Grand National

by John R. Tunis

  Mrs. Maguire could not continue. The remembrance of the day became too much.

  Blandly the interviewer concluded the conversation. “That was Mrs. Paddy Maguire, whose husband rode Fire King at the 1952 Grand National and fell at the Canal Turn.”

  Being horsemen, they all knew the danger of racing, yet they were shocked by this tragedy.

  Young Hunting leaned over and turned the set off. “Too bad,” he said. “Care for a drink, Mr. Cobb?”

  Outside the wind in a sudden burst whipped snow against the window.

  Ten

  AS CHRISTMAS APPROACHED, drifting snow often choked the lanes, blowing into the corners beside the thatch-roofed cottages and making riding on the Downs difficult. They did a lot more road-work. The days followed each other, often with a thick mist covering the countryside. But as if to greet Quicksilver on the morning of his return from Mrs. Hunting, the day was bright and filled with a welcome sun.

  Jack stood on the steps of the office beside Chester, surveying the scene in the courtyard. He recalled the trainer saying that people in the village were eager to see the horse, but he had not really appreciated the impression Quicksilver had made until that morning. Besides some tradesmen, there were a dozen farmers from the vicinity interested in seeing for themselves the horse that had been cured of a bowed tendon. Directing the traffic was Mr. Henderson, the head groom, impeccable as ever in his clean jodhpurs, sports coat, cap, and necktie.

  With a roar the horse van came up the lane, drew into the court, and stopped.

  “Stand back there, lad, and you too, miss. Stand back now.” Mr. Henderson, arms outstretched, stepped briskly forward, unhooked the ramp, and threw back the bolt of the van. There stood Quicksilver ready to descend. Voices could be heard as the groom led him down the ramp.

  “Ah, now there’s a horse….”

  “He’s a horse, he is.”

  Chester stepped forward and felt his leg. “Never know he had a bad leg, would you?”

  Mr. Henderson led him up and down the yard, shoving a wide-mouthed stable lad out of his way. “Look sharp, you blokes. This isn’t just any horse, you know.”

  Jack Cobb was pleased as Quicksilver, feeling the cobbles underfoot, tossed his head and mane at the familiar sights and sounds. His delight in returning was obvious, and he walked up and down easily with that wonderful springy gait. Then he passed his owner and whinnied his pleasure as Jack stepped down to caress his head affectionately.

  “Yes, a magnificent horse,” said Chester at his side. “She’s done a great job on that tendon, Mrs. Hunting has. Just isn’t anyone like her.”

  At this point George Atherton rolled up in his car. Seeing the horse led by the head groom, he stopped short, jumped out impatiently, and went over, an anxious look on his face. Stopping the groom, he kneeled down to touch the precautionary bandage around the foreleg. “Feels perfect. Not a trace of the injury that I can detect.”

  That afternoon Chester merely permitted the groom to walk the horse up and down the lane for twenty minutes. But the next morning he was saddled, and Jack had the pleasure of seeing him under tack again. He was the picture of fitness, his quarters betraying the power of his frame. Jack on the gray mare watched attentively as Atherton, realizing that Quicksilver was taking a strong hold, gave him his head and let him stride along. Coming back to the stables, the jockey rode up beside Jack.

  “Mr. Cobb, believe me, this horse is on good terms with himself, and he’ll be racing fit before long. What we have to do is run him in two races before the Grand National weights come out in January, so he can be handicapped.”

  The following day Atherton was away, riding in the north of England, so Jack mounted Quicksilver in the first work ride. Being on him again was a joy. They walked, then cantered slowly down the lane to the Downs, something he scarcely had dared hope for several months previously. He rode along gaily, listening to the chatter and arguments of the stableboys around, all with an eye on his horse. Then he let him out for several hundred yards, feeling at the end that surge of power which had brought Stan to the front in the Maryland Hunt Cup. Yes, they were right, all of them. Now to prepare him for the National.

  They rode back into the stable yard, and when the horses had been fed and watered, the sweat taken off, mouth and nose sponged, the stable lads left for breakfast and Jack found himself alone in the stall. Carefully he unwound the bandage over the tendon and lifted the foreleg, passing one hand gently over it to see whether, after exercise, there appeared to be any soreness or sensitivity. He worked over it several minutes. The animal remained quiet. No pain, no soreness left. The tendon was healthy again.

