Дик Фрэнсис - High Stakes

‘Sounds fair.’

‘Sure. You can have x-rays even. Chipped knees would show on an x-ray. Horses can walk and look okay with chipped knees but they sure can’t race.’

Allie said with mock resignation, ‘So what exactly are chipped knees?’

Warren said ‘Cracks and compressions at the ends of the bones at the knee joint.’

‘From falling down?’ Allie asked.

Warren laughed kindly. ‘No. From too much hard galloping on dirt. The thumping does it.’

I borrowed the sales catalogue from Warren again for a deeper look at the regulations and found the twenty-four hour inspection period applied only to brood mares, which wasn’t much help. I mentioned it diffidently to Warren. ‘It says here,’ I said neutrally, ‘that it’s wise to have a vet look at a horse for soundness before you bid. After is too late.’

‘Is that so?’ Warren retrieved his book and peered at the small print. ‘Well, I guess you’re right.’ He received the news good-naturedly. ‘Just shows how easy it is to go wrong at horse sales.’

‘And I hope you remember it,’ Minty said with meaning.

Warren did in fact seem a little discouraged from his chestnut colt but I wandered back for a second look at Black Fire and found a youth in jeans and grubby sweat shirt bringing him a bucket of water.

‘Is this horse yours?’ I asked.

‘Nope. I’m just the help.’

‘Which does he do most, bite or kick?’

The boy grinned. ‘Reckon he’s too lazy for either.’

‘Would you take him out of that dark stall so I could have a look at him in the light?’

‘Sure.’ He untied the halter from the tethering ring and brought Black Fire out into the central alley, where the string of electric lights burned without much enthusiasm down the length of the barn.

‘There you go, then,’ he said, persuading the horse to arrange its legs as if for a photograph. ‘Fine looking fella, isn’t he?’

‘What you can see of him,’ I agreed.

I looked at him critically, searching for differences. But there was no doubt he was the same. Same height, same elegant shape, even the same slightly dished Arab-looking nose. And black as coal, all over. When I walked up and patted him he bore it with fortitude. Maybe his sweet nature, I thought. Or maybe tranquillisers.

On the neck or head of many horses the hair grew in one or more whorls, making a pattern which was entered as an identifying mark on the passports. Energise had no whorls at all. Nor had Padellic. I looked carefully at the forehead, cheeks, neck and shoulders of Black Fire and ran my fingers over his coat. As far as I could feel or see in that dim light, there were no whorls on him either.

‘Thanks a lot,’ I said to the boy, stepping back.

He looked at me with surprise. ‘You don’t aim to look at his teeth or feel his legs?’

‘Is there something wrong with them?’

‘I guess not.’

‘Then I won’t bother,’ I said and left unsaid the truth understood by us both, that even if I’d inspected those extremities I wouldn’t have been any the wiser.

‘Does he have a tattoo number inside his lip?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, of course.’ The surprise raised his eyebrows to peaks, like a clown. ‘Done when he first raced.’

‘What is it?’

‘Well, gee, I don’t know.’ His tone said he couldn’t be expected to and no one in his senses would have bothered to ask.

‘Take a look.’

‘Well, okay.’ He shrugged and with the skill of practice opened the horse’s mouth and turned down the lower lip. He peered closely for a while during which time the horse stood suspiciously still, and then let him go.

‘Far as I can see there’s an F and a six and some others, but it’s not too light in here and anyway the numbers get to go fuzzy after a while, and this fella’s five now so the tattoo would be all of three years old.’

‘Thanks anyway.’

‘You’re welcome.’ He pocketed my offered five bucks and took the very unfiery Black Fire back to his stall.

I turned to find Allie, Warren and Minty standing in a row, watching. Allie and Minty both wore indulgent feminine smiles and Warren was shaking his head.

‘That horse has won a total of nine thousand three hundred dollars in three years’ racing,’ he said. ‘He won’t have paid the feed bills.’ He held out the catalogue opened at Black Fire’s page, and I took it and read the vaguely pathetic race record for myself.

‘At two, unplaced. At three, three wins, four times third. At four, twice third. Total: three wins, six times third, earned $,9,326.’

A modest success as a three-year-old, but all in fairly low-class races. I handed the catalogue back to Warren with a smile of thanks, and we moved unhurriedly out of that barn and along to the next. When even Warren had had a surfeit of peering into stalls we went outside and watched the first entries being led into the small wooden-railed collecting ring.

A circle of lights round the rails lit the scene, aided by spotlights set among the surrounding trees. Inside, as on a stage, small bunches of people anxiously added the finishing touches of gloss which might wring a better price from the unperceptive. Some of the horses’ manes were decorated with a row of bright wool pompoms, arching along the top of the neck from ears to withers as if ready for the circus. Hip No. 1, resplendent in scarlet pompoms, raised his long bay head and whinnied theatrically.

I told Allie and the Barbos I would be back in a minute and left them leaning on the rails. A couple of enquiries and one misdirection found me standing in the cramped office of the auctioneers in the sale ring building.

‘A report from the veterinarian? Sure thing. Pay in advance, please. If you don’t want to wait, return for the report in half an hour.’

I paid and went back to the others. Warren was deciding it was time for a drink and we stood for a while in the fine warm night near one of the bars drinking Bacardi and Coke out of throwaway cartons.

Brilliant light poured out of the circular sales building in a dozen places through open doors and slatted windows. Inside, the banks of canvas chairs were beginning to fill up, and down on the rostrum in the centre the auctioneers were shaping up to starting the evening’s business. We finished the drinks, duly threw away the cartons and followed the crowd into the show.

Hip № 1 waltzed in along a ramp and circled the rostrum with all his pompoms nodding. The auctioneer began his sing-song selling, amplified and insistent, and to me, until my ears adjusted, totally unintelligible. Hip № 1 made five thousand dollars and Warren said the prices would all be low because of the economic situation.

Horses came and went. When Hip № 15 in orange pompoms had fetched a figure which had the crowd murmuring in excitement I slipped away to the office and found that the veterinary surgeon himself was there, dishing out his findings to other enquirers.

‘Hip number sixty-two?’ he echoed. ‘Sure, let me find my notes.’ He turned over a page or two in a notebook. ‘Here we are. Dark bay or brown gelding, right?’

‘Black,’ I said.

‘Uh, uh. Never say black.’ He smiled briefly, a busy middle-aged man with an air of a clerk. ‘Five years. Clean bill of health.’ He shut the notebook and turned to the next customer.

‘Is that all?’ I said blankly.

‘Sure,’ he said briskly. ‘No heart murmur, legs cool, teeth consistent with given age, eyes normal, range of movement normal, trots sound. No bowed tendons, no damaged knees.’

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Is he tranquillised?’

He looked at me sharply, then smiled. ‘I guess so. Acepromazine probably.’