Plain Tales from the Hills

  THE BROKEN LINK HANDICAPPED.

  While the snaffle holds, or the "long-neck" stings, While the big beam tilts, or the last bell rings, While horses are horses to train and to race, Then women and wine take a second place For me--for me-- While a short "ten-three" Has a field to squander or fence to face!

  Song of the G. R.

  There are more ways of running a horse to suit your book than pullinghis head off in the straight. Some men forget this. Understand clearlythat all racing is rotten--as everything connected with losing moneymust be. Out here, in addition to its inherent rottenness, it has themerit of being two-thirds sham; looking pretty on paper only. Every oneknows every one else far too well for business purposes. How on earthcan you rack and harry and post a man for his losings, when you are fondof his wife, and live in the same Station with him? He says, "on theMonday following, I can't settle just yet." You say, "All right, oldman," and think your self lucky if you pull off nine hundred out ofa two-thousand rupee debt. Any way you look at it, Indian racing isimmoral, and expensively immoral. Which is much worse. If a man wantsyour money, he ought to ask for it, or send round a subscription-list,instead of juggling about the country, with an Australian larrikin;a "brumby," with as much breed as the boy; a brace of chumars ingold-laced caps; three or four ekka-ponies with hogged manes, and aswitch-tailed demirep of a mare called Arab because she has a kink inher flag. Racing leads to the shroff quicker than anything else. Butif you have no conscience and no sentiments, and good hands, and someknowledge of pace, and ten years' experience of horses, and severalthousand rupees a month, I believe that you can occasionally contrive topay your shoeing-bills.

  Did you ever know Shackles--b. w. g., 15.13.8--coarse, loose, mule-likeears--barrel as long as a gate-post--tough as a telegraph-wire--and thequeerest brute that ever looked through a bridle? He was of no brand,being one of an ear-nicked mob taken into the Bucephalus at 4l.-10s. ahead to make up freight, and sold raw and out of condition at Calcuttafor Rs. 275. People who lost money on him called him a "brumby;" but ifever any horse had Harpoon's shoulders and The Gin's temper, Shackleswas that horse. Two miles was his own particular distance. He trainedhimself, ran himself, and rode himself; and, if his jockey insultedhim by giving him hints, he shut up at once and bucked the boy off. Heobjected to dictation. Two or three of his owners did not understandthis, and lost money in consequence. At last he was bought by a man whodiscovered that, if a race was to be won, Shackles, and Shackles only,would win it in his own way, so long as his jockey sat still. This manhad a riding-boy called Brunt--a lad from Perth, West Australia--andhe taught Brunt, with a trainer's whip, the hardest thing a jock canlearn--to sit still, to sit still, and to keep on sitting still. WhenBrunt fairly grasped this truth, Shackles devastated the country. Noweight could stop him at his own distance; and the fame of Shacklesspread from Ajmir in the South, to Chedputter in the North. There was nohorse like Shackles, so long as he was allowed to do his work in his ownway. But he was beaten in the end; and the story of his fall is enoughto make angels weep.

  At the lower end of the Chedputter racecourse, just before the turn intothe straight, the track passes close to a couple of old brick-moundsenclosing a funnel-shaped hollow. The big end of the funnel is not sixfeet from the railings on the off-side. The astounding peculiarity ofthe course is that, if you stand at one particular place, about half amile away, inside the course, and speak at an ordinary pitch, your voicejust hits the funnel of the brick-mounds and makes a curious whiningecho there. A man discovered this one morning by accident while outtraining with a friend. He marked the place to stand and speak fromwith a couple of bricks, and he kept his knowledge to himself. EVERYpeculiarity of a course is worth remembering in a country where ratsplay the mischief with the elephant-litter, and Stewards build jumpsto suit their own stables. This man ran a very fairish country-bred, along, racking high mare with the temper of a fiend, and the paces ofan airy wandering seraph--a drifty, glidy stretch. The mare was, as adelicate tribute to Mrs. Reiver, called "The Lady Regula Baddun"--or forshort, Regula Baddun.

  Shackles' jockey, Brunt, was a quiet, well-behaved boy, but his nerveshad been shaken. He began his career by riding jump-races in Melbourne,where a few Stewards want lynching, and was one of the jockeys whocame through the awful butchery--perhaps you will recollect it--of theMaribyrnong Plate. The walls were colonial ramparts--logs of jarrakspiked into masonry--with wings as strong as Church buttresses. Oncein his stride, a horse had to jump or fall. He couldn't run out. In theMaribyrnong Plate, twelve horses were jammed at the second wall. RedHat, leading, fell this side, and threw out The Glen, and the ruckcame up behind and the space between wing and wing was one struggling,screaming, kicking shambles. Four jockeys were taken out dead; threewere very badly hurt, and Brunt was among the three. He told the storyof the Maribyrnong Plate sometimes; and when he described how Whalleyon Red Hat, said, as the mare fell under him:--"God ha' mercy, I'm donefor!" and how, next instant, Sithee There and White Otter had crushedthe life out of poor Whalley, and the dust hid a small hell of men andhorses, no one marvelled that Brunt had dropped jump-races and Australiatogether. Regula Baddun's owner knew that story by heart. Brunt nevervaried it in the telling. He had no education.

