‘This is a two Voltarol day,’ I thought, as I popped another pill and settled into the bath after Darcy’s first hurdling session. Well, three Voltarol if you count the one I gave to the young jockey who parted company with his horse at the first hurdle just in front of me.
He knelt on the ground wearing a stoical expression as he cradled his arm. He has been doing this since he was 15. When he is older he will be able to tell his children, in all seriousness, that he went to the school of hard knocks and the college of crashing into hurdles.
‘If there are bones sticking out,’ I thought, because the jockey tea room talk about injuries nonchalantly suffered is always luridly laid on for my benefit every time I nip in for a cuppa, ‘then that’s it. I’m not doing this any more.’ (My mother rings me up daily to announce, ‘Listen here.
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