The Nightingale Sings

by Charlotte Bingham

  Above all, he would be ridden by a woman, and no woman had as yet even ridden in the Champion Hurdle, let alone won it.

  All these things were public knowledge, thanks to Cassie’s diligently written broadsheets. Nothing had been hidden from the racing public except the owner’s change of plans for her horse, and even those were made public by a press statement from Claremore on the very day the declarations for the big Cheltenham hurdle race were announced:

  As a result of some extensive schooling sessions over hurdles in private while hopefully preparing The Nightingale to go eventing, the horse’s natural ability to jump at racing pace has led to a change in the short term aims for him. Since even more significantly he has recovered so well in his health after his ordeal it is now the plan to see if and how he takes to racing under National Hunt Rules over hurdles, and if he continues to show the same talent as he shows at home on the schooling grounds in his prep races then his entry for the Champion Hurdle will be allowed to stand.

  Once again it was headline news on all the sporting pages as all the racing correspondents made the most of the racing story of the year. But this time it was Mattie who was deluged by calls and visits from the press.

  ‘In answer to the tremendous interest shown by members of the racing public and the media,’ he said on television on the evening of 1 February, ‘I feel it only fair to answer the questions which have been put to us concerning The Nightingale’s return to racing as best I can in public, and RTE have very kindly offered me the chance to say a few words here on television. Briefly, because I’m sure there isn’t anyone who follows horse racing who doesn’t know the story, my mother – who bred and owned the horse besides training him to all his great and famous victories – when she decided to retire him from the Flat very generously gifted him to my horse-mad sister Josephine. Now Josephine is a bit of a rider herself, and some of you might know that too, and one day when she was schooling him she decided to give Nightie a pop, and found he was a seriously serious lepper. Her first plan was to take the horse eventing, but then the more she rode him the more convinced she was he could still win a decent hurdle race, and what more decent race to win if you’re going to have a crack at winning a race over timber than the Champion Hurdle itself? So having decided that’s where she wanted to go, she asked me to train him for her, we just got the entry in on time, and now it’s in the lap of the gods. All I can say is the old horse is very well or we wouldn’t even be thinking of running him, and that all still being well he’ll have a prep race either at Leopardstown in the Robinsons or going for the Kingwell Hurdle at Wincanton. If he runs a decent race in his trial then we’ll definitely have a crack at the Champion.’

  ‘Now?’ Theodore wondered when he was invited for a drink the following evening.

  ‘No,’ Cassie said. ‘They’ve taken fright and the first show reflects it. He’s no better than twelves in most lists, and Mike Gold has him in at tens. If anyone puts any serious money on him now they’ll shorten him even more, and tens and elevens and twelves aren’t in any way honest to God odds at all. What we do is wait until after Leopardstown or Wincanton. Then we put on our waders.’

  ‘Excellent, excellent,’ Theodore agreed. ‘Except I thought you weren’t planning to run him at either.’

  ‘We’re not,’ Cassie replied and raised her glass.

  Mattie pulled the horse out of the Leopardstown hurdle at the overnight declaration stage, having warned the punters to keep their money in their pockets because the horse was short of a piece of work and was being re-routed to Wincanton where all being well he would definitely run.

  A day later he boxed up four horses to take them over for a change of scene to gallop on Tom McMahon’s grass the other side of the Curragh. Slightly earlier in the day because she had a longer journey Cassie had supervised the boxing of six of her own hurdlers who were also on their way to the Curragh. When they were all met Mattie pulled three horses from his box, as did Cassie, the six horses being worked twice up the gallops before being walked off and then returned to their horseboxes. Due to the continuing inclement February weather all the animals wore waterproof exercise sheets and hoods to protect them from the elements.

  But mostly to disguise them from the eyes of the gallop watchers, who weren’t having the best of mornings anyway, such was the rain which was being swept across the Curragh by a gale from the north-east.

