The Broken-link Handicap

While the snaffle holds, or the long-neck slings,
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 pulling his
head off in the straight. Some men forget this. Understand clearly that
all racing is rotten--as everything connected with losing money must be.
In India, in addition to its inherent rottenness, it has the merit of
being two-thirds sham; looking pretty on paper only. Every one knows every
one else far too well for business purposes. How on earth can you rack and
harry and post a man for his losings, when you are fond of his wife, and
live in the same Station with him? He says, "On the Monday following," "I
can't settle just yet." You say, "All right, old man," and think yourself
lucky if you pull off nine hundred out of a two-thousand-rupee debt. Any
way you look at it, Indian racing is immoral, and expensively immoral.
Which is much worse. If a man wants your 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_ in gold-laced caps; three or four _ekka_-ponies with
hogged manes, and a switch-tailed demirep of a mare called Arab because
she has a kink in her flag. Racing leads to the _shroff_ quicker than
anything else. But if you have no conscience and no sentiments, and good
hands, and some knowledge of pace, and ten years' experience of horses,
and several thousand rupees a month, I believe that you can occasionally
contrive to pay your shoeing-bills.

Did you ever know Shackles--b. w. g., 15. 1-3/8--coarse, loose, mule-like
ears--barrel as long as a gatepost--tough as a telegraph-wire--and the
queerest brute that ever looked through a bridle? He was of no brand,
being one of an ear-nicked mob taken into the _Bucephalus_ at L4:10s., a
head to make up freight, and sold raw and out of condition at Calcutta for
Rs.275. People who lost money on him called him a "brumby"; but if ever
any horse had Harpoon's shoulders and The Gin's temper, Shackles was that
horse. Two miles was his own particular distance. He trained himself, ran
himself, and rode himself; and, if his jockey insulted him by giving him
hints, he shut up at once and bucked the boy off. He objected to
dictation. Two or three of his owners did not understand this, and lost
money in consequence. At last he was bought by a man who discovered 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 man had a riding-boy called
Brunt--a lad from Perth, West Australia--and he taught Brunt, with a
trainer's whip, the hardest thing a jock can learn--to sit still, to sit
still, and to keep on sitting still. When Brunt fairly grasped this truth,
Shackles devastated the country. No weight could stop him at his own
distance; and the fame of Shackles spread from Ajmir in the South, to
Chedputter in the North. There was no horse like Shackles, so long as he
was allowed to do his work in his own way. But he was beaten in the end;
and the story of his fall is enough to make angels weep.

At the lower end of the Chedputter racecourse, just before the turn into
the straight, the track passes close to a couple of old brick-mounds
enclosing a funnel-shaped hollow. The big end of the funnel is not six
feet from the railings on the off-side. The astounding peculiarity of the
course is that, if you stand at one particular place, about half a mile
away, inside the course, and speak at ordinary pitch, your voice just hits
the funnel of the brick-mounds and makes a curious whining echo there. A
man discovered this one morning by accident while out training with a
friend. He marked the place to stand and speak from with a couple of
bricks, and he kept his knowledge to himself. _Every_ peculiarity of a
course is worth remembering in a country where rats play the mischief with
the elephant-litter, and Stewards build jumps to suit their own stables.
This man ran a very fairish country-bred, a long, racking high mare with
the temper of a fiend, and the paces of an airy wandering seraph--a
drifty, glidy stretch. The mare was, as a delicate tribute to Mrs. Reiver,
called "The Lady Regula Baddun"--or for short, Regula Baddun.

Shackles' jockey, Brunt, was a quite well-behaved boy, but his nerve had
been shaken. He began his career by riding jump-races in Melbourne, where
a few Stewards want lynching, and was one of the jockeys who came through
the awful butchery--perhaps you will recollect it--of the Maribyrnong
Plate. The walls were colonial ramparts--logs of _jarrah_ spiked into
masonry--with wings as strong as Church buttresses. Once in his stride, a
horse had to jump or fall. He couldn't run out. In the Maribyrnong Plate,
twelve horses were jammed at the second wall. Red Hat, leading, fell this
side, and threw out The Gled, and the ruck came up behind and the space
between wing and wing was one struggling, screaming, kicking shambles.
Four jockeys were taken out dead; three were very badly hurt, and Brunt
was among the three. He told the story of the Maribyrnong Plate sometimes;
and when he described how Whalley on Red Hat, said, as the mare fell under
him--"God ha' mercy, I'm done for!" and how, next instant, Sithee There
and White Otter had crushed the life out of poor Whalley, and the dust hid
a small hell of men and horses, no one marveled that Brunt had dropped
jump-races and Australia together. Regula Baddun's owner knew that story
by heart. Brunt never varied it in the telling. He had no education.

