Amber, knowing Harvey-Holden wouldn’t welcome her at Ravenscroft, took advantage of Marius’s absence to ride out at Throstledown on the Saturday morning.
Everyone was transfixed with interest.
‘How in hell did you swing that ride?’ asked Josh, as he legged her up on to a new, worried-looking bay mare called School Fees.
‘Natural talent,’ crowed Amber.
‘You’re mad,’ said Tresa, as they rode out through the drizzle. ‘H-H will murder you, he’s psychotic about anyone involved with Mrs Wilkinson. Marius will murder you for riding one of Shade’s horses, particularly if you beat Rogue and History Painting.’
‘I’ve beaten Rogue often enough,’ scoffed Amber.
Rafiq said nothing. He and Amber had already rowed furiously about her taking the ride.
‘H-H has a different agenda.’
‘Marius should have kept his promise.’
‘Why he promise in first place?’ hissed Rafiq, who had heard rumours of goings-on at Stratford.
As they pounded up the gallops, past bleached fields and beech trees flashing their silver trunks and crows’ nests in the rising sun, Amber really got to work on young School Fees.
‘Go easy,’ shouted Josh in his new role as head lad, as he caught up with her. ‘You’re not riding a race yet.’
‘I’m not getting a chance to ride Bullydozer beforehand,’ shouted back Amber, who had been studying videos of the horse with declining confidence. He looked a brute and a huge one at that.
As they rode home, a deer shot out of a copse, School Fees spooked and Amber, who’d been fretting about seeing Rogue again, flew through the air. There was a sickening crunch as she landed in the long blond grasses, then pain blotted out all thoughts of Rogue. Suppressing a groan and cursing, she struggled to her feet as Rafiq, who’d caught School Fees, cantered back, his face full of concern.
‘You OK?’
‘Absolutely fine.’
‘Let me look.’ He jumped off.
‘It’s OK for fuck’s sake,’ lied Amber, her wrist aloft. She couldn’t miss the ride of a lifetime.
By the time she got to Wincanton, her wrist was agony and very swollen. She didn’t let on to Tommy or Rafiq, who would have stopped her riding. Instead she took four Nurofen and swore Awesome Wells to secrecy.
‘Are you sure you’re up to it? Bullydozer pulls double, no, quadruple,’ warned a worried Awesome as he bound up her wrist with vet wrap behind the lorry. ‘I must remember not to tell Bertie that new mare Marius sold him, which I’ve got to ride in the two forty-five, is fucking useless.’
So’s my wrist, thought Amber.
Having weighed out, in return for Shade’s magenta and orange silks, she handed over her saddle to Harvey-Holden. She was shocked by the venom in his twitching, sallow face, the quivering hands itching to throttle her, the acid sourness of his breath.
‘It’ll be the last time you wear these colours,’ he hissed. ‘What in hell did you give Shade to get this ride? You may be OK on clapped-out donkeys. Bullydozer’s in a different league. You just see how you fuck up,’ and he was gone.
Jolted to the core, Amber managed to wriggle into her body protector and the silks, pulling the sleeves down over her vet wrap and wrist brace, before the valet helped her on with her breeches, boots and helmet. In the mirror her face was grey and sweating. Was she insane to carry on?
Then Rogue erupted into the weighing room in just dark blue underpants and leapt on to the scales.
‘Traffic’s so bad, I had to undress in the car and streak through the car park,’ he told his grinning valet, who was waiting with his racing clothes.
In order to put on the transparent ladies’ tights jockeys wear under their breeches, Rogue whipped off his dark blue underpants. Amber fled.
Entering the paddock in a haze of pain, she saw Bullydozer, a huge dark bay bucking bronco. Michelle and Vakil stood on either side of him, hanging on to a lead rope attached to a vicious bit.
Michelle, with Harvey-Holden’s encouragement, had confined Bullydozer to his box for two days and stuffed him with oats. This had necessitated Vakil twice clouting him across the head with a spade before they could get a bridle on him earlier. Determined to win the turnout, Michelle had also rubbed baby oil into his face, which made it shine but had also made his reins slippery.
Bullydozer was the biggest horse in the paddock and demonstrably the most bloody-minded and out of control.
‘How’s Wilkie, how’s Chisolm?’ the punters called out to Amber.
‘Left them at home.’
Billowing black clouds promised rain any minute. There was Shade,