Triple Crown

by Felix Francis

‘To be sure, sir, I can,’ I answered in my best ex-headmasterly Cork accent.

  ‘You’re a bit tall.’

  ‘I blame my parents, sir,’ I said. ‘They fed me too well when I was a wee lad.’

  My interviewer laughed. His name was Charlie Hern and he was the assistant to George Raworth, the Derby-winning trainer of Fire Point. I took him to be in his mid-thirties but he looked older, having already lost most of his hair.

  ‘You won’t have to ride the horses anyway,’ he said. ‘We have exercise riders for that. But it might be a bonus.’

  He looked again at the slightly battered Green Card he was holding in the name of Patrick Sean Murphy complete with my picture and thumbprint. A Green Card’s official name was a United States Permanent Resident Card (USCIS Form I-551) and Tony Andretti had worked a miracle with the State Department to have mine delivered to his home the previous day.

  It meant that I, as Patrick Sean Murphy, had the right to work legally in the United States.

  Not only was the name on the card false but so was the date of issue, as it stated that I had been a US permanent resident for the past three years. Consequently I had spent some time the previous afternoon ‘aging’ the card by rubbing it under my shoe on a concrete floor.

  The man shuffled once again through my equally fake testimonials while I stood in front of him without speaking, waiting.

  ‘Why did you leave Santa Anita,’ he asked, tapping one of the references.

  ‘Too hot, sir,’ I said. ‘Especially in the winter. I prefer me winters cold, same as at home, like.’

  He was silent for a moment, then he shuffled the papers together.

  ‘OK, Patrick,’ Charlie said finally. ‘You’ll do. We’ve just had to let a groom go, so we’re shorthanded here at present. Can you start immediately?’

  ‘Indeed I can, sir,’ I said, smiling broadly at him. ‘And please call me Paddy.’

  ‘All right, Paddy,’ he said, handing me back the Green Card. ‘You’ll be paid minimum wage and half of it will be withheld for your room and board.’

  I had looked up the minimum wage. I hadn’t been particularly impressed.

  ‘Where do I sleep?’ I asked.

  ‘Keith will show you. He’s the barn foreman so you do as he says.’

  Keith had been standing next to me throughout the short interview.

  We were in an office at the end of a training barn on the backside of Belmont Park Racetrack in New York. It was Wednesday morning, four days after the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, and two days after every racehorse trainer in the United States had received a strongly worded letter of warning from Immigration and Customs Enforcement concerning the employment of illegal immigrants.

  ‘And Paddy,’ said the assistant trainer as I turned to leave, ‘Mr Raworth expects absolute loyalty from his staff. You will do as you are told without question. You will not discuss your work with others, and you especially will not speak to the press about any of the horses. Do you understand?’

  I turned back to face him.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said.

  Keith and I went outside.

  ‘Where’s your stuff?’ Keith asked.

  ‘Me life’s all in here,’ I said, indicating the canvas holdall over my shoulder.

  Keith led me round the side of Raworth’s barn to a two-storey building that was desperately in need of a coat of paint.

  ‘In here,’ he said, pushing open the door. ‘Do you want to share with a Mexican or a Puerto Rican?’

  ‘You keeps half me wages and then you makes me share a room?’

  ‘Take it or leave it. We have others after jobs, you know.’

  ‘The Mexican,’ I said, for no particular reason.

  Keith showed me into a room that reminded me of a prison cell as depicted in a British TV sitcom of the 1970s. It was uniformly grey with a set of bunk beds taking up almost half the available floor space. In the corner, at the foot of the beds, were two wooden lockers stacked one upon the other, plus a hard, upright wooden chair. And overlaying everything was the smell of cheap disinfectant mixed with the characteristically pungent ammonic ‘horsey’ aroma.

  There was no sign of my roommate.

  ‘Yours is the top,’ Keith said.

  ‘Bed or locker?’ I asked.

  ‘Both.’

  ‘And the jacks?’

  He looked at me quizzically.

  ‘The jacks, man?’ I said. ‘The bleeding lavvies?’

