Working on a happy ending to the latest festival horror story

Nobody died. There's no need to choose the casket or book the hearse. But while a 15 per cent lesion in the deep flexor tendon of an otherwise healthy racehorse is no cause for public mourning, the timing of the injury was as bad as it could be.

Everybody at Lodge Hill Stables did their best for the patient. Jockey Harry Skelton was straight in with the cold water hose when Superb Story took his first feeling step after exercise. Ice brought down the swelling but merely enough for the scan to confirm the trainer's leaden suspicions.