Field of Thirteen - Dick Francis [56]
The chestnut galloped straight into the three-foot thick, chest-high solid birch fence with an impact that brought a groan of horror from the stands. He turned a somersault over the fence with a flurry of thrashing legs, threw Toddy off in front of him and fell down on top and rolled over him.
Chick felt as if the world were turning grey. The colours drained out of everything and he was halfway to fainting. Oh God, he thought. Oh God. Toddy.
The chestnut scrambled to his feet and galloped away. He followed the other horses towards the second fence, stretching out into a relentless stride, into a full-fledged thundering racing pace.
He hit the second fence as straight and hard as the first. The crowd gasped and cried out. Again the somersault, the spread-eagled legs, the crashing fall, the instant recovery. The chestnut surged up again and galloped on.
He came up past the stands, moving inexorably, the stirrups swinging out from the empty saddle, flecks of foam flying back now from his mouth, great dark patches of sweat staining his flanks. Where the track curved round to the left, the chestnut raced straight on. Straight on across the curve, to crash into the rail around the outside of the track. He took the solid timber across the chest and broke it in two. Again he fell in a thrashing heap and again he rocketed to his feet. But this time not to gallop away. This time he took three painful limping steps and stood still.
Back at the fence Toddy lay on the ground with first-aid men bending over him anxiously. Arthur Morrison ran down from the stands towards the track and didn’t know which way to turn first, to his son or his horse. Chick’s legs gave way and he sagged down in a daze on to the concrete steps. And down in the bookmakers’ enclosure Harry Buskins’ first reaction of delight was soured by wondering whether, if Toddy Morrison were badly injured, that stupid boy Chick would be scared enough to keep his mouth shut.
Arthur Morrison turned towards his son. Toddy had been knocked unconscious by the fall and had had all the breath squeezed out of him by the chestnut’s weight, but by the time his father was within one hundred yards he was beginning to come round. As soon as Arthur saw the supine figure move, he turned brusquely round and hurried off towards the horse: it would never do to show Toddy the concern he felt. Toddy would not respect him for it, he thought.
The chestnut stood patiently by the smashed rail, only dimly aware of the dull discomfort in the foreleg that wouldn’t take his weight. Arthur Morrison and the veterinary surgeon arrived beside him at the same time, and Arthur Morrison glared at the vet.
‘You said he was fit to run. The owner is going to hit the roof when he hears about it.’ Morrison tried to keep a grip on a growing internal fury at the injustice of fate. The chestnut wasn’t just any horse – it was the best he’d ever trained, had hoisted him higher up the stakes-won list than he was ever likely to go again.
‘Well, he seemed all right,’ said the vet defensively.
‘I want a dope test done,’ Morrison said truculently.
‘He’s broken his shoulder. He’ll have to be put down.’
‘I know. I’ve got eyes. All the same, I want a dope test first. Just being ill wouldn’t have made him act like that.’
The vet reluctantly agreed to take a blood sample, and after that he fitted the bolt into the humane killer and shot it into the chestnut’s drug-crazed brain. The best horse in Arthur Morrison’s stable became only a name in the record books. The digested carrot was dragged away with the carcass but its damage was by no means spent.
It took Chick fifteen minutes to realise that it was Toddy who was alive and the horse that was dead, during which time he felt physically ill and mentally pulverised. It had seemed so small a thing, in the beginning, to give a carrot to the chestnut. He