Felix Francis - Dick Francis's Gamble

Could such a calamitous loss have resulted in Herb’s murder?

I couldn’t believe it was possible.

Patrick Lyall held regular meetings, usually on a Monday, when investment plans for our clients were discussed. All his assistants were present, and that included Herb and myself. We were expected to research the markets and put forward investment suggestions-for example, the new musical that I had recommended to Jan Setter-but the firm’s rule was clear and simple: none of our client money could be invested in any product without the prior approval of either Patrick or Gregory.

Our exposure to BP losses had been mostly through personal pension schemes, and, bad as it was, the risks had been well spread, with no individuals actually losing their shirts, or even as much as a tie. Certainly not enough, I thought, to murder their adviser.

“You should come and ride out for me,” said Jan, bringing my daydreaming back to the present. “First lot goes out at seven-thirty on Saturdays. Come down on a Friday and stay the night. You’d enjoy it.”

Now, was that an invitation to a dirty weekend or not?

And yes, I would enjoy it. The riding, that is. At least I think I would have. But I hadn’t sat on a horse in eight years.

I could remember so clearly the devastation I had felt when told I couldn’t be a jockey anymore. I had been sitting at an oak table in the offices of the British Horse Racing Authority in High Holborn, London. Opposite me were the three members of the medical board.

I could recall almost word for word the brief announcement made by the board chairman. “Sorry, Foxton,” he had said, almost before we were all comfortable in our chairs, “we have concluded that you are, and will permanently remain, unfit to ride in any form of racing. Consequently, your jockey’s license has been withdrawn indefinitely.” He had then started to rise, to leave the room.

I had sat there completely stunned. My skin had gone suddenly cold and the walls had seemed to press inwards towards me. I had expected the meeting with the board to be a formality, just another necessary inconvenience on the long road to recovery.

“Hold on a minute,” I’d said, turning in my chair towards the departing chairman. “I was told to come here to answer some questions. What questions?”

The chairman had stopped in the doorway. “We don’t need to ask you any questions. Your scan results have given us all the answers we need.”

“Well, I have some questions to ask you , so please sit down.”

I could recall the look of surprise on his face that a jockey, or an ex-jockey, would talk to him in such a manner. But he did come back and sit down again opposite me. I asked my questions and I argued myself hoarse, but to no avail. “Our decision is final.”

But, of course, I hadn’t been prepared to leave it at that.

I’d arranged to have a second opinion from a top specialist in neck and spinal injuries to help me win my case. But he only served to confirm the medical board’s findings, as well as frightening me half to death.

“The problem,” he told me, “is that the impact of your fall occurred with such force that your atlas vertebra was effectively crushed into the axis beneath. You are very lucky to be alive. Extraordinarily lucky, in fact. Quite apart from the main fracture right through the axis, many of the interlocking bone protrusions that helped hold the two vertebrae together have been broken away. Put in simple terms, your head is balanced precariously on your neck, and the slightest trauma might be enough to cause it to topple. With that neck, I wouldn’t ride a bike, let alone a horse.”

It hadn’t exactly been encouraging.

“Is there nothing that can be done?” I’d asked him. “An operation or something? How about a metal plate? I still have one in my ankle from a previous break.”

“This part of the neck is a difficult area,” he’d said. “Far more complicated than even an ankle. There are so many planes and degrees of movement involved. Then there is the attachment of the skull, not to mention the inconvenience of having the nerves for the rest of your body passing right through the middle of it all, indeed the brain stem itself stretches down to the axis vertebra. I don’t think a metal plate would help and it would certainly be another problem you could do without. In normal life, your muscles will hold everything together and your neck should be fine, just try not to have a car crash.” He’d smiled at me. “And, whatever you do, don’t get into a fight.”

For weeks afterwards I had hardly turned my head at all, and, for a while, I’d gone back to wearing a neck brace to sleep in. I remember being absolutely terrified to sneeze in case my head fell off, and I hadn’t even been near a horse, let alone on one’s back. So much for being a carefree risk taker. The Health and Safety Executive had nothing on me when it came to my neck.

“I’d love to come and watch your horses work,” I said to Jan, returning once again to the present. “But I’m afraid I can’t ride one.”

She looked disappointed. “I thought you’d love it.”

“I would have,” I said. “But it’s too much of a risk with my neck.”

“What a bloody shame,” she said.

Bloody shame was right. I longed to ride again. Coming racing every week was a pleasant change from spending all my time in a London office, but, in some ways, it was a torment. Each day I chatted amicably to my clients as they wore their racing silks and I positively ached to be one of them again. Even after all this time, I would sometimes sit in my car at the end of a day and weep for what I had lost. Why? Why? Why had this happened to me?

I shook my head, albeit only slightly, and told myself to put such thoughts of self-pity out of my mind. I had much to be thankful for, and I should be happy to be twenty-nine years old, alive, employed and financially secure.

But oh how I wanted still to be a jockey.

Iwatched the first race from a vantage point on the grandstands, the vivid harlequin-colored jackets of the jockeys appearing bright in the sunshine as they cantered down to the two-mile-hurdle start.

As always, the undiminished longing to be out there with them weighed heavy in the pit of my stomach. I wondered if it would ever go away. Even though Cheltenham had been the scene of my last, ill-fated ride, I held no grudge towards the place. It hadn’t been the racetrack’s fault that I had been so badly injured. In fact, it was only due to their paramedics’ great care after the fall that I wasn’t paralyzed, or dead.

Cheltenham had been the first racetrack I had ever known and I still loved the place. I had grown up in Prestbury village, right alongside, and I’d ridden my bicycle past the backstretch every morning on my way to school. Each March, as the Steeplechasing Festival approached, the excitement surrounding not only the track but the whole town had been the inspiration for me first to ride a horse, then to pester a local racehorse trainer for holiday jobs and finally to give up a planned future of anodyne academia for the perilous existence of a professional jockey.

Cheltenham was the home of jump racing. Whereas the Grand National was the most famous steeplechase in the world, every racehorse owner would rather win the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

The Grand National was a handicap, so the better horses carried the greater weight. The handicapper’s dream was that all the horses would cross the finish line in a huge dead heat. But it would be a bit like making Usain Bolt run the Olympic 100 meters in Wellington boots to even up the chances of the others. However, in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, other than a slight reduction for female horses, all the participants carried the same weight, and the winner was the true champion.