  Naturally when all the horses were being reloaded any gallop watcher hardy enough still to be out with his field glasses would not have noticed which horses were returned to which box, or the fact that in the mêlée that generally surrounds the gallops at this time the three horses which had been left in Mattie’s box were switched to Cassie’s so that the unexercised six were driven off in the direction of Kilkenny while the six exercised horses were shunted back to Mattie’s yard across the plain.

  And then, while the Nightingale team was preparing to run its private trial on the Nugent estate, Mattie’s team of lads, each with a bonus of £50 in his back pocket, went off for an early lunchtime drink at their usual haunt where one or two of the lads were overheard dispiritedly talking about the rather disappointing bit of work you-know-who had done that morning, the very lads who were already holding ante post vouchers on their newly arrived star horse to win the Champion Hurdle at 20/1.

  ‘Now,’ said Cassie as her team once more prepared to go to work on the Nugent racetrack. ‘What we’re going to try to do this morning is not exactly out of the training manuals. We are not going to have a serious school, we are going to have a serious race. We are going to race over the full distance of two miles and we’re going to jump eight flights of hurdles, just as we would if we were on the racetrack proper, and this time I want you to go for it. The horse each of you is riding is as you well know fully race fit, and since only one of them is owned by anyone outside either Mattie’s yard or my own, you can rest assured you have the owner’s permission to race. As for Aperçu, which Liam is riding as usual, all I can tell you is that this piece of work is exactly what his owner wants, so there’s no risk of spoiling any of your horses’ immediate chances by asking it all of them this morning.

  ‘You’ve all also been weighted according to your horses’ latest ratings,’ she continued, ‘so although Himself over here has been entered up for the Champion which of course is most definitely not a handicap, it would hardly be a fair test to ask the likes of Bohandur and Touch Paper to take either him or Aperçu on at level weights. So you’ve all been weighted in with a chance, even your fellow, Bridie. You’re getting over two stone and a half from Nightie and over a stone and a half from Aperçu and the horse I’m riding this morning, Cartographer, who was only just beaten into second in the Glenlivet Hurdle last April remember. Finally, the only other instruction I’m going to give you is to make sure it’s a good gallop. They go like hell at Cheltenham in the Champion, so don’t take any prisoners.’

  ‘And what exactly are my instructions?’ Josephine asked her mother, swinging The Nightingale round alongside her. ‘How do you think I should ride him?’

  ‘That’s a difficult one,’ Cassie replied, hitching up the flap of her saddle to check her girth. ‘Since I’m no longer the trainer, you’ll have to sort that out with Mattie.’

  ‘Are you serious? You know all there is to know about this horse. Mattie’s just a rookie!’

  ‘I think we ought to get just one thing straight, Jo,’ Cassie replied, steadying her horse. ‘When I put Nightie in Mattie’s yard, which I did before I gave you both shares in the horse, I did so not for love but because I know Mattie’s going to make a hell of a good trainer. So if you want instructions, you really must go ask him.’

  Josephine eyed her mother then walked her horse over to where Mattie was also busy adjusting his girths to get her instructions. Cassie called over young Phelim O’Connell to give him his orders, the lad having been counted in to make up the numbers since Liam was now convinced of his integrity, and while she told him w
hat she wanted him to do on Pipistrelli, the very smart four-year-old he was riding, out of the corner of her eye she watched her son and daughter arguing and saw Josephine as always trying to countermand everything her brother was saying while Mattie patiently talked her down, until finally Josephine sat back with an obvious sigh and listened.

  ‘All right, jockeys!’ Peter Nugent called, the big white flag raised above his head. ‘Go!’

  With the track being just under two miles in circumference they had moved the start to a chute back in the boundary of the woods so that the ground they would have to travel would be approximately the same shape as that at Cheltenham, jumping what would be the last hurdle as the first before passing the winning post for the first time and swinging away up a hill to jump the second, the third and then the fourth before the back straight levelled out flat. The fifth was met at the end of the back straight and then the sixth just before the track began to drop back downhill, very like Cheltenham except that the drop was not nearly so severe. Even so, if they weren’t going to fall or make a bad mistake horses still had to be well balanced and come off the right stride as they jumped the sixth and seventh hurdles before swinging left into the home straight to meet the last on rising ground a good two hundred yards from the finishing line. All things considered, in fact, the Nugent course was a perfect test in miniature for the great course in Prestbury Park in Cheltenham.

