The Nightingale Sings

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘I take it that’s a yes,’ Mattie wondered, looping his horse’s reins forward over his ears ready to lead him to his box.

  ‘It is,’ Cassie said wearily, pushing her own horse’s stable door open with her foot. ‘But then that’s it. The King George really is going to be The Nightingale’s very last race.’

  The horse’s departure from Claremore to the airport was as well planned as any military operation. Apart from Bridie nearly forgetting ‘Mrs Murphy’ as she had dubbed her lucky black hat, and Fred the travelling head lad panicking because he thought his wife had forgotten to pick up his best blue suit from the cleaners, the entire loading of the horse and the flight over to England went without a hitch. While the colt and his entourage travelled in a specially fitted out cargo plane, Cassie and Mattie travelled with the private party being airlifted in Jack Madigan’s private jet – Madigan being one of Cassie’s richest owners, a man who had made his first fortune from vending machines and who now owned a string of international hotels as well as one of the biggest studs in Ireland. He was a devoted fan of both The Nightingale and the horse’s owner whom he tried on practically every occasion they met to get to marry him. It was a running joke, but Cassie, much as she liked Mad Jack as he was known by everyone, had always enjoyed only the most platonic of relationships with her top owner and intended to keep it that way, especially as she kept reminding him because he happened to be married already.

  ‘Ah sure Fiona would understand well enough if you were t’agree, Cassie!’ Mad Jack would laugh in return. ‘Ah God sure isn’t she your greatest fan ever?’

  As it was Fiona had become a great friend of Cassie’s and on the smooth as silk flight over to England they sat next to each other talking about everything but the forthcoming race.

  On arrival in England The Nightingale was to be secretly stabled well before the party from Claremore had landed and so was perfectly composed when Cassie and her family arrived by helicopter from London to see him. They had avoided the risk of travelling him by road and stabling him at the racecourse in case of being followed, the plan being to convey the horse to a large country estate belonging to the friend of another of Cassie’s owners near Pangbourne which had been chosen as the colt’s ‘safe house’. They had even gone to the trouble of leaving The Nightingale on the plane after landing while another black horse was dutifully unshipped, loaded into a waiting horsebox and driven away under escort as a decoy to a different location altogether. The Nightingale had remained on board the cargo plane until it had been taxied away as if empty to another part of the airfield where the animal had been taken off and loaded into a horse transporter repainted in the livery of a frozen food transporter. Besides Liam and Bridie and the immediate family, no-one else knew of the exact protocol, Liam having been designated to give the orders for the transportation of the horse stage by separate stage as yet another degree of security.

  So far everything had gone like clockwork.

  Until at midnight the heavens opened and the rains started.

  ‘He won’t mind it, not a bit,’ Mattie assured his mother when they arrived at the Berkshire racetrack to walk the course the next morning. ‘With his action he goes on anything. You know that.’

  ‘It’s not true ground, Mattie,’ Cassie replied, testing it with her special stick. ‘With the drought beforehand they’ve been watering the course. You can’t blame them. No-one wants bone-hard ground and I for one certainly wouldn’t have run Nightie had they not been watering. But now with this torrential downpour—’ Cassie shaded her eyes, looking to the skies to see if there was any sign of a break in the clouds, but there was none. ‘I have to say if it goes on like this there’s every chance it’ll become a quagmire and that can be just as dangerous as racing on the hard.’

  ‘So OK – if you have to withdraw him you have to withdraw him,’ Mattie said. ‘If it’s because of the weather, no-one can blame you for that.’

  ‘Maybe it’ll be worse if the sun does come out,’ Cassie said, more to herself than to her son. ‘Maybe if it just goes on raining they’ll slosh through it. What we don’t want is for it to get holding.’

  ‘They say the forecast is for rain all day,’ Mattie said, himself glancing up at the skies.

