steady and still she battled on, hearing the crowd yelling, ‘Wilkie, Wilkie, Wilkie.’
Even when a sixth sense told her Killer was creeping up again, she found more and more, scrabbling at the boggy turf with her little feet, beating Last Quango by a length. Bullydozer, who’d fallen away, wasn’t even placed.
The syndicate went crazy. Even more so did Rafiq. ‘It’s a dream, it’s massive,’ he told Alice Plunkett as he gave Mrs Wilkinson equally massive pats, ‘no money in the world can make up for it,’ massive pat, ‘she’s tiny, but she’s so tough,’ massive pat, ‘she’s a credit to her connections. I thank them for their faith in me,’ massive pat. ‘Marius is great trainer, and Tommy Ruddock keeps her so well,’ massive pat, ‘she has one eye only but biggest heart in the world. This is best day of my life,’ three massive pats, ‘I am speechless.’
‘Oh Rafiq, oh Wilkie.’ Tommy and Chisolm hurtled up, sobbing and bleating. ‘You rode her brilliant, she was so brave. That Killer ought to be shot. Both he and Johnnie were interfering with her, but she held on and you kept her straight.’
But Rafiq had been distracted by Killer riding back.
‘What do you do that for?’ he howled, all jockey hierarchy forgotten.
‘You needed a lesson, new boy,’ hissed Killer. ‘Don’t mess with me again, you little shit, or it’ll really hurt. Fucking suicide bomber.’
Rafiq raised his fist.
‘Don’t hit him,’ cried Tommy. ‘Marius will sort it.’
This wasn’t good enough for Mrs Wilkinson, who, swinging her head round, took a chunk out of Bullydozer. The much bigger horse shrank away, utterly exhausted, terrified of the beatings to come.
‘Listen how they love Rafiq,’ said Phoebe in delight as he and Wilkie were cheered back to the winners enclosure. ‘It isn’t just Amber who pulls in the crowds.’
Valent, who’d interrupted a board meeting in New York to watch the race, immediately rang Etta.
‘Bluddy marvellous, Rafiq was awesome, he kept his cool and her on her feet. She looked bewildered. Well done for suggesting him, Etta.’
Marius stalked off to complain. Trilbies crowded the hat stand of that home of the establishment, the stewards’ room. Gone were the days of a whisky between races. Now only coffee cups and papers littered the long, polished table.
‘That was dangerous both for Rafiq and Mrs Wilkinson,’ shouted Marius at the men sitting round it. ‘Killer cut across her, bumped her again and again and slashed at her good eye with his whip. Then Johnnie Brutus took over. Killer should be suspended for the rest of the season and Johnnie too. Bloody hooligans.’
Alas, the Stipendiary Steward, who was a friend of Harvey-Holden, wouldn’t shift. Nor was there any way he was going to suspend Killer just before the Cheltenham Festival.
‘We’ve made our decision. Mrs Wilkinson was given the race. Nothing Killer did altered the placings. Your jockey’s the green one, Mrs Wilkinson was hanging left into Killer’s whip. Look at the video.’
Then came the unkindest cut of all.
‘Wait till you’re back with the big boys, Marius, before you start throwing your weight about.’
Back at Ravenscroft, Harvey-Holden, shivering and spitting with fury that Mrs Wilkinson had won yet again, went into Bullydozer’s box with a whip and a mad, set face.
Next moment, Bullydozer had him against the feed box. Just in time, Vakil dragged his boss to safety.
‘That horse is going to the sales next week,’ screeched Harvey-Holden.
‘Bullet through the head if you ask me,’ said Vakil.
*
Valent, who was delighted by Rafiq’s victory, sent him £500, which he sent straight to his family in Pakistan. Valent also sent £300 to Tommy, who wrote to thank him and suggested he bought Bullydozer.
‘Jessie, who does him, says Harvey-Holden’s got it in for him. Vakil hit him with a shovel yesterday and he’s done a leg, but he’s a good horse …’
Under an assumed name, Valent bought Bullydozer very cheaply at the sales. Arriving at Throstledown, the huge horse gave a sigh of relief, ate and ate, put on eight kilos in two days and stopped biting people. By contrast Jude the Obese, as WOO’s guinea pig, had lost eight kilos as she and Martin pounded the Willowwood lanes.
Realizing Marius had been on the brink of sacking him before his win, Rafiq tried to be more amiable and co-operative in the yard. But it was not easy.
He was constantly aware of the government continuing to bomb and destroy the social fabric of two Muslim countries. He had recently, on the internet, watched a film of American