‘We told Jose to stay out of Jump For Fun’s way,’ Mattie said. ‘So as long as she remembers that—’
‘But suppose Jump For Fun doesn’t stay out of Nightie’s way,’ Cassie came in.
‘No way. The horse won’t have the legs to lie up with Nightie.’
‘He might not need the legs,’ Cassie said. ‘Remember the way a certain trainer ran a horse in a recent Gold Cup? Deliberately to spoil the favourite’s chance? No, I’m serious,’ Cassie continued, stopping Mattie’s interruption. ‘Something’s up. You should have seen the look in that man’s eyes.’
‘Jeez,’ Mattie hissed. ‘It had bloody well better not be.’
‘It is,’ Cassie said. ‘Look—’ She pointed down to where the horses were already being called into line. ‘Jump For Fun’s been pulled right over beside Nightie.’
‘Who’s riding it?’ Mattie looked at his racecard. ‘Goddam. It’s that bastard Brian Baker. No trainer in his right mind would put him up on a decent horse in a race like this.’
‘Right,’ Cassie said, putting up her race glasses. ‘So why have they?’
‘This could be the Epsom Derby all over again,’ Mattie said, following suit with his own binoculars.
‘Or that infamous Gold Cup. Just pray that Josephine gets away fast,’ Cassie said. ‘If she gets a decent break she should be able to leave him cold.’
‘The horses are being called into line,’ the course commentator announced. ‘And they’re off!’
Josephine was in a perfect position as the tape flew clear but the man on Jump For Fun had anticipated her, almost causing a false start so quickly did he jump off. He got half a length up on The Nightingale before Josephine could get racing, then as soon as he had the advantage he drove Jump For Fun right across The Nightingale’s racing line, hooking his own horse up at the same time so that The Nightingale’s head came up and almost hit Josephine in the face, a move which all but stopped the favourite in his tracks.
‘Shit—’ Mattie swore. ‘You’re right, dammit. He’s in there to stop us.’
‘He’s done so,’ Cassie said, moving closer to the window. ‘It’s Brown’s Gazette all over again. We’ve lost a good six or eight lengths.’
‘Brown’s Gazette lost twenty lengths, Ma,’ Mattie reminded her. ‘We’re not cooked yet.’
‘We’re not,’ Theodore agreed from his position beside Cassie. ‘He’s off and running now, Cassie, and making up ground like the proverbial hot cakes.’
‘So’s Jump For Fun,’ Cassie said. ‘For God’s sake will you look at that! He’s leaning on Nightie all the way! He’s trying to run him out!’
The field was already about to meet the first hurdle, packed in a bunch with Demerara leading by three-quarters of a length and pulling hard for his head, the others all tightly packed behind him, all except Jump For Fun who having crossed The Nightingale had now been straightened up by Baker and set to race along the favourite’s nearside with the very obvious intention of putting the horse off his stride at every conceivable opportunity. The result was that as the leaders all flipped over the first, Josephine who had been trying to run up to the hurdle on the left found herself being forced with every stride right across the face of the obstacle by the big chestnut who was being driven deliberately into her horse.
‘Switch him, Jose!’ Mattie cried helplessly. ‘Take a tug and pull Nightie in behind!’
The gods must have been listening because at once Josephine sat back to take a good tug at her horse, bringing him back almost to a park canter leaving Jump For Fun to plunge across him and take the first hurdle practically by the wing. But because of this last minute manoeuvre The Nightingale had hardly any room to put down before the jump and had practically to cat leap it from the walk, yet jump it he did, Josephine kicking away from the hurdle as soon as she had landed to try to escape her pursuer as well as catch up the field which had now pulled a good half dozen lengths clear of her. The moment she did Baker gave Jump For Fun a violent crack with his whip, causing his horse to bolt forward, this time charging up on the inside of The Nightingale.
‘This is perfectly deliberate!’ Cassie announced as she realized what was happening. ‘He’s been put in to mark Nightie! To take him on at every hurdle to try to either run him out or force him into a mistake!’