  ‘If you mean the bathroom, that’s down the end of the corridor. You share it with four other rooms.’

  It made my former life in the army look rather luxurious.

  ‘Dump your kit and I’ll show you the rest of the place,’ Keith said.

  I tossed my bag onto the top bed and followed him out.

  The ‘backside’ at Belmont Park was not actually in the back of the racecourse but to the side, situated around a second exercise track set close to one end of the main racetrack.

  The barns were similar to those at Churchill Downs insofar that they were long thin structures, but these were enclosed at the sides rather than open, perhaps reflecting the fact that New York was further north than Louisville. And, whereas Churchill barns were white with green roofs, those at Belmont were the opposite.

  Keith and I walked down alongside George Raworth’s barn. There was little chance of confusing his barn with any other. The initials GR were emblazoned everywhere and there was already a workman screwing a white sign to the green outside wall that read, Home of Fire Point. Winner of the Kentucky Derby.

  ‘That was a great day last Saturday,’ Keith said. ‘Now for the Preakness.’

  ‘Is Fire Point here?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure is,’ he said. ‘We flew back together from Louisville on Sunday afternoon. He’ll stay here now until he goes down to Maryland.’

  ‘Will he fly there?’ I asked.

  Keith shook his head. ‘He’ll go by truck. It’s only two hundred miles from here. We could probably go down only the day before the Preakness but Pimlico demands that all the horses are down there earlier. It helps them market the race to the public. I expect we’ll go Monday. That would be usual.’

  ‘Does Mr Raworth have his own barn at Pimlico?’ I asked.

  ‘No. He did once but they’ve closed the barns there now, except for during the actual meet. I expect we’ll use the Stakes Barn.’

  A Stakes Barn was where a trainer would keep a horse brought in especially for a big race when he didn’t have a barn of his own at the track. It would normally be shared by several trainers.

  ‘Do you think Fire Point will win?’ I asked eagerly.

  ‘Sure, he’ll win,’ Keith replied with unshakable confidence. ‘He’s in great shape. He’ll win the Belmont too.’

  We walked over to a blue pickup truck.

  ‘Get in,’ Keith said. ‘I’ll show you around and get you registered.’

  First we went to the backside office where I was issued with a groom’s photo ID card on a lanyard that I was expected to wear round my neck at all times, and handed a printed sheet of rules and regulations that mostly consisted of dire warnings not to smoke anywhere near the barns.

  Next, we set off round the site. The backside at Belmont Park was considerably bigger than that at Churchill Downs, the barns being more spread out and separated from each other by smart white railings. It was like a small town with a recreation hall, learning centre, chapel, medical facility, even a bank branch where employees could cash their pay cheques and wire money home. But there was also the quirky side to the place – roosters pecking at undigested oats on the dungheaps, tethered goats acting as lawn-mowers on the grass between the barns, and dogs and cats lying out, warming themselves lazily in the mid-afternoon sun.

  Add the occasional neighing of the horses and it was more like a tranquil rural oasis than the actual reality, squeezed as it was between a busy suburb and a six-lane highway of a major metropolis.

  ‘You eat here in the
track kitchen,’ Keith said as we pulled up in front of it. ‘You get tokens from me for basic meals. If you want extra, you pay for it.’

  We went inside and Keith introduced me to Bert Squab, the manager. ‘Paddy here has just joined Raworth’s,’ Keith said to him. ‘Usual system.’

  Bert nodded at him and at me. ‘Supper at six-thirty,’ he said without much friendship in his voice. ‘Don’t be late or it’ll be gone.’

  I smiled at him, trying to break through his icy exterior, but without response. In spite of working in a hot kitchen, Bert was solid permafrost.

  Keith and I went outside and climbed into the pickup. He drove us back to Raworth’s barn.

  ‘Here, take these.’ Keith counted a number of plastic discs into my hand. ‘These are meal tokens. These will last you until Sunday. You’ll get more then with the others.’

  I put the tokens in my pocket.

  ‘Evening stables are from four to six,’ Keith said.

  ‘Which horses do I do?’

