fences. Only the gritting determination and the old exaltation.
My God, I thought in mid-air, why ever did I give this up? But I knew the answer. At nineteen I’d been too tall and growing too heavy, and starving down to a professional riding weight had made me feel ill.
Half a mile and two jumps later I felt the first quiver of unfitness in my muscles and remembered that both Blue and Red had been at racing peak for several months. The speed they took in their stride used all my strength. We’d rounded the bottom turn and had straightened three abreast into the long far side before I seriously considered that I’d been a fool – or at least definitely foolhardy – to set off in this roller-coaster, and I jumped the next four close-together fences concentrating mainly on desperately keeping my weight as far forward as possible.
Riding with one’s centre of gravity over the horse’s shoulder was best for speed aerodynamically, but placed the jockey in a prime position for being catapulted off forwards if his mount hit a fence. The alternative was to slow the pace before jumping, sit back, let the reins slide long through one’s fingers, and maybe raise an arm up and back to maintain balance before landing. An habitually raised arm, termed ‘calling a cab’, was the trademark of amateurism. To do it once couldn’t be helped, but five or six raised arms would bring me pity, not in the least what I was out there trying to earn. I was going to go over Huntingdon’s jumps with my weight forward if it killed me.
Which of course it might.
With this last mordant thought, and with straining muscles and labouring lungs, I reached the long last bend towards home: two more fences to jump, and the run-in and winning post after.
Experienced jockeys that they were, Blue and Red had waited for that last bend before piling on the ultimate pressure. I quickened with them, determined only not to be ignominiously tailed-off, and my mount responded, as most thoroughbreds do, with an inbred compulsion to put his head in front.
I don’t know about the others, but I rode over the last two fences as if it mattered like the Grand National; but even so, it wasn’t enough. We finished in order, Red, Green, Blue, flat out past the winning post, with half a length and half a length between first and second and second and third.
We pulled up and trotted back to the gate. I felt weak enough for falling off. I breathed deeply through my nose, having told many actors in my time that the most reliable evidence of exhaustion was to gasp with the mouth open.
With Blue and Red leading the way, we rejoined the other jockeys. No one said much. We dismounted and gave the reins to the lads. I could feel my fingers trembling as I unbuckled the helmet and hoped the jockeys couldn’t see. I took off the helmet, returning it to the man who’d lent it, and brushed sweat off my forehead with my thumb. Still no sound above half-heard murmurs. I unbuttoned the striped colours, forcing my hands to the task, and fumbled too much over untying the stock. Still with breaths heaving in my belly, I handed shirt and stock back, and took my own clothes from someone who’d lifted them from the grass. I hadn’t the strength to put them on, but simply held them over my arm.
It struck me that what everyone was feeling, including myself, was chiefly embarrassment, so I made my best stab at lightness.
‘OK!’ I said. ‘Tomorrow, then? You’ll race?’
Blue said, ‘Yes’, and the others nodded.
‘Fine. See you.’
I raised a smile that was genuine, even if only half wattage, and turned away to walk over to where Moncrieff, curse him, was trying to pretend he hadn’t had a video camera on his shoulder the whole time.
A voice behind me called, ‘Mr Lyon.’
I paused and turned. Mr Lyon, indeed! A surprise.
The one with the green and white stripes said, ‘You did make your point.’
I managed a better smile and a flap of a hand and plodded across the grass to Moncrieff.
‘Shit,’ he said.
‘Anything but. We might now get a brilliant race tomorrow. They’re not going to let themselves do worse than a panting amateur.’
‘Put your shirt on, you’ll die of cold.’
But not of a broken neck, I thought, and felt warm and spent and thunderously happy.