‘They should call them back and stop the race!’ Fiona announced. ‘This is an absolute disgrace!’
Without putting his glasses down Jack Madigan called to Cassie. ‘He’s cooked, Cass!’ he said. ‘If your daughter doesn’t get right away from him, he’s going to be run out of the bloody race altogether!’
‘She’s got either to drop him right out!’ Cassie called back, ‘or go for broke now! But if she does that there’s a chance she’ll use up all Nightie’s speed and he’ll have nothing left at the business end!’
‘He’s going to have his work cut out as it is!’ Mattie yelled. ‘That son-of-a-bitch Baker’s slowing his horse right up into the second – look! And he’s pulling across Nightie again!’
In the race itself as the field swept past the packed to bursting stands Hello Absailor had pulled his way to the front, relegating Demerara to second with Pleaseturnover third on his outside and Vote for Nigel and Katwandra bringing up the rear of the leading group ahead of Glockamorra who was towing along the second group of horses about a length and a half adrift, but it seemed that everyone on the course was more interested in the battle that was going on at the rear of the field where The Nightingale and Jump For Fun looked more like horses engaged in a match on the polo field than racing in a Champion Hurdle. Ahead of them the twelve other contenders all flew the second flight of hurdles, Flaky Pastry making the only mistake and losing half a dozen lengths to drop back only a couple of lengths up on Jump For Fun who was still just shading The Nightingale as they now approached the second obstacle.
Josephine pushed The Nightingale on, anxious to get away from her murderous rival, managing to get half a length up on him as she saw a stride in to the jump, but as The Nightingale took off ahead of his market, when Jump For Fun left the ground Baker quite cynically pulled his horse’s head to the right, forcing his horse into The Nightingale’s flanks so that the favourite landed crooked with his rival all but on top of him. It was only Josephine’s courage and The Nightingale’s nimblefootedness which stopped them both from falling in the mud, Josephine giving the horse more rein instead of snatching him up in panic and The Nightingale responding by tucking his powerful quarters right under him so that even though his nose touched the turf he was somehow able practically to catapult himself up off the ground. As soon as she felt him come up Josephine sat to him, gathered her reins and urged him away from the jump as quickly as her horse could gallop, yet Baker who had somehow managed both to stay on his horse and collect it from out of the splits it had performed on landing was still galloping after her, still with the advantage of the inside berth.
Despite Baker’s efforts, Jump For Fun could not quite get to The Nightingale, managing instead only to race up as far as his girths. Even so, it was near enough for Baker to begin once again to make his horse lean on his rival and force The Nightingale to run wide, so wide in fact that as they swung towards the third hurdle the racing line of the two horses was set a good half a dozen widths too wide of the fast approaching obstacle.
‘If he holds that line he’ll run Nightie out!’ Mattie called, his glasses fixed firmly on the grim battle that was being fought out at the back of the field. ‘Jose’ll never get him back from there! Christ in heaven – this is worse than bloody Ben Hur!’
It might have seemed bad enough from the grandstand but it was even worse out in the country where Josephine now was, unable at any point so far to get her horse fully into his stride and away from her marker so that she was indeed facing a very real chance of being run out at the next flight.
And if that happened, The Nightingale’s race would be run.
Baker had no doubts that was where she was g
oing. ‘Go on, you stupid, silly little bitch!’ he yelled at her as again he laid his horse hard into hers. ‘Go and see your old granny over in Bourton for tea!’
If Baker had only been content with following his strictly delivered orders, namely to force the favourite to run out, there was no doubt he would have been completely successful for with only about ten strides to go to the third hurdle there seemed to be absolutely no way that Josephine could avoid the disaster short of trying to pull The Nightingale up altogether. But she knew that if she did that, if she managed to slow her now galloping horse to even a canter let alone a trot, regardless of his undoubted courage and his blistering turn of foot they were so far behind the horses in front of them that it would be a physical impossibility to get the horse back in the race proper.