Shackles came to the Chedputter Autumn races one year, and his owner
walked about insulting the sportsmen of Chedputter generally, till they
went to the Honorary Secretary in a body and said, "Appoint handicappers,
and arrange a race which shall break Shackles and humble the pride of his
owner." The Districts rose against Shackles and sent up of their best;
Ousel, who was supposed to be able to do his mile in 1-53; Petard, the
stud-bred, trained by a cavalry regiment who knew how to train; Gringalet,
the ewe-lamb of the 75th; Bobolink, the pride of Peshawar; and many
others.

They called that race The Broken-Link Handicap, because it was to smash
Shackles; and the Handicappers piled on the weights, and the Fund gave
eight hundred rupees, and the distance was "round the course for all
horses." Shackles' owner said, "You can arrange the race with regard to
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 fret Ousel. Six
furlongs is Regula's distance, and she will then lie down and die. So also
will Ousel, for his jockey doesn't understand a waiting race." Now, this
was a lie, for Regula had been in work for two months at Dehra, and her
chances were good, always supposing that Shackles broke a blood-vessel--or
Brunt moved on him.

The plunging in the lotteries was fine. They filled eight thousand-rupee
lotteries on the Broken-Link Handicap, and the account in the _Pioneer_
said that "favoritism was divided." In plain English, the various
contingents were wild on their respective horses; for the Handicappers had
done their work well. The Honorary Secretary shouted himself hoarse
through the din; and the smoke of the cheroots was like the smoke, and the
rattling of the dice-boxes like the rattle of small-arm fire.

Ten horses started--very level--and Regula Baddun's owner cantered out on
his hack to a place inside the circle of the course, where two bricks had
been thrown. He faced toward the brick-mounds at the lower end of the
course and waited.

The story of the running is in the _Pioneer_. At the end of the first
mile, Shackles crept out of the ruck, well on the outside, ready to get
round the turn, lay hold of the bit and spin up the straight before the
others knew he had got away. Brunt was sitting still, perfectly happy,
listening to the "drum-drum-drum" of the hoofs behind, and knowing that,
in about twenty strides, Shackles would draw one deep breath and go up the
last half-mile like the "Flying Dutchman." As Shackles went short 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 the offside,
saying--"God ha' mercy, I'm done for!" In one stride. Brunt saw the whole
seething smash of the Maribyrnong Plate before him, started in his saddle
and gave a yell of terror. The start brought the heels into Shackles'
side, and the scream hurt Shackles' feelings. He couldn't stop dead; but
he put out his feet and slid along for fifty yards, and then, very gravely
and judicially, bucked off Brunt--a shaking, terror-stricken lump, while
Regula Baddun made a neck-and-neck race with Bobolink up the straight, and
won by a short head--Petard a bad third. Shackles' owner, in the Stand,
tried to think that his field-glasses had gone wrong. Regula Baddun's
owner, waiting by the two bricks, gave one deep sigh of relief, and
cantered back to the Stand. He had won, in lotteries and bets, about
fifteen thousand.

It was a Broken-Link Handicap with a vengeance. It broke nearly all the
men concerned, and nearly broke the heart of Shackles' owner. He went down
to interview Brunt. The boy lay, livid and gasping with fright, where he
had tumbled off. The sin of losing the race never seemed to strike 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 get up again. His
nerve had gone altogether, and he only asked his master to give him a good
thrashing, and let him go. He was fit for nothing, he said. 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 things in the paddock;
but Brunt never heeded. He changed into tweeds, took his stick and went
down the road, still shaking with fright, and muttering over and over
again--"God ha' mercy, I'm done for!" To the best of my knowledge and
belief he spoke the truth.

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