  Yet despite the forecast being one hundred per cent right, nothing deterred the crowds from packing into the famous course. Like Sandown Park, the roads leading to the racetrack were blocked for over two hours before the first race and the car parks were jammed to overflowing. With no sign of the sun and the rains easing only slightly, Cassie walked the course again half an hour before the first race, this time by herself since Mattie had slipped off to help Josephine saddle up before the De Beers Diamond Stakes.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Cassie muttered as she reached Swinley Bottom where the ground was particularly soft. ‘Should we or shouldn’t we, Ty? Yes – I know. It’s the same for everyone but I don’t want the horse to lose. Not in these conditions. These conditions would be barely raceable if we were jumping, but for Flat horses of this calibre …’ Cassie sighed deeply and once more stuck her stick into the ground to measure the depth of the going. ‘I just doubt if he’ll be able to quicken in this, and if the old boy can’t quicken, then he won’t win.’

  ‘I think he will,’ a voice behind her said, startling Cassie so much she slipped on the wet grass and nearly fell as she swung round to see who it was. ‘Hi,’ said a tall man who was dressed in an antique knee-length Barbour and a large soaking wet bush hat. ‘Joel Benson. We met in your yard a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Yes, I can see who you are, thank you,’ Cassie replied, pulling her measuring stick out of the ground. ‘You startled me. I didn’t know there was anyone following me.’

  ‘I wasn’t following you,’ Joel replied. ‘I was walking the course like you when you stopped and I saw no reason to.’

  ‘Why are you walking the course?’ Cassie asked, wondering at the same time why this particular man’s perfectly innocent presence out on the racecourse should be upsetting her. ‘Do you have a runner?’

  ‘No I don’t have a runner. I’m a sculptor, not a trainer, remember?’ Joel replied.

  ‘And do sculptors normally walk racecourses?’

  ‘I don’t imagine so,’ Joel said, walking on after Cassie as she began to stride up the hill towards the home bend. ‘But then I don’t imagine many sculptors are as interested in racing as I am.’

  ‘Fine. But walking the course?’

  ‘You can’t really make sense of a race unless you walk the course. I just happen always to walk whatever course I happen to go racing on. Even now I’m not riding.’

  ‘You’re telling me now that you used to ride?’ Cassie asked disbelievingly, turning to glance at the tall figure beside her.

  ‘Only point to point and hunter chases,’ Joel replied with a shrug as he ambled along beside her. ‘And the odd steeplechase as an amateur.’

  ‘Weren’t you a little tall?’

  ‘No taller than I am now. Not as heavy maybe, but I wasn’t any taller.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ Cassie said, smiling only briefly because her mind was fixed on the forthcoming race. ‘Now I must get a move on—’

  ‘Of course,’ Joel agreed before she could finish. ‘Your daughter’s riding Huckleberry Finn in the first. I used to be able to do ten stone nine.’

  ‘You must have been living on air.’

  ‘I won the Magnolia Hunter Chase here on a rather good horse called Wingate.’

  ‘I remember Wingate. He was rather useful. Won a lot of good races under rules, including the Foxhunters at Aintree.’

  ‘I didn’t ride him that day, unfortunately,’ Joel replied. ‘I’d injured myself.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Broke my back.’

  Cassie looked at the man ambling along beside her again, but he was busy staring up at the stands.

  ‘He was a good horse, Wingate,’ he said distantly before turning to glance
quickly at Cassie. ‘And I wouldn’t worry about the going if I were you,’ he added. ‘If any horse can handle this bog it’s your chap. He’ll win easily. Probably given his famous turn of foot by at least two or three lengths. Anyway – good luck.’

  With that he ducked down through the running rail and disappeared into the vast crowd which in spite of the endless rain was standing happily packed as tight as sardines in the public enclosures.

  Josephine was beaten into third place in the De Beers Diamond Stakes. For one wonderful moment as the field turned into the straight and she produced her horse on the outside of the field to hit the front at the furlong pole it seemed as if Huckleberry Finn might defy those who had said he didn’t get the trip and win, so easily did he appear to be going. But as his jockey said afterwards it was not the trip that beat him but the going, and if the ground had been good he would have won by an easy couple of lengths. As it was he was only beaten by a length and a neck and Josephine was as thrilled as if she had won.

