Bolt - By Dick Francis Page 0,66

two horses in mid-air, landing on the downhill slope with precision and skimming speed, going round the bend into the back straight in second place.

The seven fences along there were so designed that if one met the first right, one met them all right, like traffic lights. The trick was to judge one’s distance a good way back from the first, to make any adjustments early, so that when one’s mount reached the fence he was in the right place for jumping without shortening or lengthening his stride. It was a skill learned young by all successful jockeys, becoming second nature. Abseil took a hint, shortened one stride, galloped happily on, and soared over the first of the seven fences with perfection.

The decision had been made almost unconsciously. I couldn’t do anything else. What I was, what I could do, lay there in front of me, and even for Danielle I couldn’t deny it.

Abseil took the lead from the favourite at the second of the seven fences, and I sent him mental messages – ‘Go on there, go for it, pull the stops out, this is the way it is, and you’re going to get your chance, I am as I am and I can’t help it, this is living … get on and fly.’

He flew the open ditch and then the water jump. He sailed over the last three fences on the far side. He was in front by a good thirty yards all the way round the last bend.

Three more fences.

He had his ears pricked, enjoying himself. Caution had long lost the battle, in his mind as in mine. He went over the first of them at full racing pace, and over the second, and over the last of all with me almost lying on his neck to keep up with him, weight forward, head near his head.

He tired very fast on the hill, as I’d feared he would. I had to keep him balanced, but I could feel him begin to flounder and waver and tell me he’d gone far enough.

‘Come on, hang on to it, we’ve almost made it, just keep on, keep going you old bugger, we’re not losing it now, we’re so near, so get on …’

I could hear the crowd yelling, which one usually couldn’t. I could hear another horse coming behind me, hooves thudding. I could see him in my peripheral vision, the jockey’s arm swinging high in the air as he scented Abseil flagging … and the winning post came just in time for me that time, not three strides too late.

Abseil was proud of himself, as he deserved to be. I patted his neck hugely and told him he was OK, he’d done a good job of work, he was a truly great fellow, and he trotted back towards the unsaddling enclosure with his ears still pricked and his fetlocks springy.

The princess was flushed and pleased in the way she always was after close races.

I slid to the ground, smiled at her, and began to unbuckle the girths.

‘Is that,’ she said, without censure, ‘what you call being gentle?’

‘I’d call it compulsion,’ I said.

Abseil was practically bowing to the crowd, knowing the applause had been his. I patted his neck again, thanking him. He tossed his grey head, turning it to look at me with both eyes, blowing down his nostrils, nodding again.

‘They talk to you,’ the princess said.

‘Some of them.’

I looped the girths round my saddle, and turned to go in to weigh in, and found Maynard Allardeck standing directly in my path, much as Henri Nanterre had done at Newbury. Maynard’s hatred came across loud and clear.

I stopped. I never liked speaking to him, because anything I said gave him offence. One of us was going to have to give way, and it was going to be me, because in any sort of confrontation between a Steward and a jockey, the jockey would lose.

‘Why, Mr Allardeck,’ said the princess, stepping to my side, ‘are you congratulating me? Wasn’t that a delightful win?’

Maynard took off his hat and manfully said he was delighted she’d been lucky, especially as her jockey had come to the front far too soon and nearly thrown away the race on the run-in.

‘Oh, but Mr Allardeck,’ I heard her saying sweetly as I side-stepped Maynard politely and headed for the weighing room door, ‘if he hadn’t opened up such a lead he couldn’t have hung on to win.’

She wasn’t only a great lady, I thought gratefully,