Felix Francis: Dick Francis's Gamble

Horses that are reluctant to race or that get loose due to falling, often head back to where they first came out onto the track, as if they were trying to get home or at least back to the racetrack stables.

This particular loose horse came galloping down the horse walk and attempted to negotiate the ninety-degree turn to get back into the parade ring. A combination of too sharp a bend and too much momentum, coupled with the wet surface, meant that the horse’s legs slipped out from beneath it and it fell, crashing through the white plastic railings and sliding across the ground towards the three of us, its legs thrashing about wildly as it tried to regain its footing.

The men on either side of me instinctively took a step backwards away from the sharp flailing horseshoes, slightly relaxing their hold on my arms as they did so. But I stepped forward boldly, out of their clutches, and caught the horse by the reins. In one movement, as the animal managed to stand up, I swung myself onto its back and into the saddle.

I needed no second invitation. I kicked the astonished horse in the belly, and we galloped back the way it had come, down the horse walk towards the track.

“Hey, stop!” shouted an official who was standing in my way, waving his arms about. I glanced behind me. The two men were in pursuit, and one was reaching into his pocket. I had no doubt he was going for his gun.

The official realized at the very last second that I wasn’t going to stop, and he flung himself aside. I kicked the horse again, and crouched as low as I could to provide the smallest target for the gunman.

I looked ahead. Even though the last race of the day was still in progress, out on the racetrack was definitely the safest place for me to be. Another official saw the horse galloping back towards him and he tugged frantically at the movable rail, closing it across the end of the horse walk.

But I wasn’t stopping. Stopping meant dying, and I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do that.

A rider communicates with his mount in a variety of ways. Pulling on the reins, either together or separately, is an obvious one, and cajoling with the voice or kicking with the feet are others. But the most powerful messages between horse and jockey are transmitted by the shifting of weight. Sit back and the horse will slow and stop, but shift the weight forward over his shoulders and he will run like the wind.

I gathered my feet into the stirrup irons, stood up, shortened the reins and crouched forward over the horse’s withers. The animal beneath me fully understood the go message. Riding a horse was like riding a bike-once learned, never forgotten.

As we neared the end of the horse walk I made no move to slow down. In fact, I did quite the opposite. I kicked the horse hard in the belly once more. The animal received the new message loud and clear, and he knew what to do. I shifted my weight slightly again, asking him to lengthen his stride and to jump, and to jump high.

We sailed over the rail with ease, and over the official as well, who’d had the good sense to duck down.

The horse pecked slightly on landing, almost going down on its knees, and for a moment I feared he was going to fall, but I pulled his head up with the reins and he quickly recovered his balance.

Left or right?

Left, I decided, pulling that way on the reins, away from the grandstand and towards the safe, wide-open spaces of the racetrack.

The other horses were coming up the finishing straight towards me, but I was well to the side of them, on what would have been the hurdle course at any other meeting.

My mount tried to turn, to run with the others, but I steered him away and galloped down to the far end of the finishing straight before stopping and looking back.

What remained of the daylight was disappearing rapidly, and the grandstand lights appeared unnaturally bright. It was difficult to tell if the two heavies were giving chase, but I had to assume they were, joined possibly by Viscount Shenington himself. He must be keener now than ever to remove me permanently from the scene.

I turned the horse again and cantered up the hill, towards the farthest point on the track away from the stands and the enclosures.

What did I do now?

The nondescript blue rental car would be waiting for me in the parking lot, but the problem was that its keys, together with my mobile phone and my wallet, were in the pockets of my Barbour, which I presumed was still inconveniently hanging by the door in Shenington’s box.

I watched as a vehicle turned onto the track from close by where I had emerged from the horse walk. I could see the headlights bumping up and down slightly as it worked its way along the grass in the direction from which I had come.

Another vehicle followed it onto the grass but turned the other way.

Both vehicles then moved forward slowly, driving around the course. If I stayed where I was, then the two of them would close on me in a pincer movement.

But who was in the vehicles? Was it Shenington and his cronies or would it be the police or the racetrack security guards? I imagined that the trainer of the horse I was riding would be far from pleased to have discovered that his charge had been horse-napped and was currently running about the track in the dark.

But I couldn’t stay where I was, that was for sure. Not without being seen or captured. And I had absolutely no intention of allowing a vehicle to come up close to me unless, and until, I knew for certain that Shenington and his heavies were not in it.

At Cheltenham, the racetrack, unlike those in America, was not a simple oval track but was in fact two complete courses laid one on top of the other, and with an extra loop down one end. In addition, the center was used for cross-country races. There was no way that these two vehicles would be able to corner me on their own, not unless I was careless, and I had been quite careless enough for one day.

I waited to see which part of the track the car would choose to move along and then simply rode the horse down the other part. By this time, the last of the daylight had faded away completely, and there was no way the occupants of the vehicle would be able to see me unless I was actually in the arc of the headlights.

However, I watched with some dismay as three more vehicles turned out onto the track, two turning straight towards me and the third starting the long counterclockwise sweep around the course. And worse, in the glow of their lights I could see some figures walking, spreading out across the center of the track, in search of the horse or of me.

They couldn’t all be Shenington’s men. Some of them must be the good guys, the cavalry coming to my rescue. But which ones? I simply couldn’t afford to get it wrong.

I decided that my present position was hopeless, and it would be only a matter of time before I would be seen by either someone in the vehicles or someone on foot. I trotted the horse over to the very edge of the racetrack property, looking for an exit, but the need to keep out the ticket dodgers had resulted in a robust five-foot-high chain-link fence being erected along the whole length.

I supposed I could have tied the horse to the fence and climbed over, but the location of the deserted horse would then have given away the fact that I had gone, and where, and I feared I would have had Shenington and his mob still on my tail. And I somehow felt safer on the horse because I could outrun those on foot, gun or no gun.

“With that neck, I wouldn’t ride a bike, let alone a horse,” the spinal specialist had said to me all those years ago. Yet here I was on horseback, galloping around in the dark, but I felt completely safe and at home. I just had to make sure I didn’t fall off.

I cantered the horse right along the fence in the hope there might have been a gate. Five feet was too high for any horse to jump, let alone a tired-out hunter chaser that should have been warm in his stable by this time of night. Not that a gate would help much. It would probably be locked, and I couldn’t ask the horse to jump it in the dark.