  He left the box, shutting the door carefully. That’s it, he thought. Now for the National. What a damn lucky man I am.

  As soon as possible Chester Robinson entered Quicksilver in a race at a place called Bognor. The horse ran away from the pack and won by four or five lengths, which brought Jack Cobb a purse of six hundred pounds. The next race was to be at Worcester.

  The night before Jack sat in his digs alone. He wore heavy boots, flannel trousers, a thick pullover of Scottish wool, and a padded jacket used for riding. The British Isles were encased in bitter weather. Snow had fallen over Scotland and most of the Midlands.

  On Jack’s lap was a pad he used for his infrequent letters to Truxton Bingham. First, he rose and poured coal from an iron scuttle into the tiny grate at his feet. Then he settled back to bring his friend up to date on the events of the last five weeks.

  After describing Quicksilver’s treatment for the bowed tendon, Jack wrote, “The vet attached to the Hall feels that Mrs. Hunting is a bit of a crank because her methods differ from his. As of now, however, we seem to be standing well, and I still feel we have as much chance at the National as anyone.”

  Suddenly there came a loud clanging of the outside door knocker. Whenever he heard this sound he feared for his horse. Mrs. Briggs, moving about her kitchen, shuffled into the hall as the knocking continued.

  “Yes… yes… I’m coming,” she muttered, opening the front door. Someone entered, stamping his feet. Next came a few brisk words, followed by a sharp knock on his door.

  “Mr. Cobb, sir. Your stable lad wants you.”

  Alarmed, because he knew there were colds running through the stables, he jumped up and threw open the door. There stood Ginger, his stable lad, swathed in an enormous muffler of wool, his ears pink with cold.

  “Good evening, sir. Mr. Robinson’s compliments, and he’s just heard the Worcester races have been cancelled. Ground too hard for racing.”

  Jack, disturbed, yet relieved, gave him half a crown. After the door closed, he listened to the sound of Ginger’s ancient bike clanking down the lane in the sharp evening air.

  “No Worcester. Ground too hard,” he scribbled at the bottom of his letter to Bingham. He had no heart for details.

  Eleven

  EVENTUALLY QUICKSILVER WAS handicapped for the Grand National, and Robinson continued to enter him in preparatory races whenever the timing was right. Toward the end of February, Chester Robinson, George Atherton, and Jack Cobb went off to Sandown Park, a racetrack southeast of London. Quicksilver was giving away nine pounds, and some first-class horses were running in the three-mile race.

  Here and there a crocus peeped through the soil, and Chester at the wheel of the Rover was in the best of spirits. On the way up, Jack proffered some remarks in general about horses.

  “Horses, I’ve always found, want to please and love attention. They thrive on routine and recognize a person by sound, voice, or smell.”

  Atherton, however, didn’t seem to be paying the slightest attention, and Jack began to wonder whether he had heard him. “Do you agree, Atherton?”

  Atherton, as though awakened from sleep, instantly aroused himself. “Yes, surely. When a horse becomes sensitive to signals from one rider, he will not respond equally well for another.”

  “That’s just it,” replied Jack. But he noticed
that Atherton lapsed back into silence again.

  Shortly after lunch, at which Atherton ate only a piece of toast and drank only a glass of milk, he left for the jockeys’ room to change. Jack and Chester sauntered out to the small grandstand. Beside the rail Jack immediately noticed Iris Hunting in deep conversation with a tall, well-dressed man.

  “Jack!” He stopped. She never had used his first name before. “Do come here a moment, please,” she said, moving toward him. “There’s someone I want you to meet.” As he turned and reached her side, she whispered, “Colonel Pomeroy, the racing correspondent of the Times. He writes under the name of Audax.”

  A distinct feeling of pleasure came over him as she took his arm and led him back. Her felt hat on one side of her head was smart, and she wore a new coat that also suited her. Jack tried to make conversation. “Your boy seems to have been doing very well for himself this past month.”

  She accepted his congratulations with a slight inclination of her head. “Not too badly, I feel. He’s still as keen as ever. Colonel Pomeroy, this is Mr. Cobb, the American who owns Quicksilver, the horse we were talking about in the third. You’ll like him. He’s a quiet American.”

