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      Author’s Note

      The details of the English thoroughbreds are correct and are part of the history of Racing.

      The last horse to win the English Triple Crown (the Two Thousand guineas, the Derby, and the St. Leger) in 1935 was Bahrain.

      There were only three Dictators of the Turf – Lord George Bentick II was succeeded by Admiral John Henry Rous, the most famous, and a supreme authority on handicapping.

      The tale of Scham and Agba was eventually translated from the French by Colonel F. W. Alexander in 1867. The cat appears in portraits of Scham by Stubbs, Sartorious and Wootten.

      Charles Green was one of the great pioneers of balloons. He made his first coal gas ascent from Green Park in London during the celebrations of the Coronation of George IV. By 1835 he had made two hundred flights and introduced the tail-rope.

      In 1840 he planned a crossing of the Atlantic by balloon, but this had to be abandoned when he was injured during a difficult balloon landing in Essex.

      After his five hundredth balloon ascent he retired and died in 1870.

      Chapter One ~ 1838

      The horses thundered into the straight and then the crowd on Newmarket Heath watching them uttered a loud sigh as they realised that the favourite, wearing the blue and red colours of Lord Arkrie’s stable, was in the lead.

      Then a furlong later the gentlemen watching the race from the Jockey Club saw through their glasses another horse coming up on the outside.

      He was moving easily on the course and with an assurance that seemed to be lacking in the rest of those on the field, who were now bunched together on the rails.

      Steadily he drew up on the other horses until at the last moment the crowd realised what was happening and there was a roar of appreciation.

      For a moment the two horses were neck-and-neck and then the outsider, wearing orange with black crossed belts, colours well known in the racing world, passed the Winning Post a length ahead.

      Now there was no mistaking the cheer that rang out and Lord Arkrie, turning from the front of the Jockey Club stand, remarked sourly,

      “Blast it, Helstone! I do believe you are in league with the Devil himself! That was my race!”

      The Earl of Helstone made no response to the outburst, but merely turned slowly to walk from the stand towards the unsaddling enclosure.

      On the way he received congratulations from his friends, some sincere, some envious and a few sarcastic.

      “Must you take all the prizes, Helstone?” one elderly Peer demanded in a disgruntled voice.

      “Only the best of them,” the Earl replied and passed on to leave the Peer spluttering as he was unable to find a suitable retort.

      He reached the enclosure just as his horse Delos was led in amid the claps and cheers of the motley hordes who always frequented Newmarket Heath.

      The Earl’s jockey, a thin somewhat cadaverous-looking young man, who seldom smiled, swung himself out of the saddle.

      “Well done, Marson!” the Earl exclaimed. “Your timing was excellent.”

      “Thank you, my Lord. I did exactly as your Lordship told me.”

      “With excellent results,” the Earl said briefly.

      He patted his horse and went from the unsaddling enclosure, not waiting for the results of the weighing-in.

      As he walked back towards the Jockey Club, he was joined by his friend, Lord Yaxley.

      “That is a comfortable number of guineas in your pocket, Osric,” he remarked. “Not that you need them.”

      “Did you back him?” the Earl enquired,

      His friend hesitated for a moment.

      “To be truthful, I hedged it a little. Arkrie was so certain that his animal would come in first.”

      “He has been boasting about it for weeks,” the Earl remarked.

      “So you decided to show him up?” Lord Yaxley countered with a smile. “Well, you have certainly been successful. I believe he staked three thousand guineas on the race. He will be a bitter enemy from now on.”

      “That will be nothing new,” the Earl replied.

      They reached the Jockey Club stand and went to the bar at the back.

      “May I offer you a drink?” the Earl enquired.

      “I think it is the very least you can do, Osric,” Lord Yaxley replied. “Damnit all, money always goes to money! That is what my old father always used to say.”

      “You should trust your friends,” the Earl said coldly. “I told you that Delos was a good horse.”

      “The trouble is just that you did not say it positively enough,” Lord Yaxley complained. “Arkrie was shouting the merits of his beast from the rooftops.”

      The Earl said nothing but merely accepted the glass of champagne that had been poured out for him.

      Lord Yaxley raised his glass.

      “Your good health, Osric,” he said, “and may you, as you always do, go on succeeding in everything you undertake.”

      “You flatter me,” the Earl remarked dryly.

      “On the very contrary,” Lord Yaxley contradicted, “you are abominably, infuriatingly and invariably first past the post. And not only on the Racecourse!”

      He gave his friend a sly glance as he spoke and then he said with an irritated note in his voice,

      “Curse it, Osric, but you might look a little more elated. After all, you have just won one of the best races of the Season and shown once again that your thoroughbreds are superior to anyone else’s. You ought to be jumping for joy.”

      “I am far too old, my dear fellow, for such youthful exuberance,” he answered. “Besides, although it is extremely satisfactory to prove that my horses are superior, with my trainer and jockey prepared to do what I tell them, I can see no reason for any extravagant elation.”

      Lord Yaxley put his glass down on the table with a bang.

      “You exasperate me, Osric,” he said. “There are times when I miss the man you were in your youth, when we were wild and irreverent and everything seemed to be so amusing and an adventure. What has happened?”

      “As I have just told you, we have grown older,” the Earl remarked.

      “I don’t believe it is age,” Lord Yaxley said. “I think it is just being satiated, over-stuffed with all the good things of life, like attending one of those dinners that used to be given at Carlton House in my father’s day.”

      He drank some more champagne before he went on,

      “He has so often talked of how there would be thirty-five entrées and the Prince Regent ate so much that he could hardly rise from his chair at the end of the meal!”

      “I may have many faults,” the Earl pointed out, “but I do not over-eat.”

      “No, but you indulge yourself in other ways,” Lord Yaxley parried shrewdly.

      Someone came up at that moment to congratulate the Earl on his win and there was no chance of further conversation.

      But later on that evening, in his host’s elegant house on the outskirts of the town, Lord Yaxley returned to the assault.

      “I suppose you know, Osric,” he said, “that you will have offended a large number of your friends by leaving the dinner given in your honour so early?”

      “I doubt if anyone has noticed our departure,” the Earl replied. “They were, all of them, too foxed to count heads.”

      “And you, of course, are always excessively sober,”

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