  So it seemed was Mark, who was there with his father to unsaddle their horse.

  ‘Well done, poppet,’ he said, leaning forward to kiss her on the cheek. ‘That was a simply tremendous race.’

  ‘I can’t help it,’ Mattie muttered to his mother as they watched, well away from the party. ‘He keeps reminding me of that bloke who was always playing royalty on the box. He is so unreal.’

  Cassie didn’t say anything but privately she agreed with Mattie. Mark Carter-James was exactly the sort of person Mattie and Josephine had always found so funny. Mark Carter-James was a poseur.

  ‘Time to go and see the big fella,’ Cassie said to Mattie, taking his arm, only to be stopped by a short and stocky red-faced man in a dark suit and a Goodwood hat.

  ‘Don’t know if you remember me, Mrs Rosse,’ the man said. ‘Carter-James. Mark’s father. We met some time ago.’

  ‘Of course I remember you, Major, very well in fact,’ Cassie said. ‘Congratulations. I think your horse ran a splendid race.’

  ‘Thank you. Your daughter rode him very well. Going beat ’em, as you probably heard. What’s it going to do to your chap? Any idea?’

  ‘He’ll waltz through it, Major,’ Mattie said before Cassie could reply. ‘Now if you’ll excuse us we have to go and start getting our horse ready.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ Major Carter-James stood aside and doffed his hat. ‘Personally, I don’t think he’s going to like it, mind!’ he called after them. ‘Heavy-topped sort of animal!’

  ‘He’ll waltz through it, just you see!’ Mattie repeated as they made their way to the stables, followed at a discreet distance by a gaggle of Mattie’s handpicked friends-as-minders. Then he turned and took his mother’s arm.

  ‘This is going to be the greatest day in Nightie’s life, guv’nor,’ he said. ‘Just you wait and see. This is going to be a day none of us will ever forget.’

  The race was everything they said it would be. Amidst mounting excitement which moments later was to turn to mass hysteria, the field came off the final bend in a pack with the French Derby winner Concise holding a length and a half advantage over Thirtynine Steps, the very useful three-year-old who had strolled home in the Edward VII Stakes at the Royal Ascot meeting, and the 2000 Guineas winner Which Way Now, neither horse apparently toiling in spite of the heavy ground. Mrs Mopper was right there on the tail of the leaders, tucked in on the rails alongside Mot Cambron who seemed to have run too free in the early stages of the race and was now beginning to drop off the pace, while swinging wide towards the middle of the course were Changement, the Sadlers Wells colt who had won the Derby six weeks earlier with almost contemptuous ease and finally The Nightingale who was being pulled ever wider by Dexter in an attempt it would seem to find better ground.

  Then with just over a furlong and a half to run Concise ran out of oxygen and began to drop quickly away, leaving Thirtynine Steps suddenly with a two-length lead. At once his jockey sat down and sensing an historic victory began to ride for his life. Nor did his horse falter. In fact no horse could have run a better or braver race. It was just that on this one especial day he simply was just not good enough.

  None of them were. At the furlong pole with the exception of Concise they were all there with a chance, a line of horses headed half a length by Thirtynine Steps with Which Way Now beginning to make a very strong challenge along with Mrs Mopper, the little silvery grey mare who having found a run up the rails had now gone into overdrive and was flying so fast that when with only two hundred yards left to run she hit the front it seemed she had the race won. But the real race was going on behind.

  From where he had tucked his horse in behind the leaders, Walter Swinburn now produced Changement with one of his perfectly timed runs. Picking up his reins and changing hands to get his colt really motoring he pulled his horse’s head out from behind the flanks of Which Way Now and sat down into the drive position. The sudden increase in the roars from the crowd made Mrs Mopper unexpectedly swerve and almost duck through the rails, causing her jockey to snatch her up and lose what must have seemed to him her winning momentum. In a couple of strides she had gone from first to fourth, her balance and her chance gone, while Changement had in his sights what would be one of the most famous racing victories ever.

