Mount! (56 page)

‘I can’t believe you and Taggie hadn’t discussed it,’ said Geraldine bitchily.

And Rupert thought for the millionth time how much he’d love to sack her, if only she hadn’t been so efficient. Being away so much, he needed her to cover things.

‘Rupert’s furious I’m not going,’ a distraught Taggie told Jan.

‘Don’t worry, mam, he’ll understand once he appreciates what a great party you’ve organized for him. We could never have got it together if he’d been around. That’s neat.’ He picked up a sugar bat Taggie had made, and swooped it around the room. ‘Don’t cry, mam.’

Glancing back as he stalked towards the yard, Rupert saw the fucking poofter’s arm around Taggie.

Gala, who’d also rowed with Rupert, had taken her one weekend off in four to stay in London with an aunt visiting from Zimbabwe.

Yet knowing Rupert was due back this morning, she had washed her hair and splashed Bluebell, a lovely new scent she’d treated herself to, behind her ears. Her heart somersaulted with excitement as she and Quickly reached the bottom of the gallops on his last workout before flying to America. There was
Rupert’s Land Rover parked outside the Love Tower, whose windows he’d opened so he could tell if any passing horse had breathing problems. As third lot thundered by, Rupert was delighted. Hardly moving out of a canter, Quickly beat the yard’s best by ten lengths. Gala rode beautifully, reminding him of Fenella Maxwell, his showjumping teammate in Santa Anita.

As she rode back, Rupert came out of the Love Tower and beckoned her over. Quickly, hardly blowing, took a bite out of his dark-blue jersey. Despite the freezing day, Rupert had been so cross with Taggie and Jan, he’d stormed out without a coat.

‘Quickly’s really well,’ said Gala.

‘I hope so.’ Looking up, Rupert noticed the cold just gave a glow to her golden skin, whereas English girls tended to turn red or purple. Telling Louise, who was riding back on Touchy Filly, to take Quickly home and put two rugs on him, he took Gala back into the Love Tower. Worrying how Quickly would cope with a long flight, the heat of California, and with the incredible whooping din of an American crowd, he felt the colt needed people he loved around him.

‘I don’t know if I’m crazy,’ he told Gala, ‘but I’ve entered Quickly in the Classic,’ which was the biggest race.

‘But that’s on dirt. Quickly’s never run on dirt and he detests having mud in his face.’

‘Exactly. He hates it so much, he’ll bolt to the front.’

While she had been away, explained Rupert, Cathal and Gav had taken Quickly with half a dozen others for a racecourse gallop on the all-weather at Southwell, where the Fibresand surface was very similar to dirt.

‘Quickly loathed the kickback so much, nothing could catch him.’

‘Dirt’s even worse, particularly if it rains.’

‘Exactly, so he’ll run even faster.’

‘Why can’t he run on the Turf as planned?’

Rupert glanced out of the window across the valley, where a once grey, now white stallion in a dark-blue rug was hanging over the fence in search of someone to chat to.

‘Because the Classic has a larger five-million-dollar purse. If
Repay wins the Turf, he’ll be almost too far ahead in the Global Sire charts for Love Rat to catch him.’

‘Poor Quickly,’ sighed Gala.

‘He’s tough, he’s the fastest horse on the planet and at least Gav and Bao have got him used to loading on to a plane, but he needs people around who he trusts and loves. I want you to come to Santa Anita.’

Gala glanced up, amazed. Yet Rupert seemed completely serious. ‘I’d love to. But aren’t Cathal, Louise and Clover already going?’

‘Marketa’s gone to Melbourne with Fleance, and Gav’ll be pushing off to the sales, so he won’t be around to disapprove.’

‘Disapprove?’ Had she heard Rupert right? ‘Are you sure?’

‘Very.’

‘Then I’d absolutely adore to.’

‘Good.’ Then, closing the Love Tower window, ‘We don’t want fourth lot to overhear any heavy breathing.’

As Gala laughed, he took her face in ice-cold hands, studying it for a second, then kissing her. The cleanness of his mouth, the lazily exploring tongue felt so right. As fourth lot thundered by, she opened her eyes for a second, to find his eyes tight shut.

‘We mustn’t,’ she mumbled, pulling away. ‘I love Taggie.’

‘So do I. But she’s refusing to come to Santa Anita, some fatuous Halloween party. So you’re coming instead.’

Gala felt dreadfully guilty, not levelling with him about the surprise party, but she had been sworn to secrecy.

‘What about Gropius?’

‘He can stay with our dogs. We’ll have to watch it. Helen left me, thank God, in the middle of LA Olympics. If I return without Taggie, the paps will be everywhere, so I’ll put you in the hotel where Gav and the jockeys are staying.’