  Shackles came to the Chedputter Autumn races one year, and his ownerwalked about insulting the sportsmen of Chedputter generally, tillthey went to the Honorary Secretary in a body and said:--"AppointHandicappers, and arrange a race which shall break Shackles and humblethe pride of his owner." The Districts rose against Shackles and sentup of their best; Ousel, who was supposed to be able to do his mile in1-53; Petard, the stud-bred, trained by a cavalry regiment who knew howto train; Gringalet, the ewe-lamb of the 75th; Bobolink, the pride ofPeshawar; and many others.

  They called that race The Broken-Link Handicap, because it was to smashShackles; and the Handicappers piled on the weights, and the Fund gaveeight hundred rupees, and the distance was "round the course for allhorses." Shackles' owner said:--"You can arrange the race with regardto Shackles only. So long as you don't bury him under weight-cloths,I don't mind." Regula Baddun's owner said:--"I throw in my mare to fretOusel. Six furlongs is Regula's distance, and she will then lie downand die. So also will Ousel, for his jockey doesn't understand a waitingrace." Now, this was a lie, for Regula had been in work for two monthsat Dehra, and her chances were good, always supposing that Shacklesbroke a blood-vessel--OR BRUNT MOVED ON HIM.

  The plunging in the lotteries was fine. They filled eight thousand-rupeelotteries on the Broken Link Handicap, and the account in the Pioneersaid that "favoritism was divided." In plain English, the variouscontingents were wild on their respective horses; for the Handicappershad done their work well. The Honorary Secretary shouted himself hoarsethrough the din; and the smoke of the cheroots was like the smoke, andthe rattling of the dice-boxes like the rattle of small-arm fire.

  Ten horses started--very level--and Regula Baddun's owner cantered outon his back to a place inside the circle of the course, where two brickshad been thrown. He faced towards the brick-mounds at the lower end ofthe course and waited.

  The story of the running is in the Pioneer. At the end of the firstmile, Shackles crept out of the ruck, well on the outside, ready to getround the turn, lay hold of the bit and spin up the straight before theothers knew he had got away. Brunt was sitting still, perfectly happy,listening to the "drum, drum, drum" of the hoofs behind, and knowingthat, in about twenty strides, Shackles would draw one deep breath andgo up the last half-mile like the "Flying Dutchman." As Shackles wentshort to take the turn and came abreast of the brick-mound, Brunt heard,above the noise of the wind in his ears, a whining, wailing voice on theoffside, saying:--"God ha' mercy, I'm done for!" In one stride, Bruntsaw the whole seething smash of the Maribyrnong Plate before him,started in his saddle and gave a yell of terror. The start brought theheels into Shackles' side, and the scream hurt Shackles' feelings.
Hecouldn't stop dead; but he put out his feet and slid along for fiftyyards, and then, very gravely and judicially, bucked off Brunt--ashaking, terror-stricken lump, while Regula Baddun made a neck-and-neckrace with Bobolink up the straight, and won by a short head--Petarda bad third. Shackles' owner, in the Stand, tried to think that hisfield-glasses had gone wrong. Regula Baddun's owner, waiting by the twobricks, gave one deep sigh of relief, and cantered back to the stand. Hehad won, in lotteries and bets, about fifteen thousand.

  It was a broken-link Handicap with a vengeance. It broke nearly all themen concerned, and nearly broke the heart of Shackles' owner. He wentdown to interview Brunt. The boy lay, livid and gasping with fright,where he had tumbled off. The sin of losing the race never seemed tostrike him. All he knew was that Whalley had "called" him, that the"call" was a warning; and, were he cut in two for it, he would never getup again. His nerve had gone altogether, and he only asked his masterto give him a good thrashing, and let him go. He was fit for nothing, hesaid. He got his dismissal, and crept up to the paddock, white as chalk,with blue lips, his knees giving way under him. People said nasty thingsin the paddock; but Brunt never heeded. He changed into tweeds, took hisstick and went down the road, still shaking with fright, and mutteringover and over again:--"God ha' mercy, I'm done for!" To the best of myknowledge and belief he spoke the truth.

  So now you know how the Broken-Link Handicap was run and won. Of courseyou don't believe it. You would credit anything about Russia's designson India, or the recommendations of the Currency Commission; but alittle bit of sober fact is more than you can stand!