On his way out from the weighing-room he passed Arthur Morrison, who cast an inattentive eye over his racing colours and said, ‘Oh yes... well, don’t make too much of a mess of it.’
Morrison was still thinking about the difference the chestnut’s death was going to make to his fortunes and he didn’t notice the spasm of irritation that twisted Chick’s petulant face.
There he goes, Chick thought. That’s typical. Typical. Never thinks I can do a bloody thing. If he’d given me more chances... and more money... I wouldn’t have given... Well, I wouldn’t have. He cantered down to the post, concentrating on resenting that remark, ‘don’t make too much of a mess of it,’ because it made him feel justified, obscurely, for having done what he’d done. The abyss of remorse opening beneath him was too painful. He clutched at every lie to keep himself out.
Harry Buskins had noticed that Chick had an unexpected mount in the Novice Hurdle and concluded that he himself was safe, the boy wasn’t going to crack. All the same, he had shut his bag over its swollen takings and left his pitch for the day and gone home, explaining to his colleagues that he didn’t feel well. And in truth he didn’t. He couldn’t get out of his mind the sight of the chestnut charging at those fences as if he couldn’t see. Blind, the horse had been. A great racer who knew he was on a racetrack starting a race. Didn’t understand there was anything wrong with him. Galloped because he was asked to gallop, because he knew it was the right place for it. A great horse, with a great racing heart.
Harry Buskins mopped the sweat off his forehead. They were bound to have tested the horse for dope, he thought, after something like that. None of the others he’d done in the past had reacted that way. Maybe he’d got the dose wrong or the timing wrong. You never knew how individual horses would be affected. Doping was always a bit unpredictable.
He poured himself half a tumbler of whisky with fingers that were shaking after all, and when he felt calmer he decided that if he got away with it this time he would be satisfied with the clean-up he’d made, and he wouldn’t fool around with any more carrots. He just wouldn’t risk it again.
At the starting post Chick lined up in the centre of the field, ever though the trainer had advised him to start on the outside to give the inexperienced horse an easy passage over the first few hurdles. Chick didn’t remember this instruction because he hadn’t listened, and even if he had listened he would have done the same, driven by his habitual compulsion to disagree. He was thinking about Toddy lining up on this spot an hour ago, not knowing that his horse wouldn’t see the jumps. Chick hadn’t known dope could make a horse blind. How could anyone expect that? It didn’t make sense. Perhaps it was just that the dope had confused the chestnut so much that although its eyes saw the fence, the message didn’t get through that he was supposed to jump over it. The chestnut couldn’t have been really blind.
Chick sweated at the thought and forgot to check that the girths were still tight after cantering down to the post. His mind was still on the inward horror when the starter let the tapes up, so that he was caught unawares and flat-footed and got away slowly. The small trainer on the stand clicked his mouth in annoyance, and Arthur Morrison raised his eyes to heaven.
The first hurdle lay side-by-side with the first fence, and all the way to it Chick was illogically scared that his horse wouldn’t rise to it. He spent the attention he should have given to setting his horse right in desperately trying to convince himself that no one could have given it a carrot. He couldn’t be riding a doped horse himself... it wouldn’t be fair. Why wouldn’t it be fair? Because... because...
The hurdler scrambled over the jump, knocked himself hard on the timber frame, and landed almost at a standstill. The small trainer began to curse.
Chick tightened one loose rein and then the other, and the hurdler swung to and fro in wavering indecision. He needed to be ridden with care and confidence and to be taught balance and rhythm. He needed to be set right before the jumps and to be collected quickly afterwards. He lacked experience, he lacked judgement and he badly needed a jockey who could contribute both.
Chick could have made a reasonable job of it if he’d been trying. Instead, with nausea and mental exhaustion draining what skill he had out of his muscles, he was busy proving that he’d never be much good.
At the second jump he saw in his mind’s eye the chestnut somersaulting through the air, and going round the bend his gaze wavered across to the broken rail and the scuffed-up patches of turf in front of it. The chestnut had died there. Everyone in the stable would be poorer for it. He had killed the chestnut, there was no avoiding it any more, he’d killed it with that carrot as surely as if he’d shot the bolt himself. Chick sobbed suddenly, and his eyes filled with tears.
He didn’t see the next two hurdles. They passed beneath him in a flying blur. He stayed on his horse by instinct, and the tears ran down and were swept away as they trickled under the edge of his jockey’s goggles.
The green hurdler was frightened and rudderless. Another jump lay close ahead, and the horses in front went clattering through it, knocking one section half over and leaving it there at an angle. The hurdler waited until the last minute for help or instructions from the man on his back and then in a muddled way dived for the leaning section, which looked lower to him and easier to jump than the other end.
Prom the stands it was clear to both the small trainer and Arthur Morrison that Chick had made no attempt to keep straight or to tell the horse when to take off. It landed with its forefeet tangled up in the sloping hurdle and catapulted Chick off over its head.
The instinct of self-preservation which should have made Chick curl into a rolling ball wasn’t working. He fell through the air flat and straight, and his last thought before he hit was that that stupid little sod of a trainer hadn’t schooled his horse properly. The animal hadn’t a clue how to jump.
He woke up a long time later in a high bed in a small room. There was a dim light burning somewhere. He could feel no pain. He could feel nothing at all. His mind seemed to be floating in his head and his head was floating in space.
After a long time he began to believe that he was dead. He took the thought calmly and was proud of himself for his calm. A long time after that he began to realise that he wasn’t dead. There was some sort of casing round his head, holding it cushioned. He couldn’t move.
He blinked his eyes consciously and licked his lips to make sure that they at least were working. He couldn’t think what had happened. His thoughts were a confused but peaceful fog.
Finally he remembered the carrot, and the whole complicated agony washed back into his consciousness. He cried out in protest and tried to move, to get up and away, to escape the impossible, unbearable guilt. People heard his voice and came into the room and stood around him. He looked at them uncomprehendingly. They were dressed in white.
‘You’re all right, now,’ they said. ‘Don’t worry, young man, you’re going to be all right.’
‘I can’t move,’ he protested.
‘You will,’ they said soothingly.
‘I can’t feel... anything. I can’t feel my feet.’ The panic rose suddenly in his voice. ‘I can’t feel my hands. I can’t... move... my hands.’ He was shouting, frightened, his eyes wide and stretched.