Felix Francis - Dick Francis's Front Runner

I thought back. It had been far more worrying than exciting as I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure that it would happen and I’d mobilized the whole of the BHA integrity team plus several members of the Thames Valley Police Force.

We had secretly lain in wait outside the Ascot racecourse stables for nearly two hours and I was worried that I’d been wrong and would look foolish if nothing happened. But, thankfully, right on cue, the bad guys had turned up just as Secret Ways was being unloaded from the horsebox that had brought him to the racecourse.

One of them had managed to knock over the groom and even had his hand on the horse’s halter when the trap was sprung.

In truth, it had been very satisfying and, yes, rather exciting.

‘A tiny bit,’ I agreed with a smile. ‘What do you do?’

‘I work for a recruitment agency,’ she said. ‘We recruit chefs, waiters and waitresses for the catering business.’

‘And is that a tiny bit exciting?’ I asked.

‘Don’t poke fun at me,’ she said, slightly offended. ‘I work hard at my job and I enjoy it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’ Just funny. And it had backfired. ‘So how long have you known Derrick?’ I asked, trying to change the subject.

‘I met him for the first time today,’ she said. ‘I’m here with my uncle.’ She pointed at Sir Richard Reynard, who was sitting at the other table.

I must have involuntarily raised a questioning eyebrow.

She laughed. ‘No, really, he is my uncle. I promise you. He’s my mother’s elder brother. I’m only here because my aunt Mary couldn’t make it. She’s organizing a Christmas fair in their local church hall so Uncle Richard asked me to come with him instead.’

‘ The lady doth protest too much, methinks .’

‘Shut up,’ she said, laughing and bashing me playfully on the arm. ‘It’s true, I tell you.’

‘OK, I believe you,’ I said between guffaws. ‘But countless others might not.’

‘What are you two laughing at?’ asked Gay Smith, turning towards us.

‘Miss Goody Two-shoes here is trying to tell me she came here with her uncle while I’m convinced he’s actually her sugar daddy.’

‘From what I’ve heard,’ Gay said, ‘Henrietta Shawcross doesn’t need a sugar daddy. And, yes, Sir Richard Reynard is indeed her uncle.’

That put me in my place.

‘Sorry,’ I said again.

‘Don’t be,’ Henri said. ‘That’s the best laugh I’ve had in ages.’

‘Do you know anyone else here?’ I asked her.

‘A few,’ she said.

I dropped my voice. ‘How about the suntanned couple at the other table. The wife is sitting next to your uncle.’

‘You mean Theresa and Martin.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Exactly.’

‘Martin’s my cousin. Uncle Richard is his father. Martin’s the one who’s mad keen on racing. He’s the real reason why we’re all here. Martin and Theresa want Uncle Richard to start owning racehorses. They’ve roped Derrick Smith in to help them convince him it’s a good idea.’

I nodded. ‘Your cousin and Derrick both have houses in the Cayman Islands,’ I said.

‘Yes. I’ve been there. It’s lovely.’

A waitress placed a potted shrimp starter in front of me. I wanted to go on talking to Henri about Martin Reynard but Gay put her hand on my arm as if to indicate she wanted my full attention.

‘So you work for the Jockey Club?’ she said, taking a mouthful of the shrimps.

‘Sort of,’ I replied. ‘Not actually for the Jockey Club, but I do work for the racing authorities. I’m an investigator.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought there was enough to investigate for it to be a full-time job.’

‘There’s plenty to keep me busy, believe me, and the other four investigators in my team. There is always someone trying to beat the system and, if it’s against the rules, our job is to stop them.’

‘Is it possible to beat the system without breaking the rules?’

‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘And some trainers are very good at it.’

‘How?’ Gay asked.

‘It’s called beating the handicapper,’ I said. ‘Other than those just starting out on their racing careers, every horse in training in the UK is given an official handicap rating each Tuesday depending on how it has run and how those it has raced against have also performed. If a horse runs well compared to others, its rating will go up and, if it runs badly, the rating will go down. And the rating is used to determine the weight it has to carry in handicap races.’

‘So?’ she asked, puzzled.

‘For a horse to be officially rated it has to either win a race, or it has to have run in three races and be placed in the first six in at least one of them. Suppose a trainer has a horse that has been specifically bred to be good at middle and long distances. He runs it in three moderate sprints over just five furlongs as a young, green two-year-old and, predictably, it doesn’t do very well but it does manage to come in sixth in one of them, maybe out of only six or seven runners. So the horse gets an official rating that is very low but, crucially, it is now qualified to run in handicaps.

‘The trainer then doesn’t run the horse again until the following year, by which time it has fully developed and is ready to race over a much greater distance. The trainer now places it in a mile-and-a-half handicap for horses with similarly poor ratings and, not surprisingly, it wins easily. If the trainer goes on entering the horse in the right races, it can run up a whole series of wins against moderate opposition before the handicapper “catches up” and raises its rating to a more appropriate value.’

‘Is that legal?’ Gay asked.

‘Yes, completely legal. It’s simply the trainer playing the handicap system to his advantage.’

I looked across the table at Alfie Hart. He was one of the best exponents of the practice.

‘How fascinating,’ Gay Smith said, but I feared I was boring her as she turned away to talk to the person on her far side.

I finished my shrimps and turned back to Henri, but she was chatting away merrily to another lady beyond her, so I spent some time studying the afternoon’s racecard. I noticed that Bill McKenzie was still down to ride two horses, one of them in the first race and the other in the fourth.

‘Trying to pick a winner?’ Henri said. ‘Do tell.’

‘Don’t ask me, I’m hopeless at choosing winners,’ I said. ‘My best tip of the day is to keep your money in your pocket.’

‘Boring!’ Henri said loudly. She received a stern glare from her uncle on the other table.

She blushed.

‘Now look what you’ve made me do,’ she said to me.

‘Don’t blame me,’ I said.

‘Why not?’ She smiled. ‘Are you married?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Are you gay?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Most men I know of my age are either married or gay.’

‘Well, I’m neither,’ I said. ‘How about you?’

‘That’s a secret.’

She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. I’d already checked.

She opened her racecard. ‘Come on, pick me a winner.’

‘Autumn Statement,’ I said, ‘in the second.’

She looked down at the printed race details.

‘Why that one?’ she asked, clearly unimpressed by the horse’s lowly status.

‘He ran on Tuesday at Southwell. I was there and watched the race. He was only beaten a short head by a very good horse that’s not running today. His rating is sure to rise considerably this coming week but he can still run today on the old rating, which means he’s very well handicapped.’

‘I thought you said you were hopeless at picking winners.’