‘Is it too risky?’ Gala glanced out as Tarqui and Chekov hurtled past.

‘No, it’s worth it.’

Drawing her towards him, feeling for her breasts, kissing her neck, breathing in Bluebell with all its promise of spring, he murmured, ‘Etta and Valent will chaperone us.’

Valent Edwards loved coming home, creeping up to the window and finding his wife waltzing around the room to Classic FM with Gwenny the cat in her arms. Even to watch Quickly in the Breeders’ Cup, he knew she loathed leaving Mrs Wilkinson, Chisolm, Gwenny, Priceless and her garden.

Etta was relieved they’d be back for Guy Fawkes Day. Priceless was terrified of fireworks – so, for that matter, was she, still nervous of pyrotechnic Rupert and glad Taggie would be with them to smooth things over. Dora and Paris, who were pet-sitting, had promised to let Wilkie, such a proud mother, and Chisolm watch Quickly’s race.

Back in the office at Penscombe, they were wrestling with endless Breeders’ Cup documents, and insurance forms to be filled in, providing photographs and fingerprints for racecourse passes, wading through endless regulations about drug abuse and not using growth hormones or animal venoms, aware that a horse, even after a 3,000-mile flight, would be scratched if anything weren’t adhered to.

‘And when you think how they pump their horses full of stuff,’ exploded Geraldine.

Dora was giggling over the handbook: ‘“
All runners must meet the starter to make him aware of any special needs
”. Sex and Polos in Quickly’s case. Oh, and listen to this. “Geldings are allowed twenty nanograms of testosterone”.’

‘Gav could do with that,’ sighed Louise.

‘Oh look.’ Dora turned the page. ‘“If you win the Breeders’ Cup Classic, you receive a high-performance cooler.” What’s that supposed to be?’

‘Those two could do with some cooling down,’ muttered Louise, as Rupert drove Gala back to the yard.

‘Do you think they’re having it off?’ asked Dora.

‘Not yet, but he drank from her bottle of water at a meeting the other day without wiping the top.’

‘Hum. I’m going to pinch Old Eddie’s badge, saying
Old Men Make Better Lovers
, and give it to Rupert for his birthday.’

There was feverish excitement in the yard when it was revealed that Gala was going to Santa Anita and not Taggie.

‘You must keep an eye out and tell me what’s going on,’ Dora begged Louise, who would be setting out with Gala, Clover and Cathal the following day. This was a week before the Breeders’ Cup kicked off, so the horses could get used to the climate and time changes. The Classic was run at 12.55 a.m., English time, when Quickly would normally be tucked up in bed. Also, because it was intended that Quickly should make-all in the Classic, which meant shooting to the front and staying there, he wouldn’t need a pacemaker, so Rupert had decided to leave Bitsy at home.

‘I do hope he doesn’t miss Bitsy and Purrpuss too much, particularly on the plane,’ said a worried Gala.

‘He’ll have Delectable – and get him
Seabiscuit
as an in-flight movie,’ suggested Dora.

It turned out to be boiling hot in Santa Anita, but the stables were beautifully air-conditioned. In the first forty-eight hours in quarantine, Team Penscombe had to wear white space suits and shower when they went in and out. The horses also were only allowed Breeders’ Cup food and water. Gala was worried how Quickly would adjust to the American custom of runners being led down to the post by a rider on a pony who wasn’t Safety Car. Out of quarantine and cantering on the Wednesday, he met his ‘pony person’, a jolly old cowboy called Paul with a skewbald mare called Minnie, whom Quickly promptly fell in love with, so he didn’t mind being ponied at all.

Louise, Clover and Gala meanwhile were having a lovely time; Lou-easy at the prospect of thirty-one veterinarians tending the foreign horses, Gala at the thought of Rupert arriving. They’d also been to Hollywood and Disneyland where they’d swum with dolphins and Clover had danced with Mickey Mouse.

Most of all they were enraptured by Santa Anita, which must be the most beautiful racecourse in the world. Eighteen miles from Hollywood, stands for 80,000 racegoers look across an oval track with phenomenally sharp bends. Within the cinnamon-brown dirt track lies the acid-green turf track, and inside that, rhubarb-pink buildings, so from the air the whole thing resembles an avocado and salmon roulade. Beyond the
tracks lie green barns, housing the horses, against the theatrical backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains, rearing up as purple as the ubiquitous Breeders’ Cup jackets. Everywhere could be seen the lovely Breeders’ Cup symbol of a horse’s head with his mane coaxed forward to echo his pricked ears.

