Daily, in mind, I saw the Winning Post,
The Straight, and all the horses' glimmering forms
Rushing between the railings' yelling swarms,
My Father's colours leading. Every day,
Closing my eyes, I saw them die away,
In the last strides, and lose, lose by a neck,
Lose by an inch, but lose, and bring the wreck
A day's march nearer. Now begins again
The agony of waiting for the pain.
The agony of watching ruin come
Out of man's dreams to overwhelm a home.
Go now, my dear. Before the race is due,
We'll meet again, and then I'll speak with you.
In a race-course box behind the Stand
Right Royal shone from a strapper's hand.
A big dark bay with a restless tread,
Fetlock deep in a wheat-straw bed;
A noble horse of a nervy blood,
By O Mon Roi out of Rectitude
Something quick in his eye and ear
Gave a hint that he might be queer.
In front, he was all to a horseman's mind,
Some thought him a trifle light behind.
By two good points might his rank be known,
A beautiful head and a Jumping Bone.
He had been the hope of Sir Button Budd,
Who bred him there at the Fletchings stud,
But the Fletchings jockey had flogged him cold
In a narrow thing as a two-year-old.
After that, with his sulks and swerves,
Dread of the crowd and fits of nerves,
Like a wastrel bee who makes no honey
He had hardly earned his entry money.
Liking him still, though he failed at racing,
Sir Button trained him for steeple-chasing.
He jumped like a stag, but his heart was cowed;
Nothing would make him face the crowd;
When he reached the Straight where the crowds began
He would make no effort for any man.
Sir Button sold him, Charles Cothill bought him,
Rode him to hounds and soothed and taught him.
After two years' care Charles felt assured
That his horse's broken heart was cured,
And the jangled nerves in tune again.
And now, as proud as a King of Spain,
He moved in his box with a restless tread,
His eyes like sparks in his lovely head,
Ready to run between the roar
Of the stands that face the Straight once more;
Ready to race, though blown, though beat,
As long as his will could lift his feet,
Ready to burst his heart to pass
Each gasping horse in that street of grass.
John Harding said to his stable-boy,
"Would looks were deeds, for he looks a joy.
He's come on well in the last ten days."
The horse looked up at the note of praise,
He fixed his eye upon Harding's eye,
Then he put all thought of Harding by,
Then his ears went back and he clipped all clean
The manger's well where his oats had been.
John Harding walked to the stable-yard,
His brow was worried with thinking hard.
He thought, "His sire was a Derby winner,
His legs are steel, and he loves his dinner,
And yet of old when they made him race,
He sulked or funked like a real disgrace;
Now for man or horse, I say, it's plain,
That what once he's been, he'll be again.
For all his looks, I'll take my oath
That horse is a cur, and slack as sloth.
He'll funk at a great big field like this,
And the lad won't cure that sloth of his,
He stands no chance, and yet Bungay says
He's been backed all morning a hundred ways.
He was twenty to one, last night, by Heaven:
Twenty to one and now he's seven.
Well, one of these fools whom fortune loves
Has made up his mind to go for the gloves;
But here's Dick Cappell to bring me news."