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Termín: skupina A - 21.2.2016, skupina B - 28.2.2016.
Reflex
CHAPTER ONE 1
Winded and coughing, I lie on one elbow and spat out a
mouthful of grass and mud. The horse I'd been riding
raised its weight off my ankle, scrambled untidily to its
feet and departed at an unfeeling gallop. I waited for
things to settle: chest heaving, bones still rattling from
the bang, sense of balance recovering from a thirty-milean-
hour somersault and a few tumbling rolls. No harm
done. Nothing broken. Just another fall.
Time and place: sixteenth fence, three-mile steeplechase,
Sandown Park racecourse, Friday, November, in
thin, cold, persistent rain. At the return of breath and energy
I stood wearily up and thought with intensity that
this was a damn silly way for a grown man to be spending
his life.
The thought itself was a jolt. Not one I'd ever thought
before. Riding horses at high speed over Various jumps
was the only way I knew of making a living, and it was a
job one couldn't do if one's heart wasn't in it. The chilling
flicker of disillusion nudged like the first twinge of toothache,
unexpected, unwelcome, an uneasy hint of possible
trouble.
I repressed it without much alarm. Reassured myself that
I loved the life, of course I did, the way I always had. Believed
quite easily that nothing was wrong except the
weather, the fall, the lost race… minor, everyday stuff,
business as usual.
Squelching uphill to the stands in paper thing racing
boots unsuitable for hiking, I thought only and firmly
about the horse I'd started out on, sorting out what I
might and might not say to its trainer. Discarried "How do
you expect it to jump if you don't school it properly?" in
favour of "The experience will do him good." Thought better
of 'useless, panicky, hard-mouthed, underfed dog',
and decided on 'might try him in blinkers'. The trainer,
anyway, would blame me for the fall and tell the owner I'd
misjudged the pace. He was that sort of trainer. Every
crash was a pilot error.
The only good thing, I supposed, about my descent at
the fence was that Steve Millace's father hadn't been
there to record it. George Millace, pitiless photographer of
moments all jockeys preferred to ignore, was safe in his
box and approximately at that moment being lowered
underground to his long sleep. And good riddance, I
thought uncharitably. Goodbye to the snide sneering
pleasure George got from delivering to owners the irrefutable
evidence of their jockeys' failings.
