For a moment, it seemed to me that McGee had lost his nerve. Alertness at the post is an important factor. He had not got away from the barrier ahead of the field. Another rider, too, had got the rail, and hence the shortest route. I wondered whether, after all, that had been the trouble all along, for nothing can win or lose a race quicker or better than those little failures of the jockey himself.
Lady Lee, I had heard it said, was one of those horses that do not require urging, but go to the front naturally. Just now, it did not seem that she was beaten, but that she lacked just the power to lead the field. Did McGee figure that the horses ahead of him were setting such a fast clip that they would drop back to him before the race was over?
Cleverly, however, he avoided being pocketed, as those ahead of and beside him tried to close in and make him pull up.
Around they went until the horses looked to the naked eye like toys strung on wires. Only the tension of the crowd made one feel that this was no play; it was deadly serious sport. On they sped, watched in a lull of deathly stillness. Surely, I felt, this was indeed a great sight—this acid test of the nerves of men and animals pitted against one another.
They were coming into the stretch now!
Suddenly, it seemed that, by some telepathic connection, both the horse and the rider caught the electric tension which swayed us in the club-house enclosure.
I myself was carried away by the frenzied spirit of the race. Broadhurst was leaning forward, oblivious of everything else in the world, straining his eyes through a field-glass. Murchie was watching the race with a supercilious air, which I knew was clearly assumed.
On they came!
I could not help wondering whether McGee had not really planned to throw the race. Would he, perhaps at the last moment, lose his nerve?
Lady Lee suddenly shot through the field. A mighty shout rose from the entire grandstand.