Part two: Once upon a time.

Where to go next? The problem was manifold. Firstly, the jockey who was desperate to ride him next time he ran was stable jockey to the largest stable of point-to-pointers in East Anglia and he was required over the coming weeks to ride at meetings where there were no races for Jack. Or at least no races easily won. What everyone who was a part of the horse all agreed was that it was not fair on a young horse with a temperament like Jack’s to be asked to run in Open company.
At this point of the season, the other three horses in the stable had won a race and the owner was as keen as an Indian doctor for his son to come home from university with the highest honours possible that Jack should not let the side down, which is what he was achieving with form-figures of FFP.
One keen-eyed member of the team suggested a novice riders race three-weeks hence. This was a mad idea and the matter was fiercely debated. Jack was not a novice ride, every one of us was agreed on this. And by now, Jack was hard-fit, with taking the piss becoming his masterstroke. The story was told that he was out on the roads one morning, his head tucked under the tail of his old lead-horse, winner of an Open himself that season, when they approached a farm-yard where beet was being loaded onto a tractor and trailer. The lead horse, no doubt encouraged to do so, whipped round and headed for home. Ordinarily Jack would have led the homeward charge, but on this occasion, and perhaps the only occasion in the time I was part of his life, he looked-up, conducted a quick health and safety inspection, took note of the drainage ditches either side of the narrow road and decided to walk quietly on, giving the beet, the fore-end loader and the tractor, not a second of his time. Clear of the farm entrance, he stopped apparently and refused to go another inch until his lead horse returned to take up his duties as his personal guardian.
Three weeks was going to be a long wait but when the name a good, young promising rider was brought into the equation, a young man we were assured would quickly become a top professional, a prediction that proved wide of the mark, the race for riders that had ridden more than three-winners was chosen for Jack’s next port of call.
Extraordinary things happened to Jack during his life. It was just the way of things. He should never have won at Huntingdon. People feared him and would look on from afar rather than go near him. He ended a race in someone’s vegetable garden; he was cannoned into by a horse that had fallen early in the race; he made-up prodigious amounts of ground only to fall or pull-up. He was known to run-off the gallop for no reason known to man. He could wriggle out of a fully-bolted stable.
On this day he beat a long-odds-on favourite, a horse already bound for Nicky Henderson’s, by 12-length without ever coming off the bridle. The lad who rode him said in the winner’s enclosure that he hoped one day to ride a horse better than Mischievous Jack as that horse would be a Gold Cup horse. The owner, I assure you, cried upon hearing someone say something positive about his horse, as a breeder, his first-born had come good.
He won again next time out, a Men’s Open that was choc-a-block with winners, in a course record time. He was ridden by a different jockey again and the owner, having failed to get to talk to him after the race, stayed on to watch the last race as the jockey was on a ‘good thing’ and believing he could by now do no wrong had a substantial (for a point-to-point) bet on him. He fell at the last. I accompanied the owner down the course to ensure he was okay, as he remained prone for longer than might be expected. On seeing the owner, he looked-up and smiled. ‘Christ, you’ve got a good horse there. Too bloody good for this job.’
When they arrived home, there were messages from two top trainers on the answer-phone asking if Jack was for sell.
But he was not for sell. The owner had plans to get a permit and take his love of the game to another level and without Jack the dreams would be a lot less ambitious. 
Two-days later Jack was slightly lame on his right fore. The vet, now the winning-most trainer in racing history, diagnosed a slight tendon strain that required nothing more than daily hosing with cold water and a summer break. Any lingering temptation to sell for a six-figure sum was gone, and though he went-on to finish second in a handicap hurdle, Jack was blighted by that tendon and never won another race.
In horse racing, very rarely is there a truly happy ending.
We all move on in life. I moved away from East Anglia and lost track of Jack. His obsession with racehorses cost the owner his marriage and eventually, I do not have the facts, so can provide no context, he took his own life. I always wonder how things would have turned-out if Jack had been sold and his owner had taken the money? Would that have been enough to save his marriage. If the horse had gone into training with, say Nicky Henderson, after his first win, as I strongly advised, would he have gone on to win at the Cheltenham Festival, as so many experienced and wise people predicted?
That is horse racing, isn’t it: a glorious uncertainty; a long and inglorious litany of what-might-have-been.