Sid Halley had been a champion jockey. But those days were lost in a fall beneath 500 pounds of horse that cost him his left hand and his racing future -- and fractured his marriage in the bargain.

Now medical and engineering science have provided him with a marvelous mechanical substitute for his whip hand. But there are no substitutes in Halley 's life for his two great loves: his beautiful, bitchy ex-wife., and thoroughbred racing.

And they're both in trouble ..trouble that has led him into a battle of nerves with an elegant, vicious aristocrat -- where losing could be worse than the loss of his hand, his career or his wife -- and where surviving means a desperate confrontation with his own worst fear.