  The tall man in the Guard’s overcoat and the derby held out his hand. “Howjado,” he said. Jack found the extended hand rather limp, but the man was genial. “Likely horse you have there, Mr. Cobb. Saw him run a fine race. Where was it? Bognor, I think, last month.”

  Pleased despite himself, Jack smiled and replied, “I owe a great deal to Chester Robinson, and a lot more to Iris Hunting here. She brought the horse round after a bad tendon, and now he seems as good as ever.”

  The man nodded with enthusiasm. “She’s unique, isn’t she? If I may say so, you were extremely fortunate to have your horse fall into such good hands.” He turned to Iris. “Is your boy riding this afternoon?”

  “Yes, he’s on a horse from Greystone Stables, rather an old mare who has speed but has never lived up to her possibilities.”

  “Ah, that must be the horse Tommy Wilson rode in the Irish National last year. Got into a mix-up at the first open ditch. Excuse me.” Colonel Pomeroy turned away to speak to a man with field glasses over one shoulder.

  Jack looked at Iris. Her eyebrows were raised, her lips tight. “A mix-up at the first open ditch,” she said ironically. “Brought three horses down with him. Only the mare came out of it. One had to be put down that afternoon, another has never raced again, and a third is just used as a hack now.”

  “How terrible!”

  She turned sharply on him. “Tony has every right to lead the life he wants. That was your advice, and it’s still good. I must get used to it.”

  “Good for you,” said Jack. An admirable woman, and a strong one.

  There was no chance for more talk as people kept coming up to them. Cobb noted with pleasure and a tinge of pride that everyone to whom she introduced him gave that tiny flick of recognition as they realized who he was.

  They moved nearer to the weighing room, and Atherton, dressed in Jack’s silks with the red sash across his chest, came up briefly. He shook hands and mumbled something to Iris, then turned away as the starter called the riders over the loudspeaker.

  “My word, that man looks bad. He must be in pain. Has a bad ulcer. He ought not to be riding today.”

  “Yes, I know,” replied Jack, watching Atherton’s stooped figure moving away. “He seemed unusually quiet on the way up.” Ah, the English, he thought, always the stiff upper lip. The man was really ill. He turned to find Chester Robinson, but by this time the horses had appeared and were cantering up and down past the stands. They went to the starting post, and after the usual jockeying the field was off.

  Quicksilver was carrying top weight in the three-mile race, and Jack felt the same sense of elation mixed with gripping apprehension that came over him every time he watched him begin a race and approach the first fence. This time the horses were over it all together. Before the fourth fence, however, two were moving out ahead, and one, he observed with delight, was Quicksilver. A head behind and pressing him—it couldn’t be—was Tony Hunting on a small, lithe mare. In a few minutes they came around, Atherton still in the lead, Tony closer every minute.

  Jack glanced over at Iris Hunting as the riders tore past the stands, then over the far fences. Her eyes never left the boy, as he went up and over, riding with grace and power, still struggling to gain on the leader. The crowd roared approval as the two entered the stretch. Atherton seemed in command, yet Tony was threatening every minute. They flashed across the finish in that order, the others several lengths behind. Jack, elated, walked over with Iris to lead his horse into the winner’s circle.

  A large crowd circled them, commenting on the winner and his possibilities. Atherton dismounted, handed over the reins to the stable lad, and left to change in the jockeys’ room. Jack noticed he was holding his stomach.

  There was a ripple of applause as Jack’s name echoed over the loudspeaker. He came toward the ring, leading the horse, and a minute later found Ginger Jones, his stable lad, at his elbow.

  “Mr. Cobb, sir.” Ginger was agitated. “You’d best come into the changing room. Mr. Atherton’s that sick. They’ve called a doctor.”

  Jack felt sick himself. Atherton should never have been riding. He was a sick man! Why hadn’t Chester noticed his condition? He himself should have stepped in and stopped the horse from running. Cobb remembered how silent and withdrawn Atherton had been all morning. Inside the dressing room a small circle stood about Atherton. His long legs were doubled up, and he was writhing in pain on the floor. A man, quite obviously the doctor, knelt beside him. The physician was injecting something into his arm. Atherton kept moaning, his pain plainly apparent.

