No More Learning

" 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 "favoritism 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 back 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.

he 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
offside, 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.