Dick Francis - 10 LB. Penalty

FIRST Glue-sniffing jockeys don’t win the Derby. I’d never sniffed glue in my life. All the same, I stood before the man whose horses I rode and listened to him telling me he had no further use for my services. He sat behind his large antique paper-covered desk fidgeting with his clean fingernails. His hands were a yellowish white, very smooth. ‘I have it on good authority,’ he said. ‘But I don’t!’ I protested in bewilderment. ‘I’ve never sniffed glue or anything else. Certainly not cocaine. I’ve never even smoked pot. It’s not true.’ He looked at me coldly with the knowing eyes of a rich, powerful, assured and physically bulky man who had inherited a good brain and a chunk of merchant bank, and trained racehorses prestigiously out of obsession. I was not yet eighteen at that point and, I now know, immature for my age, though of course I wasn’t aware of it at the time. I felt helpless, though, in the face of his inaccurate certainty, and had no idea how to deal with it. ‘Sir Vivian…’ I began with desperation, but he effortlessly cut me off with his heavier authoritative voice. ‘You can clear off at once, Benedict,’ he said. ‘I’ll not have my stable contaminated by rumours of a drug-taking jockey, even if he is an amateur and not much good.’ He saw me flinch but went on relentlessly. ‘You’ll never be a top race rider. You’re too big, for one thing, or at least you will be in a year or two and, frankly, you look clumsy on a horse. All arms and legs. In your hands, the most collected jumper turns in a sprawling performance. With that and an unsatisfactory reputation… well, I no longer want you associated with my stable.’ I stared at him numbly, hurt more deeply by his fairly brutal assessment of my lack of riding ability, which could perhaps be