Field of Thirteen - Dick Francis [58]
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