green and white Pakistani flag round Rafiq’s shoulders before throwing her arms round Furious, who was so amazed by the cheering crowds he forgot to bite her. Nor was he even fazed by the deafening roar that greeted Wilkie when she emerged from the screens.
Nearly as loud a cheer went up as Marius emerged with his arm round Amber. As the Mitsubishi dropped them both off at the medical room, Edward Gillespie, Cheltenham’s charismatic managing director, tapped Marius on the shoulder. ‘You’re wanted in the winners enclosure,’ he said with a smile. ‘Your other jockey’s talking to connections.’
Slowly it dawned on a dazed Marius that he might have won the Gold Cup.
The loudspeaker had announced a stewards’ inquiry; punters had been advised to hang on to their betting slips. Killer and Johnnie Brutus were in the stewards’ room, about to be banned for extremely careless riding and interfering with Mrs Wilkinson. Killer was employing all his thespian skills to persuade the Stipendiary Steward that Mrs Wilkinson, with an inexperienced rider on her back, had been wandering all over the place. Difficult not to cut her up.
‘Listen,’ Killer kept saying, ‘listen.’
‘I’ve done quite enough of that already,’ snapped the Stipe, who was not looking forward to the blazing row he would have next, when he suspended Rogue for infringement. The groundsman had not only undone Lusty’s girths but also removed his saddle, which made it no longer possible for Rogue to weigh in or Lusty to come second.
To complicate matters, Furious’s victory, as a rank outsider running way above his handicap, was so unexpected that as a formality he’d have to be dope tested in the sampling unit after the presentation.
With two Cotswold Huntsmen flanking him, Pakistani flag around his shoulders and the broadest grin splitting his face, touching his hat shyly to acknowledge rather muted cheers, an utterly dazed Rafiq had been led into the winners enclosure by a joyful, still tearful Trixie and an ecstatic Valent punching the air.
Furious, still enchanted by all the applause, neither kicked nor bit anyone. Marius the reticent also found himself being hugged by everyone, so he hugged everyone back and, as they all posed for photographs, informed the seething media that Wilkie and Amber were both all right.
‘Tommo told me to enjoy the moment,’ sighed Trixie, hugging Valent. ‘Oh, thank you for giving me this chance.’
Finally, after what seemed an eternity but was only twenty minutes, the loudspeaker crackled.
‘Here is the result of the Cheltenham Gold Cup: first Furious; second Squiffey Liffey; third Internetso; fourth Ilkley Hall.’
A jubilant Valent, taking Ryan, Diane and the grandchildren with him, went up and accepted the Gold Cup from the Princess Royal, whom he admired because she worked as hard as he did. The Gold Cup turned out to be a gleaming golden bowl with bites out of the rim as though Furious had enjoyed a good supper out of it.
A shell-shocked Marius went up next for a smaller Gold Cup and a louder cheer for a great trainer who’d come back after too long in the wilderness. A large police presence moved in, security guards fingering their guns, as Rafiq, the first Muslim to win the Gold Cup, received a little gold replica and told the Princess, ‘Furious is so honest.’ Finally they were joined by Trixie, in her purple and green striped jacket with her black plait unravelling, who accepted a silver photograph frame to a chorus of wolf whistles.
But as Marius stepped down from the platform, Rogue, who hated stipes because they treated jockeys like other ranks, and who had come out of the stewards’ room with the possibility of being banned until long after the Grand National, clinched the matter by ducking under the rails and hitting Marius across the winners enclosure.
‘Keep your hands off Amber, you fokker,’ he howled.
‘How dare you hit my daddy,’ screamed little India Oakridge, rushing up and kicking Rogue on the shins.
Rogue was about to be arrested by the posse of policemen watching Rafiq when he was grabbed by Rupert Campbell-Black roaring, ‘Come here, you little bastard,’ and dragging him off to perdition.
‘Nothing much wrong with Rogue’s shoulder,’ observed Awesome. ‘That cold treatment works wonders.’
Meanwhile Phoebe, who’d spent a fortune on a rocking horse for Bump, and Corinna, wearing a vast turquoise Cavalier hat trimmed with a plume of Prussian blue feathers, had fought their way back from the shops. Having earlier heard the roars of ‘Wilkie, Wilkie, Wilkie,’ they had assumed Mrs Wilkinson had won and were