Twice Shy

I'd turned up on his Californian doorstep sixteen hours later and early the next morning he had sent me off to see 'a man I met at a party'. A man, it transpired, of middle height, middle years and middling grey hair: a man I knew instantly by sight. Everyone in racing, worldwide, knew him by sight. He ran his racing as a big business, taking his profits in the shape of bloodstock, selling his stallions for up to a hundred times more than they'd earned on the track.

'Luke Houston,' he said neutrally, extending his hand.

'Yes, sir,' I said, retrieving some breath. 'Er… William Derry.'

He offered me breakfast on a balcony overlooking the Pacific, eating grapefruit and boiled eggs and giving me smiling genial glances which were basically as casual as X-rays.

'Warrington Marsh, my racing manager in England, had a stroke four days ago,' he said. 'Poor guy, he's doing well- I have bulletins every a.m.- but it is going to be some time, a long time, I'm afraid, before he'll be active again.' He gestured to my untouched breakfast. 'Eat your toast.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Tell me why I should give you his job. Temporarily, of course.'

Good grief, I thought. I hadn't the experience or the connections of the stricken revered maestro. 'I'd work hard,' I said.

'You know what it entails?'

'I've seen Warrington Marsh everywhere, on the racecourse, at the sales. I know what he does, but not the extent of his authority.'

He cracked his second egg. 'Your brother says you've gotten a lot of general know-how. Tell me about it.'

I listed the jobs, none of which sounded any more impressive than they had in fact been.

He said, 'College degrees?' pleasantly.

'No, I left school at seventeen, and didn't go to university.'

'Private income?' he said. 'Any?'

'My godfather left some money for my schooling. There's still enough for food and clothes. Not enough to live on.'

He drank some coffee and hospitably poured me a second cup.

'Do you know which trainers I have horses with in the British Isles?'

'Yes, sir. Shell, Thompson, Miller, and Sandlache in England and Donavan in Ireland.'

'Call me Luke,' he said. 'I prefer it.'

'Luke,' I said.

He stirred sweetener into his coffee.

'Could you handle the finance?' he said. ' Warrington always has full responsibility. Do millions frighten you?'

I looked out at the vast blue ocean and told the truth. 'I think they do in a way, yes. It's too easy in the upper reaches to think of a nought or two as not mattering one way or another.'

'You need to spend to buy good horses,' he said. 'Could you do it?'

'Yes.'

'Go on,' he said mildly.

'Buying potentially good horses isn't the problem. Looking at a great yearling, seeing it move, knowing its breeding is as near perfect as you can predict, and being able to afford it, that's almost easy. It's picking the excellent from among the second rank and the unknowns, that's where the judgement comes in.'

'Could you guarantee that every horse you bought for me, or advised my trainers to buy, would win?'

'No, I couldn't,' I said. 'They wouldn't.'

'What-percentage would you expect to win?'

'About fifty per cent. Some would never race, others would disappoint.'

He unaggressively, quietly, slowly and without pressure asked me questions for almost an hour, sorting out what I'd done, what I knew, how I felt about taking ultimate powers of decision over trainers who were older than myself, how I felt about dealing with the racing authorities, what I'd learnt about book-keeping, banking and money markets, whether I could evaluate veterinarian and nutritive advice. By the end I felt inside out; as if no cranny of my mind stayed gently unprobed. He would choose someone older, I thought.

'How do you feel,' he said finally, 'about a steady job, nine to five, weekends off, pension at the end of it?'

I shook my head from deep instinct, without thinking it out. 'No,' I said.

'That came from the heart, fella,' he observed.

'Well

'I'll give you a year and a ceiling beyond which you're not to spend. I'll be looking over your shoulder, but I won't interfere unless you get in a fix. Want to take it?'

I drew a deep breath and said, 'Yes.'

He leaned smilingly forward to shake my hand. 'I'll send you' a contract,' he said, 'but go right on home now and take over at once. Things can fall apart too fast with no one in charge. So you go straight to Warrington 's house, see his wife Nonie, I'll call her you're coming, and you operate from the office he's gotten there until you find a place of your own. Your brother told me you're a wanderer, but I don't mind that.' He smiled again. 'Never did like tame cats.'