  ‘That’ll be decided by Mr Hern.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Four or five horses to a groom, it depends on how many we have in. Our barn is one of the larger ones here. It has thirty-two stalls and we’re usually pretty full – today’s count is twenty-eight. We also have two other permanent barns, one at Del Mar in California and the other at Gulfstream in Florida. Mr Raworth splits his time between the three, the fall at Del Mar, winter in Florida and the rest of the time either here or upstate at Saratoga where we all go for six weeks in the summer.’

  ‘So he’s here right now?’ I asked.

  ‘Certainly is,’ Keith said. ‘Arrived back from Louisville last evening for today’s racing.’

  ‘Here at Belmont?’

  He nodded. ‘We race here throughout May, five days a week. Mr Raworth is coming over from the track to see everyone at four, so don’t be late.’

  I could see that ‘don’t be late’ was going to be my mantra as long as I was here.

  I went back to the bunkhouse and lay on my bed to do some thinking.

  The full FACSA team, including Tony Andretti and myself, had flown back to Washington on Sunday morning as originally planned, on the government-owned jet, a converted Boeing 737 fitted out with thirty business-class seats. It wasn’t quite Air Force One but it was very comfortable nonetheless.

  I purposely sat well away from Tony, with him up near the front and me down the back next to Larry Spiegal.

  On the flight I had gone round to most of the agents individually to thank them for their hospitality and to say goodbye.

  ‘You leaving us already?’ Larry had said. ‘You’ve hardly had time enough to spit.’

  ‘I’m afraid I have to,’ I’d replied, smiling. ‘I can’t spend my life gallivanting around the world in private jets like you lot. I have work to do in London.’

  We had landed at Andrews around midday and most of the agents had dispersed immediately to their homes, eager to catch up with wives and children for what remained of the weekend.

  I had hung around until the last of the agents had departed then I’d called Tony Andretti. He, meanwhile, had been collected by Harriet, but they now returned to where I was waiting at a secluded spot outside the base main gate.

  I slung my suitcase onto the back seat and climbed in after it.

  ‘Where to?’ Tony asked.

  ‘No idea,’ I said. ‘Where do you suggest?’

  ‘Our place?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘Do you have neighbours?’

  ‘Sure,’ Tony said. ‘Why?’

  I had always been obsessed with my own security, to the extent of being paranoid. But that paranoia had helped keep me alive through three long tours in war-ravaged Afghanistan and subsequently, working undercover for the BHA.

  ‘I don’t want anyone to see you and me together. You never know who’s watching or who they will talk to.’

  ‘The neighbours don’t need to see you,’ Harriet said. ‘We can drive straight into the garage. You lie down on the back seat.’

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  So, perhaps against my better judgement, I had gone home with Tony and Harriet to Fairfax, Virginia, where I had spent the next two days hiding from their neighbours, studying bank statements, growing my beard and making plans to become a groom.

  ‘Why Raworth’s?’ Tony had asked when I’d told him where I was going for a job.

  ‘Partly because George Raworth trains at Belmont Park. Do you remember telling me that FACSA had conducted a raid on a barn at Belmont last October but had found nothing, the whole place having been steam cleaned?’

  ‘Of course,’ Tony had said. ‘That was the raid that Jason Connor was so furious about.’

  ‘Can you recall the name of the trainer?’

  ‘Man called Mitchell, Adam Mitchell. But he’s now gone from Belmont permanently. He went back to Florida after that trouble and NYRA were glad to see the back of him. We interviewed him in Miami about Jason Connor and how he had been tipped off regarding our raid, but he wasn’t talking. It was a total dead end.’

  ‘How about his grooms?’

  ‘They mostly went down with him to Florida. We interviewed some of them too, but they all said they knew nothing. I think they were frightened of Mitchell. That’s why Connor tracked down the one at Laurel, he didn’t go with the others and was apparently prepared to talk, but now even he’s disappeared.’

  ‘And what that groom said to Connor is anyone’s guess.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘There may still be some of Mitchell’s past grooms at Belmont, working for other trainers. I could try to find them.’

  ‘Seems like a long shot to me,’ Tony had said. ‘Is that the only reason to work for George Raworth?’

