Taking the Fall Read Free Page B

where you fall, you come up smelling of roses, don’t you? How do you do it?’
    ‘Ah,’ he smiled. ‘If only that were true.’ He pulled out into the fast lane and put his foot down to the board.
    Doesn’t matter where you fall , she’d said. He’d fallen off horses enough times, that much was certain. He’d forgotten falling off more times than he remembered. Duncan started riding when he was five and owned his first pony shortly after that first day at the races. He’d ridden gymkhanas and juvenile events until he was impatient for the real thing. He was always falling off. But it wasn’t all roses.
    Keeping a small training concern going was hard for his old man. It broke your heart and it broke your back. They had occasional help but mostly they had to do everything themselves. Even so, his old man always put Duncan before himself.
    Then one year things started to look up. His dad’s hard work began to pay off and in one great season he had a slew of point-to-point winners. Then in the next season he started competing with the National Hunt big boys. He had winners at Cheltenham, took fourth place over the giant fences of the celebrated Grand National and finished a great run with victories at Punchestown in Ireland and at Sandown. People started looking their way. Owners were always dissatisfied if their expensive animals weren’t pulling in the prizes, and it was easy and lazy to blame the trainer; and so one or two owners were always moving their horses along. Some started to come to Duncan’s father.
    And one or two big-time trainers didn’t like it. Duncan wasn’t aware – at the time – how easy it was to make serious enemies in horse racing. Ugly enemies.
    At the track, the stewards pointed him to the car park reserved for owners and trainers. With the Lamborghini purring, he crawled into the parking area. He could see Kerry, already in his jockey’s silk, standing outside the entrance, puffing on a cigarette and anxiously looking the other way. He slipped on some dark glasses and inched the motor as close as he could to Kerry and wound down the window. Kerry glanced over. He obviously didn’t recognise Duncan in his shades, nor the car, because he looked away again. Duncan hit the horn.
    Kerry looked over again.
    ‘How are we for time?’ Duncan asked him.
    Kerry’s handsome Irish jaw opened but he didn’t say anything. He tossed away his cigarette and stalked over to the car. He peered inside and the skin crinkled around his steely-blue eyes as he took in the red-headed Lorna in the passenger seat, and the plush interior of the car. Then he stepped back and folded his arms, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘And you can wipe that bloody silly smirk off your face.’
    ‘Was I smiling?’ Duncan said. ‘We’ll have to stop that, then.’
    ‘How in hell do you do it?’ Kerry said. ‘Go on. Tell me. I’d really like to know.’
    ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’
    ‘Really? No? Well tell me something else. Is that a nippy car?’
    ‘Lamborghini? You bet it is.’
    ‘Good. Because when you’ve finished your race, with the amount of shit you’re in today you’re going to need to get away from this place very fast.’

 
     
     
     
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    H e’d told that copper on the side of the motorway that Trojan’s Trumpet would finish in the frame, and he thought he might. The race was a seller, and Kerry was riding the fancied horse, but there wasn’t much in it across a field of six over two-miles-and-four. He got off to a poor, leaping start and was slowly away with four in front, the field already lit up by Kerry. After the second fence a horse called Mountain Block moved up close by and Duncan felt a sudden impulsion from his mount. He gave her a squeeze and she followed Mountain Block. Duncan sensed that she’d got a good turn of foot. He decided to wait and bide his time.
    Trojan’s trainer Billy Miles had told him to stay on the outside, but Mountain