But Baker was not only a conceited and ignorant little man, he was a vicious cruel one too, so instead of being content with forcing the greatest horse ever to have taken part in one of National Hunt’s premier races to run out, he had to add a coup de grâce, which he did by raising his whip up to his shoulder and then savagely belting The Nightingale as hard as he could across the area just behind the animal’s saddle, in the hope of sending him well and truly on his way past the hurdle.
His action had the opposite effect entirely.
Baker couldn’t even have seen The Nightingale’s head come round, so fast did the big horse pay back this act of barbarous folly. All the jockey knew was first the horse’s mouth had him by the leg, with teeth sunk so far into his flesh they cut him to the very bone, and then the next moment he was out of his saddle and crashing to the ground where he received a thorough trampling from Jump For Fun’s own hind legs before the horse swerved right away from The Nightingale across the face of the jump. Even though in the mêlée the reins had slipped right through her fingers, in that split second of time Josephine saw her redemption, kicking her horse on in the direction in which he had turned himself, back towards the third flight of hurdles which now was only three strides away. Without even looking directly at the hurdle since his head was still half turned towards the direction his adversaries had come at him, somehow The Nightingale saw a stride and cleared the obstacle, landing well clear the other side of it and picking up speed the moment his feet touched the turf as Josephine gathered up her reins.
‘Go on, Nightie!’ Josephine urged him, now her path was clear. ‘Fly, Nightie – you have now got to fly!’
All who saw the race said that it had to rank as the greatest display of hurdling of all time, such was the courage and brilliance of the horse. When Josephine and The Nightingale finally shook off the attentions of Jump For Fun and his jockey, they had already jumped three of the nominated eight flights and since by then they were lying at least six lengths behind the next horse, and a full ten lengths behind the leader, even to his most ardent and diehard supporters the day would seem to be well and truly lost.
Yet from the moment the horse touched down on the landing side of the third hurdle that seemingly unreachable gap began to shorten with every stride The Nightingale took, so that by the time the leaders had jumped the fourth the favourite had already caught and passed Flaky Pastry, relegating him to last place, and unbelievably was actually back on the bridle. Not that his opponents knew that. A look over their shoulders had told the jockeys that the favourite might be back in the race, but such was still the distance the horse had to make up on them, to a man they would all have thought that even should The Nightingale finally get to them, in going as heavy as it now was the effort would surely have totally exhausted him.
Any normal horse would be exhausted by the effort of galloping flat out to catch a field which had slipped him by such a distance, particularly in a race of this merit and with a field of this calibre. For this was no handicap hurdle run on some small country track where more often than not some outsider poaches a thirty length lead while the other jocks sit comfortably behind on the fancied horses knowing full well the leader will tire and come back to them. This was the premier hurdle race in the world, a race which was always run at a full racing gallop, a pace which removes the likelihood of any tailender being able to cruise up on the tiring horses up front and pick them off at random. At Cheltenham, the pretenders for the crown of Champion race at full tilt and the race is invariably won by the horse with sufficient stamina to stay with the pace and enough acceleration to produce a turn of speed to beat off his rivals in that grim uphill struggle to the line.
It is not won by a horse coming from some sixteen lengths off the pace, particularly one which has suffered interference in one of the most crucial moments of the race, namely the start, particularly in heavy going and most certainly of all not when ridden by a rookie woman jockey.
Yet as the field raced along the back straight towards the fifth hurdle, with Hello Absailor still towing them along ahead of Demerara, Pleaseturnover, Vote for Nigel and Katwandra who were all bunched up within two lengths of him and the second favourite Glockamorra still swinging along easily and looking full of running on the rail another length away in sixth, The Nightingale was still closing, fast enough to pick off the back markers which included Hotel Paradiso who had been running in snatches and was about to be pulled up by his jockey.
