My “Roarer.”
She was a good-looking mare with a nice turn of speed, and had a pedigree as long as your arm. She was sound as a bell of brass, and—also like bell of brass—made a noise. Not when she walked or trotted, of course; not when she was in the stable or merely hack-cantered—only when she was trying to extend herself. It was that which stopped her. She could not breathe fast enough at the right time. Save for that disability she would have won races, and all connected with her would have had reason to be joyful. But that was not to be.
“Here,” said Snooker to me one day, “you are fond of music, and I know a mare that will just suit you. She will carry you on the Downs and play her own accompaniment. While you are whistling ‘Wait for the waggon’ sideways, she’ll be whistling—well, something else; and in her society you may cultivate your harmonic sense.”
“Is she cheap?” I asked, not being able just then to afford anything that was expensive.
“The man who has her will almost give her away to a respectable person,” replied Snooker, with his sanguine view of things. “He has not of late been able to do justice to his own appetite (through lack of the raw material) much less the mare’s; she has been feeding on shavings and what can be collected in the road. She looks it.”
“Ah!” I remarked, vindictively, “light as a crow, no doubt; nothing of her but skin and teeth, and it would be my enterprise to feed her up. It would cost a lot of money. Have you got it or have I? What are you playing at?”
Snooker squirmed under the severity of my speech and gaze. When I look at things in the cold, dry light of reason, using also my pitiless logic in order to lay bare the truth, he knows that 1 am bad to beat. He never asks me to lend him anything when I have one of those lucid intervals.
“Well, come and see the mare,” he continued, evading the point raised as to her anaemic condition. “It won’t cost you anything to look at her, and you may learn a new tune. If you get on her back I’m sure you’ll like her.”
Accordingly we went to see the mare. She was in very weak health, and was roaming about a loose box in search of straws. No drowning man (coming up for the last time) could have clutched one with greater eagerness than she betrayed when she found a piece in a corner. Obviously, she had not eaten much for many days.
She was brought out and trotted slowly up and down the road for our edification. The man who supported her head ought to have carried, not led, her. She was horribly dejected. Yet there was something about her that I liked, much that I pitied, and her docility was undoubted. If they are not docile they are of no use to me now to ride, since I don’t care for them even to sneeze without letting me know they are going to do it long anterior to the explosion; and if I have cause to suspect that they are going to do it I sit and hold them until the shock is over. One can’t write sporting stories and be a jockey too. It is better to recognise one’s incapacity than to break one’s neck.
“She’s very musical, I suppose, when in motion?” I said to the man who wished to sell the mare. He looked as though he had recently been sold himself, and hadn’t received the money.
“Bless your ’eart, no,” he replied, admiring my nourished appearance. “She don’t make much noise when she’s got something inside her. She’s now full of wind, not food. Give her some grub and then you’ll be able to get rid of the gusts. It’s want of food that raises the wind.”
That seemed to me rather a scientific explanation, and one that had more in it than might be imagined, judging where it came from. So, gradually reducing my man to a price that startled even him by its insignificance when he came to handle it, I purchased the mare, and took her home with me at once, longing to give her something to eat while she possessed the power of mastication.
In a few weeks’ time, aided by plenty of nourishing food but no stimulants, she picked up wonderfully, and lost the haggard expression which had previously been her chief characteristic. She recovered her strength, she began to take an interest in things outside her manger. It was a proud moment when, suitably bedizened for the occasion, I rode her on the Downs; and she trotted about with me as gaily as if she had never known what it was to rely on shavings for sustenance.
Curiously, she was a beautiful hack, with good mouth, manners, and action. I never rode a pleasanter one. Seeing me trot her briskly past the Blue Pig with head and tail up, and my Sunday suit on, Snooker was enraptured, and dispensed the hospitalities of the morning with a regal air. If his credit had been good we should no doubt have had champagne.
“You’ll win a race with her,” he observed, blowing his nose in his excitement when for the sake of appearance he ought to have wiped his mouth. “And between ourselves, how’s the—er—the respiration?” Here he lowered his voice delicately, as though discussing an immoral secret.
“You’ll be sorry to hear,” I replied, appreciating his tact, “that the more I feed her the worse she roars. Such ingratitude is despicable. I can jump her off and choke her in about a hundred yards. She may win a race, but, upon my word, I don’t know where or when, or what the others will be doing if she does.”
“Oh! keep on with her,” said my friend.
“Slip plenty of work into her and less grub. You never know your luck.”
“Mine is not worth knowing intimately,” I replied, “ and one can’t make a roarer roar less by giving her more work, just as one can’t convert a non-stayer into a stayer by sending her longer distances. You may vary the work or diminish the corn, but you can’t swap a bad animal for a better one unless you can find a mug and tell lies.”
“Oh! well,” said Snooker, in an offhand manner, “you can’t expect to buy a high-class racehorse for the price of a broken-kneed pony. You know what you paid for the mare, and if someone were to sneak her you would not lose much. But give her a run in a little selling race. If there were only two or three starters you might get something for being second, and might even induce someone to take her off your hands.”
Thus inspired, I began to train the mare again with infinite enthusiasm, and entered her overnight in a small selling race not far from home. The expenses were not likely to be heavy. Snooker and I took her to the meeting, and he said it reminded him of the old days in India when he used to go racing with a princess.
“With a what?” I asked.
“With a princess,” he said.
“Toss you for two,” I replied; and we did not speak again until the time came for our mare to be weighed out for the race.
Before giving him a leg-up, I said to the jockey whom I had engaged on advantageous terms to steer our champion, “Now, you must be careful with this mare. She makes a little noise; if you jump her off recklessly at the start, you’ll choke her at once. Let her get nicely on her legs, and if possible give her a chance of getting her second wind. She has a turn of speed, but does not stay. Win it as far as you like.”
So saying, I prepared to lead my roarer proudly out of the paddock, putting on an air of elation which was scarcely in keeping with my real feelings. Yet, now that she was properly fed and groomed, the mare was good-looking enough for anything, and I blush to say that many poor punters backed her in consequence of that fact. If they had only known how they would have kicked themselves!
There were five runners. They all got off on fairly equal terms. Snooker and I mounted the stand to see the race. When the horses came into the straight the last time round Snooker turned to me roughly and said, “Where is she?” As if I knew!
Our suspense, however, was quickly relieved. My mare came gasping up the course some time after the others; the noise she made was awful. So alarming, indeed, was it that the band in the enclosure, fearing the competition, ceased playing. The leader coughed apprehensively. Such music was strange to him, though familiar to me and mine.
Then Snooker, falling down the steps of the stand quite calmly in his eagerness to get at me, said, “Well done, old chap; I must congratulate you. You’ve beaten something at last.”
“Beaten something?” I repeated, not knowing what he meant.
“Yes,” said Snooker, with an offensive chuckle. “You’ve beaten the blooming band.”
Great Scot the Chaser. By G.G. 1897