‘When you look at it in that way,’ assented Annabel, ‘it certainly doesn’t seem right, and it’s unfair of us to encourage it. What a pity so many nice things are wrong!’
‘They’re off!’ said Miss Christabel, who had been eagerly watching the proceedings, during which the other performers had severally displayed themselves, receiving more or less qualified ovations, and then finally been taken in charge severely by Mr. Rockley as far as the distance post. ‘They’re off! Oh, don’t say a word till they’re over the first fence!’
All the horses of the little troop had sufficient self-control to go ‘well within themselves’ from the start except King of the Valley and Currency Lass. The mare’s nervous system was so shaken by the thunder of the horse-hoofs and the shouting of the crowd at her introduction to society, that she pulled and tore, and ‘took it out of herself,’ as her rider, Billy Day, afterwards expressed himself, to that extent, that he felt compelled to let her have her head, with a lead over the first fence.
This barrier she at first charged at the rate of a liberal forty miles an hour, with her head up, her mouth open, and such an apparently reckless disregard of the known properties of iron-bark timber, that Billy’s friends began to cast about for a handy vehicle, as likely to be in immediate demand for ambulance work. But whether from the contrarieties said to govern the female sex, or from some occult reason, Currency Lass no sooner had her own way than she displayed unexpected prudence. She slackened pace, and cocking her delicately-pointed ears, rewarded her rider’s nerve and patience by making a magnificent though theatrical jump, and being awfully quick on her legs, was half-way to the next fence before another had crossed the first.
‘Oh, what a lovely jump Currency Lass took!’ said one of the young ladies, ‘and what a distance she is in front of all the rest. Do you think she will win, Mr. Smith? How slowly all the others are going.’
‘There’s plenty of time,’ said the critic of the sterner sex. ‘She’s a clever thing, but she can’t stay the distance. Ha! very neatly done indeed. That’s what I call workmanlike. Cornstalk baulks—well done—good jump! All over the first fence, and no one down.’
These latter remarks were called forth by seeing St. Andrew, The Cid, and Bargo charge the fence nearly in line, the latter rather in the rear, and go over with as little haste or effort as if it had been a row of hurdles. Wallaby hit the top rail hard, but recovered himself, and Cornstalk, after baulking once, was wheeled short, and popped over cleverly, without losing ground.
The same style of performance was repeated with so little variation for the next half-dozen leaps, that the eager public began to look with favour upon the enthusiastic Currency Lass, still sailing ahead with undiminished ardour, and flying her leaps like a deer. The sarcastic inquiry, ‘Will they ever catch her?’ commenced to be employed, and the provincial prejudice in favour of a true bushman and a country-trained horse, ‘without any nonsense about her,’ began to gather strength.
But at this stage of the proceedings it became apparent that the struggle between the two cracks could not longer be postponed. With one bound, as it appeared to the spectators, St. Andrew and The Cid were away at speed, their riders bearing themselves as if they had only that moment started for the race.
‘They’re at one another now,’ said Argyll to O’Desmond. ‘We shall see how the Camerton blood tells in a finish.’