1888
THE BROKEN-LINK HANDICAP
by Rudyard Kipling
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
THE BROKEN-LINK HANDICAP
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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.
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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 gate-post- 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 race-course, 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 marvelled 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 'favouritism 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 towards 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 off-side, 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.
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THE END
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