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Making Allowances
Chapter 8, Part 1
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I had genuinely thought that once Dad
had proved to himself that he could get back on a horse and race, then that
would be enough. Instead, it appeared now, that he had set himself a series of
obstacles to negotiate and his ultimate goal now seemed to be something more
far-reaching than purely, ”the honour of taking part”. My initial hopes that his comments
after the race would be followed by a climb-down on the following morning, or
later that week, were dashed when he announced that he would be riding again for
Boyle several weeks later. Here lay a tricky decision; should I
go to this race meeting too? I felt that, if anything bad was going to happen,
then I should be there myself, so that there would be no legacy of unanswered
questions. The problem was, I was supposed to be studying, attending lectures,
seminars and so on. I couldn’t keep taking long weekends to make the trip
home. Certainly, if this were going to become a regular fixture, it would soon
start to prove financially difficult to keep coming home. I decided to let my
head rule my heart, and stay away next time. As my bad luck would have it, that
weekend a lot of my friends seemed to have gone home, or somewhere else, and
there were few distractions. It seemed to take an eternity for the day to pass,
but by evening, I thought it would be safe to ring home to see what happened. “He finished fifth”, said Mum “How many runners?” I asked
“Five?” Mum laughed “I’ll have to ask
him,” there was a pause, then she returned. “About ten.” “Not too bad then,” I remarked. Whilst I was relieved, it only felt
like a temporary reprieve from a certain day in the future when there would be
more bad news. I felt a little bit like a criminal, who was serving a period of
remand, waiting to be sentenced for a crime he did not commit. Sooner or later,
I was certain that Dad would be involved in another bad fall, and perhaps he
would be less fortunate this time. If only he could get to finish off by riding
some decent horses instead of farmers’ hacks and moderate novices. But there
again, I thought, we all take risks in our lives. We take a risk every time we
cross the road, or walk in certain areas of town at certain times. There was, of
course, a chance that nothing else bad would happen to Dad, and all this energy
would have been used up needlessly, when it could have been invested in
something more worthwhile. The next time I saw him race was at
my home-town Point-to-Point in the April, one of the final meetings of the
season. I went with Granddad this time; we walked several miles over the fields,
just as we had done when I was a little boy, “We’ve done this trip a few
times”, I commented. “Aye”, replied Granddad, “we
may not do many more.” Indeed, we did not; this was to be
the last time. At least it was a happy day. We
decided to stand on the hill overlooking the course, close to the beer tent and
the bookies. Something about Granddad’s words earlier struck a note within me,
he had not been well earlier in the year, and he had been such a big part of my
life for so long. Suddenly, Dad was not the most important person in the
equation. Instead, I concentrated on Granddad, listening to his thoughts about
what would run well, what the weather might do later, and what was the latest
football news coming over his pocket transistor radio. I was struck, that day, by the
simple things that gave Granddad pleasure, during that afternoon; whether it was
talking to old friends and colleagues, having a few quid on one of the horses,
watching the races unfold through
his binoculars, or simply buying an ice-cream from one of the mobile vans. It
all seemed such a marked contrast from Dad, still in relentless pursuit of some
sort of miracle, with the expectation of a spoilt
child on his birthday. We had put away a few beers by the
time of Dad’s race. This year, he was riding another of Boyle’s horses, a
grey gelding called Great White Hope. Granddad laughed as he looked at the form; ‘00UL0-00’ “Huh,” he muttered, “Great
White Dope, more like.” Optimism was not one of Granddad’s specialities. “Looks pretty dire,” I agreed. “At least we’ll be able to pick
him out easily!” Granddad remarked as he focused his binoculars at the group
of runners, heading down to have a look at the first fence. I could see that the
Grey was taking a strong hold, acting in a bit of a temperamental manner,
fighting for his head, fidgeting and bucking. “Don’t like it Granddad,” I
murmured. “Hmmmm……He’ll be all
right.” Granddad replied. When they finally set off, Great
White Hope shot to the front, still pulling hard, and Dad was really having to
fight him. He jumped rather flatly, crashing through the top, stirring the dust,
but landed tidily, and, completely undeterred, resumed at a similar speed and in
a similar manner. Fence two, again, brushing through the top, but several
lengths out in front. As they turned away towards the back straight of the tight
oval course, I could see, by the way the Grey negotiated the next two jumps,
that he was jumping very right to left. “Bloody hell,” I exclaimed,
“he’s all over the bloody place.” Granddad tutted loudly and shook his
head. Then it happened. At the fifth, an open ditch, the
Grey appeared to swerve towards the left as if to refuse, before making a very
untidy take-off. The result was inevitable, as he caught the top of the fence
hard and jettisoned Dad into the air like a piece of bread out of a toaster. “Shit!” I cursed. “Oh no!” groaned Granddad.
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If you would like to contact Richie, please email him at: richie@baylands.fsnet.co.uk
© Copyright Richie Phillips. No unauthorised reproduction allowed. |
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