Citizen. Charlie Brooks

he’ll need to. O’Callaghan was talking an awful lot about her in the office this morning. He says she’s got three of the four aces in the pack—that’s the words he used. One, she’s bred from the best stock. Two, she was great stuff herself.’

      ‘She was a fighter in a race all right,’ agreed Tipper.

      ‘But the best bit, O’Callaghan says, is that, three, she’s feminine. He wouldn’t give you shite for one of those fillies that look so big and butch but breed fock all. This one’s a lady, so he says.’

      ‘So what’s the fourth ace then?’

      ‘Luck of course. And you can’t buy that, can you?’

      ‘What’ll she make, then?’

      ‘Ah, a million plus, easy. She’s worth that. You don’t get many like her coming on the market. She’s the future. If she throws a filly, you can breed from it. If it’s a colt, it’ll have a stallion’s pedigree. O’Callaghan loves this sire line, too. You can’t beat the Northern Dancer line. It’s the best that ever came out of America. Jesus, look what it did for John Magnier.’

      ‘It seems like a fockin’ lifetime since I was riding her,’ Tipper muttered mournfully. ‘Winning the fockin’ Irish Oaks. And will you look at me now? I’m lucky if I ride a shite winner on the sand somewhere.’

      Sam laughed.

      ‘You should’ve shagged Mrs S., didn’t I tell you?’

      ‘Pipe down!’ Tipper hissed. ‘There’s people can hear you. Anyway, I hope O’Callaghan buys her. At least she’ll stay close by.’

      Sam rested his elbows on the guard rail and looked around.

      ‘All right. So who else is going to be in for this mare? Those lads I suppose.’

      He nodded towards a section of the crowd in which sat a group of a dozen or so Chinese.

      Sam leaned over and saw Shalakov and his men shuffling into their seats. Shalakov, with his pockmarked, vodka-raddled complexion looked oddly out of place in the packed, Barbour-coated or tweed-jacketed audience. And, while there’s never a shortage of heavy drinkers in any racing crowd, Shalakov looked like he could out-drink the lot of them and then twist the cap on a fresh bottle just for himself.

      ‘Jesus, Tipper, he looks like the second cousin of Tyrannosaurus Rex,’ Sam chuckled.

      ‘They say he was a commando in Afghanistan, or somewhere; it was only that he’s deadly accurate with his throwing knife that kept him alive.’

      Sam whistled. ‘Okay. Let’s see what he’s made of in the sales ring.’

       19

      ‘Now we come to lot number seventy-three, Stella Maris,’ announced the auctioneer Jimmy Giles. ‘Twice a Group One winning mare. By Giant’s Causeway out of Star Dust. An absolutely first-class prospect, ladies and gentlemen.’

      It may have been a freezing, black February night, but inside the ring the atmosphere was red hot. The likes of Stella Maris are not seen in the ring very often. If it hadn’t been for Robinson’s dire lack of funds, she wouldn’t have been there at all. She swaggered around the ring taking everything in. The sales ring is a claustrophobic place when it’s packed and she was beginning to feel it coming in on top of her.

      ‘God, I hope she behaves herself,’ whispered Tipper.

      Jimmy also looked a trifle anxious. This was by far the most valuable horse he’d ever auctioned. If the truth be known, he was not the world’s greatest hammer man, but he did play a bit of golf at the Royal Worlingham with Rupert Robinson, and Robinson liked him. Even more, he liked Jimmy Giles’s daughter Cassandra, who he’d run into in a couple of clubs in London. So Robinson had insisted to the sale company that Cassandra’s old man should be on the rostrum when his mare went through the ring.