Brown was next, and he got a blank; and the next, and the next.
"I've drawn Brickbat," said Fitzpatrick, "a d——d good horse; he won the hunters' plate at Tuam last year."
"Oh! I wish you joy," said Gayner, "for he won't start to-morrow, my boy: he's at Tuam now."
"Begad! he'll start as soon as yourself, Bob," said little Larry; "he came to Castleknock last night, and he's at Frenchpark now: Murphy from Frenchpark is to ride him."
These details brought Brickbat up in the market.
"They might have left him at Tuam then, and saved themselves money," said Gayner. "Why, he hadn't had a gallop last Tuesday week; I was in his stable myself. If Burke's cattle had been as fat at Ballinasloe, he'd have got better prices."
"I say, McKeon," said Fitzpatrick, "what odds will you bet Bob doesn't buy Brickbat himself?"
The hat went round, and others got blanks. Ussher got Miss Fidget, Larry Kelly's mare, and was advised in a whisper by that cunning little gentleman—who meant to buy Conqueror by way of a hedge, and who therefore wanted to swell the stakes—to be sure and buy the mare himself, for she didn't know how to fall; "and," he added, "you know she's no weight on her;" and when Ussher looked at Larry Kelly, who was to ride her himself, he couldn't but think the latter part was true.
Then Nicholas Blake drew Kickie-wickie, the officer's mare, whereupon the gallant Captain, who knew Blake was a sporting fellow, thought this was a good opportunity to sound that gentleman about getting him a rider, and began whispering to him all the qualities of the mare; how she could do everything a mare should do; how high she was bred and how well she was trained, and how she was like the poacher, and could "leap on anywhere;" for all which, and Kickie-wickie herself, with her owner into the bargain, Blake did not care a straw;—for he was confident of winning himself with the Galway horse, Thunderer.
Then some one else drew Thunderer; and Peter Dillon got Conqueror, greatly to his joy, for he reckoned that his expenses from Castlebar would thus be mostly paid, even if he couldn't sell the long-legged colt. The Major drew Crom-a-boo, a Carrick horse, who had once been a decent hunter, and whose owner had entered it at the instigation of his fellow townsmen, and by the assurance that these sort of races were often won by your steady old horses; and Mr. Stark, the owner, since he had first made up his mind to pay the £5 stake, had gradually deceived himself into the idea that he should probably win; and having never before even owned a horse—for this was a late purchase, or rather the beast had been taken in lieu of a debt—had now, for the last three weeks, talked of nothing but sweats, gallops, physics, training, running, and leaping: and having secured the services of a groom for the day, who was capable of riding his horse, had entirely given himself up to the delights of horse-racing. Lucky was it for Mr. Stark that Crom-a-boo was sure to lose; for had he won, Stark would have been a ruined man; nothing would have kept him from the Curragh and a conviction that the turf was his proper vocation.