Felix Francis - Triple Crown

Fire Point didn’t seem to mind, circling a couple of times to investigate his new environment before sticking his head out through the doorway to watch what else was going on.

Keith, Diego, Maria and I then unloaded all the kit plus the other four horses, putting them in their allocated stalls which were not all together, as the barn with Stall 40 was reserved only for those horses due to run in the Preakness itself.

Debenture and Ladybird were in the next barn along and I was told by Keith that I would be looking after them both, a situation that suited me fine as I thought it would keep me away from Diego, at least while we were working.

However, there would be no respite from him at night.

The grooms’ accommodation was up an outside staircase above the horses. As Keith had said, we had two rooms allocated, a small single for Maria, and another only a fraction larger for Keith, Diego and me, the metal bedsteads so close together that they would be considered inappropriate in an episode of I Love Lucy .

I bagged the bed in the corner furthest from the door and, fortunately, Keith took the middle one. The communal bathroom was three doors along the open-air balcony, and was shared with two other rooms, eight people in total.

George Raworth arrived in the white Jeep Cherokee about an hour after us. He parked his vehicle in a space next to the barns and then proceeded to conduct a tour of inspection of his horses to check they had settled into their temporary homes. While he was busy with Fire Point, I took the opportunity to have a quick look through the windows of the Jeep. The white cryogenic flask was there, still standing upright behind the passenger seat. But what was it for?

I went in search of George in the Preakness Barn.

With only five days to go before the big event, security at the barn was already pretty tight with a uniformed guard posted at either end.

‘ID?’ one asked as he blocked my path.

I showed him the groom’s pass hanging round my neck. He scrutinised the photo carefully before letting me through.

Ten horses were expected to contest the big race, making it about an average-sized field for recent times. Final declarations would be on Wednesday afternoon, ahead of the draw for starting-gate positions, and all bar one of the ten were already in residence.

Even so, only about half of the barn was actually in use, with many empty spaces. The Raworth three were housed in stalls together down one end with Fire Point in the middle.

The fact that a single trainer had three horses in the field was unusual, but not unique. Nick Zito, Hall of Fame inductee who had worked his way up from hot-walker to become a racing legend, had three runners in the 2005 Preakness. They had finished fourth, sixth and tenth.

Could George Raworth’s trio do any better?

Life at Pimlico settled down into a routine, although I could hardly describe the Raworth team as cheerful.

I had realised pretty quickly that the lot of a groom was not a particularly happy one.

For me, the total lack of privacy was the worst aspect, with nowhere to call your own to relax in peace — share a bedroom, share a bathroom, communal feeding and, at Pimlico, not even a recreation hall with computers to act as a distraction.

It was depressing.

On top of that, Diego was acting like a petulant child and I was getting pretty fed up with it.

First he emptied my holdall all over the floor of our bedroom before throwing the bag itself onto the roof. Then, at evening stables, he came round to the barn where I was working merely to tip a bucket of wet manure into a stall I had just finished cleaning. As a parting gesture, he then pulled the hay out of Debenture’s freshly filled haynet and threw it down into some muddy water.

It was as if he was trying to provoke me into some sort of reaction. Perhaps he thought I would hit him in the same way he had me, and then he could go whining to George Raworth to get me fired.

But I wasn’t going to play that game.

I would put up with his puerile tactics of disrupting my work and messing about with my kit. Instead I would wait my chance. Revenge for me would be a dish eaten cold, when he was least expecting it.

Finding a secluded spot to call Tony was more difficult at Pimlico than at Belmont Park.

While the other grooms went in search of takeout joints and liquor stores outside the main gate on Park Heights Avenue, I walked across the lawn in front of the Preakness Barn, through the bushes, and into one of the deserted car parks beyond.

‘How did you communicate with the journalist Jason Connor?’ I asked.

‘Initially he contacted NYRA, and they called in FACSA.’

‘Did you speak to Connor yourself?’

‘Not at that point. I became involved after the raid on the barn had found nothing but spotless stalls and no horses. Only when I suspected we had a mole in our midst.’

‘So you spoke to Connor then?’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’ I asked. ‘On the phone or in person?’

There was a pause on the line as Tony tried to remember.

‘On the phone, I think,’ he said. ‘But only the once. After that we used email.’

‘Did you know he was going to see the groom at Laurel Park on the day he died?’

‘Definitely,’ Tony said. ‘He informed me by email the previous day.’

‘Using the FACSA office email system?’

‘No. My private email address. I thought it would be safer.’

I said nothing.

‘Are you implying that my private email has been compromised?’ Tony asked finally.

‘Yes. That’s if you’re right about Jason Connor’s death not being an accident.’

‘But how?’ Tony asked.

‘All email is compromised to some extent,’ I said. ‘They are checked by the security services for a start. They have automatic scanners that look for certain keywords such as “bomb” or “explosive” or “jihad”. I assume your private emails aren’t encrypted.’

‘No.’

‘All it needs is for someone to have your email address and password.’

‘But how would they get my password?’ he asked.

‘How often do you change it?’

‘Never.’

‘So someone at work may have seen you enter it. Or maybe it’s easy to guess. Please don’t tell me it’s your mother’s maiden name, or your wife’s.’

There was a long pause from the other end of the line.

‘I’ll change it right away,’ he said rather sheepishly.

‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘Don’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Two reasons,’ I said. ‘One, whoever has accessed your private emails would then know that we know, and, two, we might be able to use it to set our mole a trap.’

‘How?’

‘I’m working on it,’ I said. ‘In the meantime, do nothing.’

‘But someone else is reading my personal emails. I don’t like that.’

‘Then don’t write suggestive emails to your mistress,’ I said flippantly. ‘At least, not until after we’ve caught the mole.’

‘I don’t have a mistress,’ he said nervously.

I wasn’t at all certain I believed him.

But flippancy aside, it was a serious breach of security.

‘Tony,’ I said with concern, ‘did you tell Paul Maldini that I wasn’t coming back yet?’

‘I sure did,’ Tony replied.

‘How?’

‘What do you mean, how?’

‘Did you use your email?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘I called him on this phone, like you said to. Spoke to him myself.’

I breathed a sigh of relief. ‘What did he say?’

‘He didn’t seem that concerned. He said that you could stay for as long as you need, provided you come back eventually.’

‘Did he say those exact words?’ I asked.

‘He sure did.’