“A lot of thinking he’ll do; he has made up his mind, I can see, and he means to run The Vengeance to spite Alec. Fool, fool! I thought he had a better head. But there, what can you expect when there is a woman in the case? Another pair of good men gone wrong. Really, there is no encouragement for a man of experience to teach these chaps; even when they hold the cards they throw the game away. Oh, if I could only find a young fellow without sentiment or this conscientious humbug, what I could make of him!”
* * * * *
When the acceptances were out, the problem as to who ought to win the Sydney Cup was much simplified to Alec. The names of a number of horses he was doubtful about were missing. The top weights he held safe; what they could do was well known. It was only amongst outsiders like his own horse that he feared dangerous opposition. One of these was The Vengeance, but he held that horse cheap by having seen it often run in races with Bertha, and never show any form worth speaking of. But there were two or three others he must inquire about before he gave the word Go!
He did inquire, and with pretty satisfactory result, but he could get no definite encouragement from Soft Sam. The old man had no doubt The Vengeance in his mind, and while he would not have dreamt of giving Huey away, he yet urged Alec not to make too sure, and at any rate to back Bertha for a place. But the young man was now full of confidence, and once he had got his money on, made no secret amongst his intimates that Bertha was to be “on the job.” Huey was quick to hear of it, and he smiled a bitter smile, like a man who tasted in advance his enemies’ discomfiture.
* * * * *
Jack Vandy’s stable at Randwick was not a fashionable stable. It did not turn out winners by the score, or make an occasional sweep of the board at a big meeting; but if an impartial critic had examined the material Old Jack had had to deal with in his time, and the results, the verdict would not have been unfavourable.
A small trainer cannot choose his horses, and if a lot of dunderheads like to buy scrubbers, and send them to him to train, he can hardly afford to send them away, yet the subsequent failure of these beasts to do any good for themselves or owners helps to spoil the reputation of the trainer. Yet, as we have said, when good fortune had given him a good thing he had made the best of it.
And no horse could be better wound up to time than when Jack Vandy turned the key. This was the man recommended by Soft Sam when Alec inquired for a Sydney trainer, and to him, after due arrangement, Bertha was transferred. He looked her over critically, had her cantered up and down to watch her stride, and then turned to Alec, rubbing his hands.
“She’ll do!”
“What for?”