  ‘No. I also want to go there because he won the Kentucky Derby and he has since indicated that he intends to run three horses in the Preakness, including the Derby winner, Fire Point.’

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘To start with, it means I may have more chance of getting to Pimlico, but mostly I’m curious as to whether his other two will actually be trying to beat Fire Point, or will they only be there to spoil the chances of the other runners.’

  ‘You’re a cynic.’ Tony had laughed.

  ‘Maybe I am. But I believe there is something very fishy about the way those three competitors conveniently all fell ill on the very morning of the Derby.’

  ‘The track veterinarian didn’t think so,’ Tony had said. ‘He said that it was not uncommon for horses to go off their food and run a fever, especially when being moved around. But, I grant you, it looks a bit suspicious for those three to have fallen ill on that particular day.’

  I’d read the vet’s interim report. Not that I’d really understood much of it. It had all been a bit too scientific for me and it didn’t answer the most important question, which was what was wrong with the horses. One of his paragraphs had stuck in my mind: Antigenic drift of antigenically heterologous viruses may reduce the degree and duration of protection conferred by previous infection or vaccination.

  The phrase ‘blinding with science’ came to mind. At least I could understand the last bit.

  ‘Does he think it may have been a new strain of equine influenza?’

  ‘He doesn’t know yet,’ Tony had replied. ‘Apparently he has to wait for the horses to produce antibodies and then test for those, rather than for the virus itself. It takes a few days.’

  But, if it was equine influenza, one of the most infectious diseases around, why hadn’t it infected more of the horses? What was so special about those three? Other than, of course, they were three of the most fancied runners in the Kentucky Derby.

  I thought that fact alone was sufficiently suspicious for me to go to work in Raworth’s stable, in order to find out.

  My roommate returned from wherever he’d been at about ten minutes to four as I was still lying on my bed. He rushed into our room, grabbed some boots
from his locker and was pulling them on before he even noticed me.

  He was a short man that I took to be in his fifties. He looked up at me.

  ‘Hola,’ he said, totally unfazed to find another man in his bedroom. ‘Mi nombre es Rafael Diaz. Y tu?’

  ‘Paddy,’ I replied. ‘Paddy Murphy. From Ireland.’

  ‘Mexicano,’ Rafael said, pointing a finger at his chest. ‘Vine aquí hace diez años.’

  I shook my head. ‘No Español.’

  He had exhausted my Spanish by asking my name.

  He smiled broadly, exposing the few teeth that still remained in his head, which themselves appeared to be in need of some urgent dental treatment.

  ‘Mexican,’ he said in heavily accented English. ‘I came to here ten years.’

  I climbed down from my bunk and shook his hand. He grinned some more. ‘We go work. No late. Mr Keith say boss come.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, looking at the watch on my wrist.

  It was five minutes to four.

  Don’t be late, Keith had said.

  Rafael and I rushed along from the accommodation block to the barn.

  ‘Come on, you two,’ Charlie Hern shouted at us. ‘Hurry up and get in position.’

  We quickly lined up with seven others, including Keith who stood on the end. It reminded me slightly of the FACSA special agent parade at the National Guard facility on the morning of the Hayden Ryder raid.

  But that is where the similarity ended.

  The FACSA team had been a crack outfit while this motley crew appeared anything but. Instead of a smart uniform, the nine of us wore a variety of T-shirts, jeans and assorted footwear ranging from Rafael’s ankle-high jodhpur boots to my off-white trainers.

  George Raworth appeared from the office in which I had been interviewed earlier, and walked over to where we were paraded. He was casually dressed in blue jeans and a polo shirt, in contrast to the last time I’d seen him wearing a suit and tie on the giant TV screen at Churchill Downs as he’d led Fire Point into the Derby winner’s circle.

  During my stay with Tony and Harriet, I had used the Internet to do some research on Mr George S. Raworth.

  He had been born near El Paso in western Texas where his great-great-grandfather had established a longhorn cattle ranch in the 1890s, just as soon as the railroad had arrived to transport the stock to markets in the north.