For Monkery landed, but dwelt on the fence
So that Counter Vair passed him in galloping thence.
Then Stormalong blundered, then bright Muscatel
Slipped badly on landing and stumbled and fell,
Then rose in the morrish, with his man on his neck
Like a nearly dead sailor afloat on a wreck,
With his whip in the mud and his stirrups both gone,
Yet he kept in the saddle and made him go on.
As Charles leaped the Turn, all the field was tailed out
Like petals of roses that wind blows about,
Like petals of colour blown back and brought near,
Like poppies in wind-flaws when corn is in ear,
Fate held them or sped them, the race was beginning.
Charles said, "I must ride, or I've no chance of winning."
So gently he quickened, yet making no call;
Right Royal replied as though knowing it all,
He passed Kubbadar who was ready to fall,
Then he strode up to Hadrian, up to his girth,
They eyed the Dyke's glitter and picked out a berth.
Now the race reached the water and over it flew
In a sweep of great muscle strained taut and guyed true.
There Muscatel floundered and came to a halt,
Muscatel, the bay chaser without any fault.
Right Royal's head lifted, Right Royal took charge,
On the left near the railings, ears cocked, going large,
Leaving Hadrian behind as a yacht leaves a barge.
Though Hadrian's rider called something unheard,
He was past him at speed like the albatross bird,
Running up to Path Finder, they leaped, side by side,
And the foam from Path Finder flecked white on his hide.
And on landing, he lifted, while Path Finder dwelt,
And his noble eye brightened from the glory he felt,
And the mud flung behind him flicked Path Finder's chest,
As he left him behind and went on to the rest.
Charles cast a glance back, but he could not divine
Why the man on Path Finder should make him a sign,
Nor why Hadrian's rider should shout, and then point,
With his head nodded forward and a jerked elbow joint.
But he looked as he pointed, both forward and down,
And he saw that Right Royal was smeared like a clown,
Smeared red and bespattered with flecks of bright blood,
From a blood-vessel burst, as he well understood.
And just as he saw it, Right Royal went strange
As one whom Death's finger has touched to a change;
He went with a stagger that sickened the soul,
As a force stricken feeble and out of control.