Warned Off Read Online Free PDF

results recently so maybe he’ll get skint soon and crawl
back into the hole he came out of.’
    I’d never heard Will call anyone down so
much. I looked at the guy again. He was taking money this time but didn’t seem
any happier.
    ‘What’s his name?’ I asked.
    ‘Stoke. Howard Stoke.’ He started
coughing again and I slapped his back gently. When he stopped his face was
crimson and his eyes full of water.
    ‘A nice glass of malt would quieten that
down,’ I said.
    ‘Likely.’ He nodded.
    ‘Half a dozen would kill it stone dead.’
    His smile returned. ‘And me with it.’
    Out on the course, away from the crowds,
the grass was lush on good to soft ground which gave an inch under my heels. I
stood by the open ditch way over on the far side of the track. The black birch
was tightly packed between the white wings that led the horses in. The fence
sloped away, inviting them to jump.
    The field approached. Sixteen
thoroughbreds. Eight tons of horse flesh moving at thirty miles an hour.
Watching the leader, a big chestnut, his ears pricked as he came to jump, I
found myself counting the stride in with his jockey ... one, two, three, kick –
up and over he goes.
    The rest reach it now, closely grouped,
the jockeys’ colours mixing, meshing with speed. The thunderous hoofbeats shake
the ground and the birch crackles like a long firework as their bellies brush
through. Cameras click and whirr, jockeys shout and whips smack on flesh. They
land, their front feet gouging the turf. Hooves slide and a big brown head goes
low. The rider cries out but his mount recovers. They are last by a length as
the runners gallop away.
    Silence now.
    Emptiness.
    In the depths of depression I head home.

7
     
    Back
at the cottage I poured a drink stiff enough to splint a fracture and sat down.
It was cold and gloomy. I lit a fire. After five minutes’ spitting and
crackling, the logs caught properly and began warming the room.
    I stood in front of it staring down at
the burning logs. Then at myself in the mirror above the mantelpiece. The
flames weaved and jumped, casting light then shadows on my face and shoulders.
I looked tired ... ghostly.
    After another drink I began to feel warm
inside as well as out. Pulling the chair nearer the fire I sat. It had been a bloody
melancholy day. Tipping the glass toward me, I looked through the liquid at the
soft yellow glow of the flames. All that looked back was my self-pitying face.
Finishing the drink in one gulp I shut out all the old pathetic thoughts and
faced up to reality.
    I was no longer a jockey. Maybe I’d
never be a jockey again. There was a job to do and it had to be done on the
racecourse as much as anywhere else.
    I had hated that place today because I
wasn’t the big shot any more. I would always despise going to racecourses now.
I couldn’t handle being just one of the crowd ...Well, I would damn well just
have to get used to it because it was the only way back for me.
    Pouring another drink I tried piecing
together the day’s events. I hadn’t been able to talk to Harle. He’d been tied
up with interviews, celebrations and all the other demands which fall on
Champion Hurdle winners.
    How direct could I be anyway when I did
meet him? It wouldn’t be long before people would start asking questions about
me asking questions. I’d gone over the top a bit with Joe Lagota. He was
definitely suspicious and though he was lazy, he was shrewd enough. If Joe
smelt an exclusive for his paper he’d get busy. I’d have to be careful.
    I thought about Harle’s connections:
Roscoe and this phantom, Perlman. Strange bedfellows. Harle himself, his rapid
rise to fame.
    I had been out of racing a while but
things don’t change that much. I’d never known a jockey to bum around as long
as Harle then find himself employed by a powerful new owner as first jockey.
    What goes for jockeys goes double for
trainers. They don’t come from nowhere to training for a top owner. Roscoe was
even