post. Each boy had picked his choice of winner and had registered it with me, and when people around us began yelling for their fancy the boys yelled also, Neil jumping up and down in excitement and screaming ‘Come on seven, come on seven, come on peg.’
I had put my own trust on Rebecca Stratton who was this time partnering a grey mare called Carnival Joy, and as they neared the fence she seemed to be lying second, to my mild surprise, my own expertise at picking winners being zero.
At the last minute the horse in front of her wavered out of a straight line, and I glimpsed the strain on the jockey’s face as he hauled on a rein to get himself out of trouble, but he was meeting the fence all wrong. His mount took off a stride too soon and landed right in the space between take-off pole and fence, where, frightened, it dumped its jockey and veered across into the path not only of Carnival Joy, but of all the runners behind.
Things happen fast at thirty miles an hour. Carnival Joy, unable to see a clear path ahead, attempted to jump both the fence and the horse on the take-off side, a near-impossible task. The grey’s hooves caught the loose horse so that its whole weight crashed chest first into the fence. Its jockey willynilly flew caterpaulting out forwards over the birch and in a flurry of arms and legs thudded onto the turf. Carnival Joy fell over the fence onto its head, somersaulted, came down on its side and lay there winded, lethally kicking in an attempt to get up.
The rest of the field, some trying to stop, some unaware of the mêlée, some trying to go round it, compounded the débâcle like cars crashing in a fog. One of the horses, going too fast, too late, with no chance of safety, took what must have seemed to him a possible way out and tried to jump right off the course through the nearside wing.
Wings, on the take-off side of each fence, were located there precisely to stop horses running out at the last moment and, to be effective, needed to be too high to jump. Trying to escape trouble by jumping the wings was therefore always a disaster, though not so bad as in the old days when all wings had been made of wood, which splintered and ripped into flesh. Wings at Stratton Park, conforming to the current norm, were made of plastic, which bent and gave way without injuring, but this particular horse, having crashed through unscathed, then collided with the bunch of onlookers, who had tried to scatter too late.
One minute, a smooth race. In five seconds, carnage. I was peripherally aware that three more horses had come to grief on the landing side of the fence with their jockeys either unconscious or sitting up cursing, but I had eyes only for the knocked down clutch of spectators and chiefly, and I confess frantically, I was counting young figures in blue anoraks, and feeling almost sick with relief to find them all upright and unscathed. The horror on their faces I could deal with later.
Alan, born seemingly without an understanding of danger, suddenly darted out onto the course, ducking under the rails, intent on helping the fallen jockeys.
I yelled at him urgently to come back, but there was too much noise all around us and, powerfully aware of all the loose horses charging about in scared bewilderment, I bent under the rails myself and hurried to retrieve him. Neil, little Neil, scrambled after me.
Terrified for him also, I hoisted him up and ran to fetch Alan who, seemingly oblivious to Carnival Joy’s thrashing legs, was doing his best to help a dazed Rebecca Stratton to her feet. In something near despair I found that Christopher too was out on the course, coming to her aid.
Rebecca Stratton returned to full consciousness, brushed crossly at the small hands stretched to help her and in a sharp voice said to no one in particular, ‘Get these brats out of my way. I’ve enough to contend with without that.’
She stood up furiously, stalked over to the jockey whose mount had caused the whole pile-up and who was now standing forlornly beside the fence, and uttered loud and uncomplimentary opinions about his lack of horsemanship. Her hands clenched and unclenched as if, given half a chance, she would hit him.
My brats predictably detested her immediately. I