  By the time the field of six horses had all jumped the first, taking good advantage of her featherweight Bridie had shot Touch Paper to the front and was bowling along a couple of lengths to the good. In second place came Pipistrelli, just where Cassie had wanted him to be, followed by Aperçu with Bohandur on his outside, Cassie on Cartographer fifth and the Nightingale two lengths away last. The order stayed exactly the same as they jumped the second and third, Touch Paper making a slight mistake at the third which brought him back to his field so that as they jumped the fourth along the back straight Pipistrelli took it up, with Phelim O’Connell squeezing him on to snatch a quick two and a half lengths over the tiring Touch Paper who was already being scrubbed along by a now vociferous Bridie. By the fifth flight of hurdles Pipistrelli had opened up a three length lead over the ever-improving Bohandur, followed half a length away by Aperçu whom Liam had lying cosily up the inside. Both Cassie on Cartographer and Josephine on The Nightingale had yet to make a move, although they had closed their horses up on the one in front so that as they raced to the sixth there wasn’t more than six lengths from the leader’s nose to the tip of The Nightingale’s thick black tail.

  ‘How are you going, guv?’ Josephine called to Cassie from alongside her after they had pinged the sixth hurdle, losing Touch Paper as they did so who seemed to miss his stride and slip over on landing.

  ‘Never you mind!’ Cassie yelled back. ‘And don’t you dare come up on my inside!’

  ‘I won’t need to! Don’t worry!’ Josephine returned. ‘I got a ton of horse under me! I can go where I like!’

  There were now only two hurdles left to jump, the second last just before they swung into the straight and then the last on the stiff climb up to the finish. Cassie smiled grimly to herself as after they jumped the seventh she saw a gap opening up in front of her on the running rails as both Bohandur and Aperçu ran wide to start their serious pursuit of the free running Pipistrelli who at last seemed to be tiring. Switching her own horse who was still full of running quickly to the left Cassie accelerated through the gap, getting to Bohandur’s flanks and to within half a length of Aperçu, who like Cartographer was still on the bridle. As she made her move she heard a yelled curse from Jose behind her but Cassie resisted the temptation to look because her job was to ride as hard as she could for home and not to take prisoners. Driving her horse on into the last she saw Pipistrelli hit the hurdle hard and although both Bohandur and Aperçu jumped the flight half a length up on her, Cassie had them in her sights and as soon as she saw Mattie go for his whip she knew Bohandur was beaten. With a hundred yards to go she and Liam on Aperçu were neck and neck until Cassie saw Aperçu change his legs and as he did she knew that horse’s chance was gone because Cartographer was lengthening out under her driving and going away from the big bay who was beginning to hang into him.

  Even so, well as she was going, Cassie was waiting to hear the thunder of hooves on her outside and the appearance of a big black horse alongside her, with his rider sitting as still as a mouse on his withers as her mount quickened and went on quickening until the big black horse would cross the line easing up with two or three lengths to spare.

  And sure enough with less than fifty yards to run she saw The Nightingale’s head appearing in the corner of her eye. Not daring to look any closer Cassie sat down and rode even harder but The Nightingale simply picked up and flew past her, leaving Cartographer to cross the line a well-beaten two lengths behind him with Aperçu another length and a half away third, and Bohandur a well-beaten fourth. The only trouble was The Nightingale’s saddle was empty.

  Standing up in her irons as she eased her own horse up, Cassie took a look back down the track and saw Josephine sitting on the ground on the landing side of the final hurdle. She appeared to be perfectly unscathed because she was busily hitting the ground in front of her with her whip before getting up and half turning to wipe the mud and grass off the backside of her breeches. Cassie swung Cartographer round and cantered him back to where her daughter was now striding up the track towards her, with a face as black as the devil in a comedy.