  Then just as the crowd’s roar was about to turn to a corporate moan of anguish as they thought they were going to see the wonder horse beaten, Dexter performed his trademark, shaking his reins once at The Nightingale and once again The Nightingale flew. Right up the centre of the course he came, not because the ground was any better there but because Dexter wanted everyone to see just how fast this great horse really was. Afterwards he said he had known when the field had dropped down into Swinley Bottom and the horse had actually quickened through the worst of the going while the others were visibly floundering that The Nightingale could come and win the race as he liked. There was no sensation whatsoever of running into bad ground. He said if anything the big horse seemed to enjoy it, actually lengthening his stride quite voluntarily as he galloped through the mud, and in fact he was pulling so hard as they began the climb up towards the home turn that Dexter had to take a tug so as not to hit the front too soon, although not because he didn’t think he could win from there. Dexter knew from the way the horse was travelling he could win from anywhere. He simply didn’t want to hit the front too soon because he didn’t want to do another Sandown. He wanted to show everyone that The Nightingale could do it every which way.

  One hundred yards from the winning post he was alongside Changement and cruising. He glanced at Walter Swinburn and Swinburn glanced back at him, knowing as the big horse appeared at his window that it was all over.

  ‘Cheerio, Walter,’ Dexter called, and for the first time for as long as he could remember he shook his reins for a second time at The Nightingale and the result left everyone who saw it for ever after at a loss for words. There were less than one hundred yards to run, eighty at most, and both the leading horses appeared to be at full stretch. Yet with that second shake and within the length of less than four cricket pitches The Nightingale had pulled three lengths clear and was still actually going away from Changement as he flashed past the post.

  In going which the BBC commentator described as unfathomable The Nightingale’s winning time was only 1.3 seconds outside his own course record.

  In going which before racing began caused the executive seriously to question the wisdom of allowing the meeting to go ahead, The Nightingale’s last furlong dash was timed at forty-two miles per hour.

  In going which Peter O’Sullevan, the doyen of all race commentators, said would have caused even the stewards at an Irish point to point meeting to call it a day, The Nightingale left a field of five of the best young horses in training for dead, horses which were of such a high class that later in the year they were to go on to win between them the St Leger, the Champion Stakes, the Ebor handicap and the Prix Henry Delamarre, and take second place in the Prix de l
’Arc de Triomphe.

  It was, as everyone who saw it said, an indescribable achievement.

  People cheered till they were hoarse as Fred and Bridie led the horse back to the winner’s enclosure. They threw their hats in the air. Men and women. Children were hoisted onto their fathers’ shoulders and lovers were lifted off the ground by their young men to catch sight of him so that by the time The Nightingale had reached the unsaddling enclosure, many racegoers were seen to be crying.

  For a moment Cassie didn’t know what to do as she walked towards her horse with Mattie on one side of her grinning from ear to ear and Josephine on the other. The Nightingale knew what to do, however. Seeing his beloved owner he snorted at her, showering her with spray and sweat before pushing against her with his nose and nearly knocking her off her feet.

  ‘OK! All right!’ Cassie said with a laugh, steadying herself as Mattie grabbed hold of her. ‘Take it easy! We’re just going to tell you how brilliant you are!’

  Mattie patted the horse’s sweat-streaked neck and pulled one of his loppy ears.

  ‘Well done, old fella,’ he said. ‘You really are just something other. What I don’t know, but whatever it is it’s something else.’

  As Cassie helped Bridie pull on the horse’s sweat sheet she caught sight of Joel Benson in the front row of the crowd thronging the winner’s enclosure at ground level. He was so tall he would have been hard to miss at any time, but now he seemed to tower above the people around him. He wasn’t smiling. Instead he was looking at Cassie with a deep frown while holding up three fingers on one hand to show the winning margin as he had predicted.

  ‘Horses away, please!’ an official called. ‘Horses away.’

  In answer Cassie smiled back at him, then giving The Nightingale one last pat instructed Bridie to lead the horse away from her and so to begin the most fateful journey of his life.

  Seven