That is me, mister. Jinx Jackson.
Oh, I am not beefing none. I manages, what with one thing and another. But believe me, buddy, it is enough to give you the yelping wipes when you stands there by the fence with the sun beating down on you, and the crowd milling around excitedlike, and the bugles blowing, and the flags waving, and the horses walking past—nervous—and the colors up with their pants skintight and their shirts bellying out like silk balloons, and then they are wheeling the barrier in, and you look at the track and it is smooth and sweet and fast as a filly with bees in her ears, and everything gets still except the popcorn peddlers, and there is that awful minute when you is waiting and the shirt sticks to your back and you gets that old, familiar, tight feeling on the inside of your thighs, and your tongue is like a sponge bit between your teeth, and then that cry—like a rising wind—"THEY'RE OFF!"
That is when it hits you. Right here. As if somebody has yanked your stomach out and let it go wham back at you, like a pair of suspenders.
That—and when you see a snipe getting hisself boxed on a inside turn, or bearing out in the run through the stretch, or—aw, nuts with it. It gets you, that is all. It gets you.
Once you has got the feel of horses in your blood you is a goner. A gone goner. It is there, brother, and there is not no use fighting it. You cannot no more keep away from a paddock than you can stop blinking your eyes.
Jimmie Winkie used to say, "You can shake grief and sorrow, you can bury remorse—but you can't never lose the feel o' a horse."
Jimmie Winkie. Yeah, Wee Willie. That is the same.
Good! Man, he had the magic touch. Why, he could add twenty lengths to anything on four legs. Easy. Jimmie was tops. Why, I has seen him come from behind the hard way and spot them a extra advantage by pulling out and still win and there was not no photo finishes, neither. When he won, mister, he won.
He was a funny guy, he was. Had a kind of puckery face and big ears. Walked springy, like a banty rooster. Used to use a special bridle when he was up. Superstitious? It is not superstition exactly. It is just a kind of a feeling you get about certain things. Lots of us jocks are thataway. I know I would of had a hissy—four years ago—if I had of mislaid a old wore-out crop I always carried. Moe Prentice had a buckeye he would not of parted with for nobody. Jackie Watson had some sort of a medal on a silver chain. Cry Baby Noolan would not no more of thought of riding with his cap anyway but hind side to than he would of thought of riding without any clothes on. In fact, if he would of had to make a choice, I reckon he would of rode in his skin before he would of changed his cap proper. And, like I said, Jimmie has this here special bridle, though there is not much special about it except that it is goldish-looking if you hold it in the right light. But seems he takes a fancy to it and from the way he acts you would of thought it is made from the tanned hide of a Derby winner. But it is not no such thing, of course. It is just a bridle like any racing bridle only, like I said, it is goldish-looking in a unnoticeable manner.
He gets it one year when we is finishing up the circuit down in Tijuana. This is before he hits his stride. When he is going along, like me, not snaffling no tall money nor nothing but knocking off his percentages. He is plain Jimmie Winkie then. The newspapers has not tagged that there Wee Willie on to him yet and he is not endorsing no leather jackets, nor saying as how he likes Puffie Wuffies because they is superroasted and rolled on hoops.