Rafiq had cried and cried when Furious was taken away. Even though trainers were offering him rides, the media were avid to interview him and agents desperate to handle him, he could hardly force himself up in the morning, he was missing Furious so much.
Tommy soldiered on but bled inside, missing Wilkie, desperately sorry for Marius, spurned by Rafiq. Trixie was devastated. Her difficult but endearing charge had been whipped away. None of Marius’s other horses had the same appeal. Eddie promised he would put in a word when Rupert came back from Dubai.
The papers, however, which had led on Glorious Furious’s spectacular victory on Saturday and spent endless column inches working out why Mrs Wilkinson fell at three out, were by Tuesday slagging off Valent and Rupert for taking the horses away from Marius. Both men were getting hate mail.
Marius, however, was a gentleman. He had already given Rupert details of the fads and feeding habits of Furious and Wilkie, although he forgot to mention the tricks she did for a Polo. When he heard from Dora that both horses were going into a decline, he offered to lend Tommy, Rafiq and Chisolm to Rupert until after the National. The move wasn’t entirely altruistic. He was fed up with Rafiq’s tantrums, and he wanted his horses, particularly Sir Cuthbert who was entered for the National, to get some sleep.
It was a measure of Tommy and Rafiq, and particularly their love for Wilkie and Furious, that they were prepared to go and work for the hated enemy. But despite young Eddie’s pleas, there was no way Rupert was going to allow a schoolgirl like Trixie loose in his yard.
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Rupert tolerated Tommy and Chisolm moving in, but he didn’t want the moody, darkly resentful Rafiq, who looked at him with such loathing, muttering what sounded like curses under his breath. Rupert’s sweet wife Taggie had made matters worse by insisting ‘poor Tommy and Rafiq’ stay in the house. ‘It’s only for a few days, and they must be so devastated losing both Mrs Wilkinson and Furious.’
On the first morning, a silent, sullen Rafiq sat in Rupert’s Land-Rover watching Mrs Wilkinson and Furious being taken over National-size fences in a tiny forty-by-twenty-metre school to teach them to jump more carefully. Neither of them performed well with Eddie Alderton. Rafiq expressed disapproval of Mrs Wilkinson being restricted by a cross noseband and a ring bit.
‘A great jockey called Terry Biddlecombe,’ Rupert felt he was being extremely decent to explain, ‘travelled five miles in a four and a half Grand National because his horse wandered. Mrs Wilkinson hangs left; she’s got to learn to run straight.’
Mrs Wilkinson looked listless, then terrified as they moved on to Rupert’s uphill gallop, and Eddie, his feet practically touching the ground on either side, got out his bat to make her go faster.
A horrified Rafiq dropped his guard:
‘You are crazy. If you knock her about she stop trying, and Furious, I know he seem vicious but he is insecure and if he’s threatened he get more angry. Both horses need treating gentle.’
‘Both horses need experienced riders on their backs,’ snapped Rupert.
‘That’s why he win Gold Cup with me,’ spat Rafiq. ‘And you should put Amber back on Mrs Wilkinson. They are twin soul.’
‘Amber is beautifully balanced and controlled going over fences. But she lacks the power to hold up and to force a finish.’
Why, wondered Rupert, was he bothering to justify himself to this arrogant little shit?
Reaching the top of the gallops, they were greeted by a wonderful view of fields and donkey-brown woodland in a geometric pattern of stone walls stretching to the horizon. Spring seemed to have gone into retreat as a bitter east wind flattened the grass and Rupert’s long lake had gone grey, mirroring the lowering skies above.
Leaping out of the Land-Rover to escape Rupert’s antagonism, Rafiq gasped at the cold, then gasped in horror as Eddie Alderton suddenly swung Mrs Wilkinson off the gallops, straight down the rollercoaster ride. Now Eddie whooped and yelled, and it was Mrs Wilkinson’s turn to be terrified so witless she closed her eye until she reached the bottom. If it had not been for the pain caused by the ring bit, she would have scraped Eddie off by running under the branches of the nearby beech. Next moment Tommy came panting up.
‘How dare you!’ she shouted at Eddie. ‘How could you be so cruel! You’ll set her back years. Don’t you