That left eleven horses to jump the fifth hurdle in front of The Nightingale, the field coming away from the obstacle in the same order as they ran into it with the exception of High Compression who suffered a crashing fall, turning turtle and finally bringing down the already exhausted and out of touch Flaky Pastry. Luckily Josephine, seeing the field bunching up as they went into the flight, had taken a line well to the outside and avoided all the grief which took place on her inside to the left of the obstacle. Both the fallen horses happily jumped to their feet immediately to charge off after the other runners, leaving their jockeys sitting in a daze but otherwise unharmed on the soft ground, but their good fortune presented another very real hazard to the other runners particularly since one of the loose horses had his reins caught round one of his front hooves, giving the animal every chance of bringing himself down if he persisted in jumping any of the rest of the hurdles. The Nightingale was still galloping on the outside of the field, apparently out of harm’s way until as the field swung round the top corner to begin the run downhill to the sixth flight of hurdles one of the loose horses suddenly cut across The Nightingale’s path, unsighting him completely from the oncoming obstacle.
Josephine knew she could do one of two things – either take a pull and lose her momentum or she could ride The Nightingale into the fence in the hope that the horse which was now charging along dead ahead of her would at the last moment duck out to the right hand side of the flight. There was neither the way nor the time to hook her horse up and round the flanks of the animal in front.
Josephine chose the latter option. She chose to ride at the obstacle in the brave hope that the horse ahead would duck out.
She had no sight of the looming hurdle, at least not a good enough one to see a stride into it. All she could see was a loose horse in front of her and to her left a wall of horses now leaving the ground. So feeling rather than seeing the stride she needed she sat and gave, letting her horse do the work which the great horse did, rising heroically under her in spite of not being able to see his own way into the jump.
Then as he rose the loose horse suddenly ducked out to the right, crashing through the wing of the hurdle and leaving The Nightingale’s path clear.
Even at that stage of the race with so much still left to do, a huge and mighty roar went up from the stand when the crowd witnessed what was happening behind the leaders. The Nightingale had flown the hurdle, landing two lengths up on a couple of horses smack on the left of him. Josephine couldn’t see which the horses were, so mud-covered were their riders’ colours, but as she landed she could sense the horses were cooked, a feeling confirmed by two cheery shouts from their jockeys.
‘G’on, sweetheart!’ they yelled. ‘Go get ’em, girl!’
<
br /> The two beaten horses were Demerara, which had led the field a merry dance for the first part of the race, and Vote For Nigel who had seemed to be full of steam yet went out like a wet candle as soon as his jockey asked him the question, breaking a blood vessel as he tried to quicken and covering his pilot with gore.
That left seven horses flying down the famous hill towards the second last hurdle. Hello Absailor still led, but his jockey Andy Squire was already beginning to scrub him along and although the horse was gamely answering his pilot’s call, Josephine could tell from the glance Robert McDonagh gave his rival as he ranged up alongside him on Glockamorra that he had the third favourite covered.
Yet still The Nightingale was remorselessly making up the ground, even faster now that some of the field were coming back to him. As she looked ahead of her to make sure of her position at the penultimate flight, Josephine suddenly realized that the devastating gallop the field had gone in such heavy going, prompted no doubt by the realization that her own horse was in such serious trouble, had taken its toll on the horses and that of the six horses left in front of her, at least four were visibly tiring, while by some miracle The Nightingale was still cruising and apparently full of running.
A few strides later Hello Absailor, on whom Andy Squire had been taking the paint off the rails, suddenly rolled away towards the middle of the course as he too began to tie up, forcing Glockamorra out even further into the centre of the track where the two horses then got locked seriously in battle. Immediately behind them Josephine got her first good look at the unbeaten Birdwatcher, who to her horror she saw was cruising, his jockey Philip Dacre sitting with his hands full of horse and apparently looking round for danger. Katwandra, however, who had run a fine race was now fading fast and backpedalling, allowing The Nightingale up on his inside where the big mud-caked horse eased past both him and Pleaseturnover who was already receiving reminders from his pilot.
The Nightingale Sings Page 64