Bolt - By Dick Francis Page 0,43

times over practice jumps on Wykeham’s gallops, I hadn’t been able to teach him courage. He went round the whole way letting me know he hated it, and I had difficulty thinking of anything encouraging to say to his owners afterwards. A horse that didn’t like racing was a waste of time, a waste of money and a waste of emotion: better to sell him quick and try again. I put it as tactfully as possible, but the owners shook their heads doubtfully and said they would ask Wykeham.

The second of Wykeham’s runners finished nowhere also, not from unwillingness, as he was kind-hearted and sure-footed, but from being nowhere near fast enough against the opposition.

I went out for the princess’s race with a low joie de vivre rating, a feeling not cured by seeing Danielle walk into the parade ring holding onto Litsi’s arm and laughing.

The princess, who had been in the ring first, after seeing her horse saddled, followed my gaze and gently tapped my arm.

‘She’s in a muddle,’ she said distinctly. ‘Give her time.’

I looked at the princess’s blue eyes, half hidden as usual behind reticent lashes. She must have felt very strongly that I needed advice, or she wouldn’t have given it.

I said, ‘All right,’ with an unloosened jaw, and she briefly nodded, turning to greet the others.

‘Where’s Beatrice?’ she asked, looking in vain behind them. ‘Didn’t she come down?’

‘She said it was too cold. She stayed up in the box,’ Litsi said: and to me, he added, ‘Do we put our money on?’

Col, the princess’s runner, was stalking round in his navy blue gold-crested rug, looking bored. He was a horse of limited enthusiasm, difficult to ride because if he reached the front too soon he would lose interest and stop, and if one left the final run too late and got beaten, one looked and felt a fool.

‘Don’t back him,’ I said. It was that sort of day.

‘Yes, back him,’ the princess said simultaneously.

‘Frightfully helpful,’ Litsi commented, amused.

Col was a bright chestnut with a white blaze down his nose and three white socks. As with most of the horses Wykeham was particularly hoping to win with at Cheltenham, Col probably wouldn’t reach his absolute pinnacle of fitness until the National Hunt Festival in another two weeks, but he should be ready enough for Ascot, a slightly less testing track.

At Cheltenham, he was entered for the Gold Cup, the top event of the meeting, and although not a hot fancy, as Coto-paxi had been for the Grand National, he had a realistic chance of being placed.

‘Do your best,’ the princess said, as she often did, and as usual I said yes, I would. Dusty gave me a leg-up and I cantered Col down to the start trying to wind up a bit of life-force for us both. A gloomy jockey on a bored horse might as well go straight back to the stable.

By the time we started, I was telling him we were out there to do a job of work, and to take a little pride in it, talking to myself as much as him; and by the third of the twenty-two fences, there were some faint stirrings in both of us of the ebb turning to flood.

Most of the art of jump racing lay in presenting a horse at a fence so that he could cross it without slowing. Col was one of the comparatively rare sort that could judge distances on his own, leaving his jockey free to worry about tactics, but he would never quicken unless one insisted, and had no personal competitive drive.

I’d ridden and won on him often and understood his needs, and knew that by the end I’d have to dredge up the one wild burst of all-out urging which might wake up his phlegmatic soul.

I dare say that from the stands nothing looked wrong. Even though to me Col seemed to be plodding, his plod was respectably fast. We travelled most of the three miles in fourth or fifth place and came up into third on the last bend when two of the early leaders tired.

There were three fences still to go, with the two hundred and forty yard run-in after. One of the horses ahead was still chock-full of running: it was his speed Col would have to exceed. The jockey on the other already had his whip up and was no doubt feeling the first ominous warning that the steam was running out of the boiler.