a
head to make up freight, and sold raw and out of condition at Calcutta
for Rs.
head to make up freight, and sold raw and out of condition at Calcutta
for Rs.
Kipling - Poems
He says, "on the Monday following," "I can't settle just yet.
"
"You say, 'All right, old man,'" and think your self lucky if you pull
off nine hundred out of a two-thousand rupee debt. Any way you look at
it, Indian racing is immoral, and expensively immoral. Which is much
worse. If a man wants your money, he ought to ask for it, or send round
a subscription-list, instead of juggling about the country, with an
Australian larrikin; a "brumby," with as much breed as the boy; a brace
of chumars in gold-laced caps; three or four ekka-ponies with hogged
manes, and a switch-tailed demirep of a mare called Arab because she
has a kink in her flag. Racing leads to the shroff quicker than anything
else. But if you have no conscience and no sentiments, and good hands,
and some knowledge of pace, and ten years' experience of horses, and
several thousand rupees a month, I believe that you can occasionally
contrive to pay your shoeing-bills.
Did you ever know Shackles--b. w. g. , 15. 13. 8--coarse, loose, mule-like
ears--barrel as long as a gate-post--tough as a telegraph-wire--and the
queerest brute that ever looked through a bridle? He was of no brand,
being one of an ear-nicked mob taken into the Bucephalus at 4l. -10s.
a
head to make up freight, and sold raw and out of condition at Calcutta
for Rs. 275. People who lost money on him called him a "brumby;" but if
ever any horse had Harpoon's shoulders and The Gin's temper, Shackles
was that horse. Two miles was his own particular distance. He trained
himself, ran himself, and rode himself; and, if his jockey insulted
him by giving him hints, he shut up at once and bucked the boy off. He
objected to dictation. Two or three of his owners did not understand
this, and lost money in consequence. At last he was bought by a man who
discovered that, if a race was to be won, Shackles, and Shackles only,
would win it in his own way, so long as his jockey sat still.
This man had a riding-boy called Brunt--a lad from Perth, West
Australia--and he taught Brunt, with a trainer's whip, the hardest thing
a jock can learn--to sit still, to sit still, and to keep on sitting
still. When Brunt fairly grasped this truth, Shackles devastated the
country. No weight could stop him at his own distance; and The fame of
Shackles spread from Ajmir in the South, to Chedputter in the North.
There was no horse like Shackles, so long as he was allowed to do his
work in his own way. But he was beaten in the end; and the story of his
fall is enough to make angels weep.
At the lower end of the Chedputter racecourse, just before the turn into
the straight, the track passes close to a couple of old brick-mounds
enclosing a funnel-shaped hollow. The big end of the funnel is not six
feet from the railings on the off-side. The astounding peculiarity of
the course is that, if you stand at one particular place, about half a
mile away, inside the course, and speak at an ordinary pitch, your voice
just hits the funnel of the brick-mounds and makes a curious whining
echo there.
"You say, 'All right, old man,'" and think your self lucky if you pull
off nine hundred out of a two-thousand rupee debt. Any way you look at
it, Indian racing is immoral, and expensively immoral. Which is much
worse. If a man wants your money, he ought to ask for it, or send round
a subscription-list, instead of juggling about the country, with an
Australian larrikin; a "brumby," with as much breed as the boy; a brace
of chumars in gold-laced caps; three or four ekka-ponies with hogged
manes, and a switch-tailed demirep of a mare called Arab because she
has a kink in her flag. Racing leads to the shroff quicker than anything
else. But if you have no conscience and no sentiments, and good hands,
and some knowledge of pace, and ten years' experience of horses, and
several thousand rupees a month, I believe that you can occasionally
contrive to pay your shoeing-bills.
Did you ever know Shackles--b. w. g. , 15. 13. 8--coarse, loose, mule-like
ears--barrel as long as a gate-post--tough as a telegraph-wire--and the
queerest brute that ever looked through a bridle? He was of no brand,
being one of an ear-nicked mob taken into the Bucephalus at 4l. -10s.
a
head to make up freight, and sold raw and out of condition at Calcutta
for Rs. 275. People who lost money on him called him a "brumby;" but if
ever any horse had Harpoon's shoulders and The Gin's temper, Shackles
was that horse. Two miles was his own particular distance. He trained
himself, ran himself, and rode himself; and, if his jockey insulted
him by giving him hints, he shut up at once and bucked the boy off. He
objected to dictation. Two or three of his owners did not understand
this, and lost money in consequence. At last he was bought by a man who
discovered that, if a race was to be won, Shackles, and Shackles only,
would win it in his own way, so long as his jockey sat still.
This man had a riding-boy called Brunt--a lad from Perth, West
Australia--and he taught Brunt, with a trainer's whip, the hardest thing
a jock can learn--to sit still, to sit still, and to keep on sitting
still. When Brunt fairly grasped this truth, Shackles devastated the
country. No weight could stop him at his own distance; and The fame of
Shackles spread from Ajmir in the South, to Chedputter in the North.
There was no horse like Shackles, so long as he was allowed to do his
work in his own way. But he was beaten in the end; and the story of his
fall is enough to make angels weep.
At the lower end of the Chedputter racecourse, just before the turn into
the straight, the track passes close to a couple of old brick-mounds
enclosing a funnel-shaped hollow. The big end of the funnel is not six
feet from the railings on the off-side. The astounding peculiarity of
the course is that, if you stand at one particular place, about half a
mile away, inside the course, and speak at an ordinary pitch, your voice
just hits the funnel of the brick-mounds and makes a curious whining
echo there.