  ‘So what happened?’ Cassie asked, having turned her horse round and brought him back to a walk once she’d made sure The Nightingale had allowed himself to be caught by Liam who’d cantered on up the track after him.

  ‘What happened …’ Josephine sighed, at the same time managing to glare up at her mother. ‘What happened was you shut me out, that’s what happened, thanks a bunch.’

  ‘You mean you were coming up on my inside after all?’ Josephine said nothing to agree or disagree. She simply rewarded Cassie with another dark glare. ‘Look, if you were trying to get up on my inside—’ Cassie continued. ‘If you tried that at Cheltenham certain jocks would have you out over the rails.’

  ‘There was a gap, for God’s sake!’ Josephine protested hotly, particularly now that Mattie had cantered Bohandur over to learn what had happened. ‘If there’s a gap it’s perfectly all right to go for it, right Mattie?’

  ‘There wasn’t a gap, Jo,’ Cassie replied. ‘Anyway, I called to you to tell you not to come up the inside and you said you were going so well you didn’t need to, damnit.’

  ‘That was tactics!’ Josephine declared. ‘I thought you’d move over if you thought I was coming on the outside and I was going to slip up on the inside! Then you went and shut the bloody door in my face!’

  ‘I came across because I was still on the bridle and I had the rail, Josephine! That’s the unwritten rule about coming up on the inside and don’t you ever forget it!’

  ‘The guv’nor’s right,’ Mattie said laconically. ‘Even so, that doesn’t explain how we ended up getting our new breeches dirty.’

  ‘Don’t you start,’ Josephine retorted, half turning once more to make sure she’d got all the mud off her backside.

  ‘Well?’ Like Cassie, Mattie had now jumped off his horse and was leading him at the walk to let him cool off. ‘I still want to know what made you go humpty.’

  Josephine glared at him, looked at Cassie, then sighed long and deep up at the skies. ‘He dumped me,’ she said.

  ‘He dumped you?’ Mattie echoed. ‘He must have had a reason.’

  ‘Ask the horse.’

  ‘Josephine …’ Mattie warned her. ‘The Pony Club this is not. You’re meant to be riding in one of the greatest races in the world in just over a month so let’s have it, please. Why did Nightie dump you?’

  Josephine repeated the process of glaring first at Cassie and then at her brother before dropping her voice to a confessional level. ‘If you really
want to know why he dumped me,’ she said, ‘he dumped me because I hit him.’

  ‘Sweet Jesus,’ Mattie groaned. ‘Holy Mary Mother of God.’

  ‘I take it you had a reason,’ Cassie asked grimly. ‘At least I hope you thought you had a reason.’

  ‘Look,’ Josephine replied. ‘You shut the door on me, I had to snatch him up, and when I did he changed his legs. When I got him back and pulled him off the rails, he changed his legs again just as we were approaching the last. He was going to meet it all wrong! Talk about being disorganized! If I hadn’t given him a smack he’d have taken it by the roots!’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Cassie disagreed. ‘I don’t think so for a minute.’

  ‘Fine,’ Josephine seethed. ‘Fine – so you ride the bloody horse then!’

  ‘That’s not such a bad idea,’ Mattie said. ‘At least she’d ride to orders.’

  ‘I was riding to orders! You said to hold him for a late rattle, I had him perfectly placed, we were still on the bridle and then I had the bloody door slammed shut in my face!’

  ‘And then you hit him. I told you specifically not to touch him with the whip. He’s never been touched with the whip since he was a two-year-old when he made it quite clear what he thought about being hit. But you knew better. You had to hit him.’

  ‘OK, children,’ Cassie intervened, sensing a return to the nursery floor. ‘Let’s just keep this professional, shall we?’

  ‘He can’t have dumped you before the last, Jose,’ Mattie persisted. ‘We all saw you sitting the landing side, so where and how exactly did he get you off?’

  Josephine gave him one last glare before confessing. ‘We jumped the last perfectly,’ she said. ‘And I could have picked you all off any time. But instead when I asked him to go for it – and gave him just a little tap down his shoulder – he suddenly veered to the left and chucked me off.’