Pulse(85)

She was sitting on her haunches, groaning.

‘Where does it hurt?’ I asked.

‘Where doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘Got kicked around by all of them like a bloody football.’ She started to get slowly to her feet. ‘But I’ll be fine.’

‘Did you bang your head at all?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said, taking off her racing helmet and shaking free a huge bundle of bouncing red curls. ‘Thank God.’

I walked with her away from the fence towards the inside rail.

She winced as she ducked under it.

‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

‘Nothing a couple of ibuprofen and a long stretch in the sauna won’t cure. I’m just sore, that’s all.’

‘Make sure you report to the medical room when you get back to the weighing room,’ I reminded her. ‘You’ll need to be checked over there.’

‘Sure will. Thank you, Dr Rankin.’ She smiled at me with a set of gleaming-white perfect teeth before climbing into the jockey transport that had stopped to collect her. I stood for a second and watched her go, wondering why such a beautiful face wanted to gallop over fences at thirty miles per hour with the inevitable injuries that would surely come. Had she not seen the men in the changing room with mouthfuls of gaps and dentures?

But, I suppose, if she loved the excitement of racing and the surge of adrenalin in her veins that it produced, then maybe it was worth the bumps and bashes. I just hoped she still thought the same in the years to come. If I had teeth like that, I’d take up something safer, like BASE jumping.

I returned to the Land Rover and rejoined the chase of the remaining runners on their second circuit, but there were no more fallers and I made my way back through the rain to the weighing room.

Jane Glenister was there, lying on one of the beds. She watched me come in.

‘You OK?’ I asked her.

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Just resting my aching bones until the ibuprofen kicks in. I’ll be fine in a bit.’

‘No more rides today.’ It was more of a statement than a question.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Just the one. All this way just to get my arse walloped.’

‘Where’s home?’ I asked.

‘In Devon, near Plymouth.’

‘Are you driving back tonight?’

‘That’s the plan. Straight down the M5.’

I turned to the nurse. ‘Has she done the concussion tests?’

‘Passed with flying colours,’ the nurse said with a laugh. ‘She didn’t just know which jockey won the Gold Cup, but also his extra-large condom size.’

‘That was meant to be a secret between you and me,’ Jane whined in mock complaint.

‘Too much information,’ I said, laughing. But I was satisfied that she wasn’t concussed. ‘Lie there for as long as you like. But promise me you’ll tell us if something doesn’t feel right, and don’t drive home unless you’re well enough. Better to stay somewhere locally.’

‘OK, OK,’ she said, waving a hand at me. ‘Don’t make a bloody fuss.’ She closed her eyes. She was clearly in more pain than she was letting on, but there was nothing unusual about that in racecourse changing rooms.

‘Jockeys, five minutes,’ announced the loudspeaker.

Time for me to go out again to the Land Rover.

There were two more fallers in the remaining races but neither of the jockeys was injured, one of them getting up from the turf beyond the second-last fence and running off so fast that I was left gasping in his wake.

‘No strenuous exercise.’ I could almost hear my GP’s stern warning ringing in my ears.

I gave up the chase, watching him disappear into the distance. I’d done my best to attend to him within one minute. If he was able to run all the way back to the weighing room, I reckoned I could safely assume he was unhurt. Not that he wouldn’t still be tested for concussion when he got there.

I returned to the medical room more slowly to find that the two beds were now empty.

‘What happened to our patient?’ I asked the nurse.

‘She went for a sauna. She said it would ease her aches and pains.’

I smiled.

Jane Glenister was clearly quite a girl.

Cheltenham Racecourse hadn’t yet run to a separate sauna for the lady jockeys, the only one being in a corner of the male toilets. Perhaps Jane’s knowledge of the over-endowment of the Gold Cup winner had been acquired in appropriately steamy surroundings.

The day concluded with Adrian giving his debrief about an hour after the last race. I had already called Grant to ensure he hadn’t forgotten about picking up the boys from their cricket course.

‘Of course I haven’t forgotten,’ he’d said rather tetchily. ‘What time will you be home?’

‘Seven to seven-thirty,’ I’d replied.

‘Did you get my steak?’

The route to a man’s heart.

‘It’s in the fridge. I went to the butcher’s early.’

After the debrief, I switched my racecourse doctor’s coat for my anorak and went into the jockeys’ changing room to find Whizz. He and the other valets were busy finishing the loading of all the equipment into three huge wicker baskets.

‘Where tomorrow?’ I asked.