Rupert was flying out on Thursday. Taggie couldn’t bear him going off without their making it up. If she weren’t so dyslexic she could have written a proper letter telling him how much she was going to miss him. She had found him an early birthday present of some cufflinks, made specially by Theo Fennell, of a tiny Love Rat looking out of his stable.

She was just finishing ironing his latest lucky shirt, which was peacock blue. Out of the window she could see the leaves fluttering down. Each one caught meant a happy day. Rupert had always claimed he fell in love with her when he watched her scampering round a wood with his children catching leaves to bring him happiness.

If she dashed out now, she could perhaps catch seven for each day he was away in Los Angeles and Melbourne running up to his birthday, so he would understand the coded message. Returning pink and panting a quarter of an hour later, just shoving yellow and scarlet cherry leaves into a Jiffy bag, she was horrified to see a Majestic lorry coming up the drive to deliver the drink. If Rupert came back from the gallops, he’d be bound to rumble the party. Yelling out to Jan, asking him to hide the little parcel and the Jiffy bag of leaves under the shirts in Rupert’s case, she rushed out to head off Majestic.

Having not made it up with his wife, Rupert’s mood didn’t improve when, on arriving in Santa Anita, he found that horses from overseas were not allowed out on the turf tracks for exercise, in case they gave diseases to the local horses, until later in the morning. This was far too hot for Delectable, who just needed a gentle workout before running her race later in the day.

Not that the late start upset Quickly. Having been up all night hollering and kicking his box for apples, he liked to lie in in the morning, and bit Gala on the ankle when she tried to wake
him. Being fair-skinned, however, he had been driven crackers by mosquitoes.

‘Why the hell haven’t you put something on them?’ demanded Rupert.

‘Because insect repellent’s a banned substance,’ snapped back Gala.

She’d been thinking of hardly anything else but Rupert since she arrived in Santa Anita and was devastated when he greeted her with apparent indifference. He was so offhand it was as though the clinch in the Love Tower had never happened. Not that he was being nicer to anyone else, snarling at the ubiquitous press in their Day-Glo green waistcoats whenever they approached him.

Massive crowds were already pouring in for the Friday of the two-day meeting. There seemed to be no dress code. Hats, mostly Stetsons and baseball caps, were worn much more by the men, who also wore shorts rather than suits.

Saddling up was a nightmare. In England you retreated into a little stall, where onlookers could only peer in from a distance. Here, when Gala joined Louise trying to calm little Delectable, the boxes were open to the public, frantic to see their equine heroes. Only divided by three-foot-high partitions, topped by wire netting, these boxes allowed any trainer to see what their rivals were up to. Penscombe and Valhalla, who had entered a filly called La Tempesta, totally ignored each other.

Santa Anita being close to Hollywood, the glamorous crowds swarmed with celebrities, who all gazed at Rupert, still dazzling despite crossness and lack of sleep.

‘What have I seen him in?’ pondered a passing beauty.

‘A foul mood recently,’ said Gala sourly.

In the parade ring, however, a pretty blonde pop star was belting out a song called ‘The Best is Yet to Come’.

‘I promise it is,’ murmured Rupert to Gala as adjusting Delectable’s bridle, his signet ring touched her fingers on the lead rope.

Happiness rolled over her, and even more so when Delectable and Tarqui beat La Tempesta, ridden by Roman Lovell, by a
head, earning a cool two million dollars. As the cheers rang round the purple mountains, Delectable immediately became favourite for the 1000 Guineas, and she was draped in a garland, almost bigger than herself, of bright-yellow asters, edged with purple and topped with purple and white orchids, grown specially for the Breeders’ Cup.

Louise was crying with joy, so was Tarqui, and an exultant Rupert had an excuse to kiss Gala and mutter he’d come to her room sometime before midnight, but wouldn’t ring for fear of hackers.

Next minute, a blonde in a burgundy jacket and blue jodhpurs, wearing a black hat with wires rising out of the top came cantering up to a returning Tarqui, screeching: ‘How special is it to be the rider of a Breeders’ Cup winner?’ expecting him to take her through every special yard of the race and thank every special person from the trainer to the stable cat.

Gala had never heard anything like the joyous din greeting a winner, connections hugging each other, whooping, hollering, hi-fiving in orgasmic ecstasy. As race followed race, the celebrations grew more raucous. Touchy Filly was in the last one – the Longine Distaff for mares and fillies – and didn’t like the US custom of a large loader standing up in the starting stalls and hanging on to her bridle until the gates opened, so she bit him and shot out to escape reprisals. Although she was competing against older horses, she didn’t stop running until she was only just beaten into third place.