HOW WE BEAT THE FAVOURITE
(A Lay of the Loamshire Hunt Cup.)
Aye, squire," said Stevens, "they back him
at evens;
The race is all over, bar shouting, they say;
The Clown ought to beat her; Dick Neville is
sweeter
Than ever—he swears he can win all the way.
"A gentleman rider—well, I'm an outsider,
But if he's a gent who the mischiefs a jock?
You swells mostly blunder, Dick rides for the
plunder,
He rides, too, like thunder—he sits like a
rock.
"He calls 'hunted fairly' a horse that has barely
Been stripp'd for a trot within sight of the
hounds,
A horse that at Warwick beat Birdlime and
Yorick,
And gave Abdelkader at Aintree nine pounds.
"They say we have no test to warrant a
protest;
Dick rides for a lord and stands in with a
steward;
The light of their faces they show him—his
case is
Prejudged and his verdict already secured.
"But none can outlast her, and few travel faster,
She strides in her work clean away from The
Drag;
You hold her and sit her, she couldn't be fitter,
Whenever you hit her she'll spring like a stag.
"And p'rhaps the green jacket, at odds though
they back it,
May fall, or there's no knowing what may
turn up.
The mare is quite ready, sit still and ride steady,
Keep cool; and I think you may just win the
Cup."
Dark-brown with tan muzzle, just stripped for
the tussle,
Stood Iseult, arching her neck to the curb,
A lean head and fiery, strong quarters and wiry,
A loin rather light, but a shoulder superb.
Some parting injunction, bestowed with great
unction,
I tried to recall, but forgot like a dunce,
When Reginald Murray, full tilt on White
Surrey,
Came down in a hurry to start us at once.
"Keep back in the yellow! Come up on
Othello!
Hold hard on the chesnut! Turn round on
The Drag!
Keep back there on Spartan! Back you, sir,
in tartan!
So, steady there, easy," and down went the
flag.
We started, and Kerr made strong running on
Mermaid,
Through furrows that led to the first stake-
and-bound,
The crack, half extended, look'd bloodlike and
splendid,
Held wide on the right where the headland
was sound.
I pulled hard to baffle her rush with the snaffle,
Before her two-thirds of the field got away,
All through the wet pasture where floods of the
last year
Still loitered, they clotted my crimson with
clay.
The fourth fence, a wattle, floor'd Monk and
Blue-bottle;
The Drag came to grief at the blackthorn
arid ditch,
The rails toppled over Redoubt and Red Rover,
The lane stopped Lycurgus and Leicestershire
Witch.
She passed like an arrow Kildare and Cock
Sparrow,
And Mantrap and Mermaid refused the stone
wall;
And Giles on The Greyling came down at the
paling,
And I was left sailing in front of them all.
I took them a burster, nor eased her nor nursed
her
Until the Black Bullfinch led into the plough,
And through the strong bramble we bored
with a scramble—
My cap was knock'd off by the hazel-tree
bough.
Where furrows looked lighter I drew the rein
tighter—
Her dark chest all dappled with flakes of
white foam,
Her flanks mud bespattered, a weak rail she
shattered—
We landed on turf with our heads turn'd for
home.
Then crash'd a low binder, and then close
behind her
The sward to the strokes of the favourite
shook;
His rush roused her mettle, yet ever so little
She shorten'd her stride as we raced at the
brook.
She rose when I hit her. I saw the stream
glitter,
A wide scarlet nostril flashed close to my knee,
Between sky and water The Clown came and
caught her,
The space that he cleared was a caution to see.
And forcing the running, discarding all cunning,
A length to the front went the rider in green;
A long strip of stubble, and then the big double,
Two stiff flights of rails with a quickset
between.
She raced at the rasper, I felt my knees grasp her,
I found my hands give to her strain on the
bit,
She rose when the Clown did—our silks as we
bounded
Brush'd lightly, our stirrups clash'd loud as
we lit.
A rise steeply sloping, a fence with stone
coping—
The last—we diverged round the base of the
hill;
His path was the nearer, his leap was the
clearer,
I flogg'd up the straight, and he led sitting
still.
She came to his quarter, and on still I brought
her,
And up to his girth, to his breast-plate she
drew;
A short prayer from Neville just reach'd me,
"The devil,"
He mutter'd—lock'd level the hurdles we flew.
A hum of hoarse cheering, a dense crowd
careering,
All sights seen obscurely, all shouts vaguely
heard;
"The green wins!" "The crimson!" The
multitude swims on,
And figures are blended and features are
blurr'd.
"The horse is her master!" "The green
forges past her!"
"The Clown will outlast her!" "The
Clown wins!" "The Clown!"
The white railing races with all the white faces,
The chesnut outpaces, outstretches the brown.
On still past the gateway she strains in the
straightway,
Still struggles, "The Clown by a short neck
at most,"
He swerves, the green scourges, the stand
rocks and surges,
And flashes, and verges, and flits the white
post.
Aye! so ends the tussle,—I knew the tan muzzle
Was first, though the ring-men were yelling
"Dead heat!"
A nose I could swear by, but Clarke said "The
mare by
A short head." And that's how the favourite
was beat.
——A. L. Gordon.