  The doctor looked up. “Who’s with this gentleman?”

  “I am,” said Chester soberly. “We came from Sussex. Can he be moved tonight?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” replied the doctor. “He ought to be in a hospital. I understand he has an ulcer, and he’s probably bleeding. In any event, he’s far from a well man.”

  Atherton’s valet, a rather ancient character who always showed up whenever he rode, came into the room. “The track ambulance is here, doctor,” he said in his aged voice.

  “Good. I can get him into the Weybridge Hospital, I think. Just let me go to the phone. If this is what I think it is, he’ll be there at least a month.”

  Jack looked over at Chester across the dissolving circle, as the valet and two grooms came in with the ambulance stretcher. Neither spoke. Chester’s head shook as he followed the stretcher, his concern plainly visible. This man, thought Jack, had risked his life by riding that day. How had he managed to stay on Quicksilver? He felt responsible. And now what? The Cheltenham Gold Cup loomed up ahead. Who was there to ride him? What would happen to Quicksilver at this crucial moment in the long, arduous journey to the National? First the horse, then the jockey.

  At this moment Tony Hunting entered the room, wiping his sweat-stained forehead and standing aside as Atherton was carried out. He looked around the crowd of serious faces before him and came directly up to Jack Cobb.

  “Mr. Cobb, that horse rides like a Bentley. I know because I rode him daily for six weeks. If things go badly for Mr. Atherton and you find yourself in need of a jockey, I do wish you’d consider me. I’d give anything to have a go on him at Cheltenham.”

  Twelve

  THERE WERE FIVE of them in the Robinsons’ living room, all trying to decide on Quicksilver’s jockey: Chester and Jack; Doctor Sanders, who as stable vet was taking part in the discussion; one of Chester’s secretaries, a pleasant-looking English girl; and the head groom. The argument over who should ride Quicksilver at Cheltenham had become acute. Cobb wore a harried look. The head lad sat twisting his cap in his lap and turning it in his hands. Doctor Sanders seemed anxious that everyone realize how much he knew about horses. His black bag was beside him on the floor; atop it was his cloth hat.

/>   “Suppose I just give him a ring to see whether he’s available,” Chester said.

  The group had been conferring for over an hour and were no nearer a decision than they had been when they began. Chester left the room for several minutes and came back shaking his head. “Isn’t free. He’s promised to Sir Douglas McIntosh.”

  “Bad luck that.”

  “May I make a suggestion, sir?”

  “Certainly, Henderson. Speak up.”

  “What about that lad, Rex Benway? I know Sanders thinks well of him.”

  “You couldn’t do better, Mr. Cobb,” interjected the vet. “’Course, he’s a former stable lad—nothing swell about him—but I’ve found that he invariably comes through in a crisis. Known him now for some time. You might say I started him riding.”

  “I know Benway,” said Chester. “Too inexperienced. But there’s always this man Stevenson.”

  “Stevenson’s free all right. Indeed yes, let out by Waverly Stable last month. He’s got a rotten bad temper. Can’t count on him.”

  “Ah, I didn’t know that,” responded Chester.

  The vet appeared to know everyone in racing circles, and he had a reason that ruled out each man who was brought up except for his own protégé. Indeed, they could end up with nobody, Jack feared. All the best jockeys were either attached to various stables or had been booked by trainers. What a shame Atherton couldn’t ride the horse, Jack reflected. They were in a desperate fix, and it was late to be choosey.

  At last Cobb made a suggestion. “Well now, what about young Hunting?”

  Distaste spread over the vet’s face, and he answered with considerable scorn in his voice. “A boy of twenty-two, twenty-three? Entrust that great horse to a mere boy? Why, it’s unthinkable.”

  “He happens to be twenty-six. My son won the most important steeplechase in the United States when he was twenty-two.”

  Sanders’ upper lip curled ever so slightly. Plainly he considered a race at the Maryland Hunt Club in somewhat the same category as a race in Madagascar. “No comparison. What’s this boy ever done? I saw him ride in Hampshire last autumn. Didn’t like the way he handled his mount, not at all.”