in defeat when he was so obnoxious in hope.
The bell rang for the jockeys to mount. Breezy Palm’s jockey nodded to Orkney and went away with Orkney still telling him that if he used his whip too much he’d have him up in front of the stewards.
Flora was standing so close to me she was virtually clinging on. When Orkney turned away and strode out of the parade ring without waiting for Isabella or to see his horse mounted she said to me shakily, ‘Jack manages him, but I can’t. Jack stops him being so rude to the jockeys. One of them refused to ride his horses… can you imagine?’
‘Mm,’ I said. ‘Do we have to go up to the box to watch the race ?’
‘Oh, my goodness, yes,’ she said emphatically. ‘At least… I mean… you don’t have to… I could go alone.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
I looked around for the decorative Isabella, but she too had disappeared.
‘They’ve both gone to bet,’ Flora said, sighing. ‘Jack said the opposition was stiff… I’m so afraid Breezy Palm won’t win.’
We went up in the lift to the empty box. The sandwiches and tartlets were still wrapped, but the gin level had dropped considerably since we had arrived. Gin itself, I reflected, was a notorious inducer, in some people, of catty ill-humour.
Flora and I went onto the balcony to see the runners go down to the start, and Orkney arrived breathlessly, moving in front of us without apology, raising his binoculars to see what sins his jockey might already be committing. Isabella collectedly arrived with her clutched tickets and I glanced at the flickering light of the Tote board to see Breezy Palm’s odds. Seven to one; by no means favourite but fairly well backed.
There were eighteen runners, several of them past winners. Breezy Palm, well drawn, went into the stalls quietly and showed no signs of re-assaulting the assistant starter. Orkney’s slightly frantic agitation stilled suddenly to concentration and in the six-furlong distance the dark green starting gates opened in unison and spilled out their brilliant accelerating rainbow cargo.
Flora raised her own small raceglasses but I doubted if she could see much for trembling. Three-quarter-mile straight races were in any case difficult to read in the early stages as the runners were so far away and coming straight towards one, and it took me a fair time myself to sort out Orkney’s jockey in red and grey. The commentator, rattling off names,hadn’t mentioned Breezy Palm at all by the time they reached half-way but I could see him there, bobbing along in the pack, making no move either forward or backward, proving merely at that stage that he was no better and no worse than his opponents.
Flora gave up the struggle with her raceglasses, lowered them, and watched the last two furlongs simply with anxiety. The bunch of runners which had seemed to be moving slowly was suddenly perceived to be flying, the tiny foreshortened distances from first to last stretching before one’s eyes to gaps