The Nightingale Sings

by Charlotte Bingham

The move left The Nightingale now in fifth place as the field continued the run down to the second last flight, Josephine reckoning them to be no more than five lengths off the two leaders who were still slugging it out up front. But with Birdwatcher going so ominously well two lengths up on her on her right and last year’s Irish champion Butler’s Perk on that horse’s outside and also still yet to make his move, Josephine suddenly realized that if she was going to have any real chance of winning she was going to have to disobey orders and creep up on the inside. Following her pre-race instructions to swing Nightie off the rails and come up the middle would now be suicidal since trying to take both Birdwatcher and Butler’s Perk on the outside would add at least another two or possibly three lengths to her own horse’s journey, so after they had flipped over the seventh flight of hurdles and begun the long left-handed swing round into the home straight, without checking her horse Josephine eased The Nightingale to the inside, even though both Birdwatcher and Butler’s Perk were also holding their line to the left side of the track.

  This meant as yet there was no gap for Josephine to take.

  ‘Jeez!’ Mattie shouted suddenly above the mayhem in the Claremore box. ‘We’re done! God, she’s only gone and switched him to the inside!’

  ‘So what else could she do!’ Cassie shouted back. ‘She was still a good four lengths down on the front two! She’s got to hope a gap will come at the last! It’s her only hope!’

  ‘Rather her than me!’ Mattie yelled. ‘She could end up in the wing!’

  The noise from the stands had become phenomenal as the leaders picked up down the hill and now, as they rounded the final turn to race flat out towards the last flight of hurdles, such was the volume of sound it made the relatively inexperienced Birdwatcher suddenly swing his head to look up at the jampacked stands and the moment he did so he faltered and lost his momentum, leaving the others to quicken away from him into the final flight. Glockamorra and Hello Absailor were still a good two lengths up as they measured the flight but then one stride more and Hello Absailor’s head came up, his stride shortened and he was done. Sensing the exhausted horse might unintentionally carry him across the hurdle, Robert McDonagh coolly switched his own horse to the left hand line, thus now effectively shutting the door completely in Josephine’s face.

  Again Josephine knew that if she took even the slightest pull or tried to switch her horse to the right of Glockamorra the race would be lost because any loss of impulsion into the final flight would mean inevitably that she would be slower away from the fence and her chance would have gone. At the last she had to get the sort of jump out of The Nightingale she had got at the second last where he had stood off, pinged the flight and landed running, because coming to the last they were still a good two lengths down on Glockamorra who was showing no signs of stopping. Even more ominously a length ahead of her on her right the Irish Champion Butler’s Perk now suddenly ranged up, also looking full of running.

  Committed now to making her run up in the inner, however, Josephine knew her only hope was for Robert McDonagh to be unaware that there was danger on his left so that as he jumped Glockamorra would leave The Nightingale enough room to jump the hurdle on his inside. Josephine knew from the way her horse had been making up lengths in the air that if that gap appeared The Nightingale could begin to overhaul McDonagh’s horse in mid-flight, a move which invariably disconcerted the horse at the receiving end of the surprise. On the other hand if McDonagh took a peek and saw The Nightingale storming up on his inside it was an odds-on certainty he would tighten Glockamorra up and with nowhere then left to run other than into the wing Josephine would have to take a huge pull just as she was going to jump, which would either effectively kill off her challenge or cause her horse to make a vital mistake and probably fall.

  Then six strides before releasing his horse at the last, Josephine’s prayers were answered as she saw McDonagh, who was no doubt imagining that no-one would be fool enough to come up on his inner, take one very quick look to his right. What he saw was Butler’s Perk at his flanks and beginning to look like his only danger with the now rallying Birdwatcher another head away in third.

  What he did not see, sense or hear because of the tumult of noise cascading down from the grandstands was the big muddy black horse a couple of lengths back on his left, with his jockey sitting on him as still as a stone. So thinking himself safe on his inner Robert McDonagh changed his line into the last hurdle, tracking his horse smoothly across to try and clear the flight about six feet from the wing to give himself the benefit of a run home up the centre and most favoured part of the course.

  And as soon as Josephine saw the gap she asked The Nightingale to go for it.

  He was then only disputing third place, but even so The Nightingale seemed to rise at the hurdle as the leaders did, standing off so far before the wings that it seemed he must have no chance whatever of clearing the flight, yet not only did he clear it the horse made up two of the lengths he had been down, landing only half a length behind Glockamorra. Not that Glockamorra had been tame into the hurdle either. As always Robert McDonagh had seen the perfect stride, the horse had come up just when he should, cleared the hurdle easily and yet still come out of it two lengths worse against The Nightingale, whose prodigious leap had finally buried the rallying Birdwatcher who took the hurdle by its roots and crashed to the ground, decanting his jockey over his head and slithering painlessly but spectacularly on his side uphill through the mud.

  Now the race was on in deadly earnest. McDonagh, at last aware of the danger on his left, got seriously to work on Glockamorra, changing his hands and then beginning to urge his horse on up the famous hill with legs, hands, seat and finally whip. In response to the driving force in the plate Glockamorra stuck his head out gallantly and forged on up the hill, but Josephine, who had yet to move on The Nightingale, saw that the leader was not actually gaining any ground.

  The crowd also sensed this and roared the big black horse home even more vociferously, particularly now they saw Butler’s Perk unleashing his run. The compact Irish bay had seemed to be biding his time and now his pilot was letting him have his chance the little horse seemed to be catching Glockamorra and The Nightingale with every stride. In response McDonagh hit his horse even harder but Butler’s Perk was now flying, with his jockey Declan Powell riding out the big iron grey only with hands and heels.

  Yet Josephine still had made no real move on The Nightingale who was showing no signs of fatigue whatsoever. Instead, as Butler’s Perk began to get up between Glockamorra and himself, The Nightingale lengthened his stride of his own free will, stretching effortlessly on up the famous hill, sluicing his way through the mud and making Josephine realize in one thrilling, heartstopping moment that as long as the two of them had timed their run right the race was there for the taking.

  Then in another stride the whole complexion of his historic race changed yet again. Butler’s Perk, who had seemed a moment earlier to have the race at his mercy, now began to shorten as The Nightingale took him on, so dramatically in fact that the bay appeared now almost to be treading water. Sensing this, Robert McDonagh renewed his effort, hitting his horse now on every other stride and pulling back the half length he had lost a couple of strides earlier to Butler’s Perk who was now a totally spent force.

  ‘Go on!’ McDonagh screamed at his horse. ‘Go on, you great bugger! Go on, Glock! G’arn!’

  As he well knew his horse was also fast coming to the end of his tether and as Glockamorra did indeed begin to falter the horse began to hang badly to his left, carrying The Nightingale who was racing now at full steam alongside him across the course. In one last effort to straighten his horse out Robert McDonagh changed his whip from his right hand to his left intending to give Glockamorra one final reminder, but as he did so The Nightingale caught one brief glimpse of the hated instrument and thinking it was about to land on him swerved violently away, diving headlong for the left-hand set of running rails.

  A
huge cry of dismay surged up from the crowd as they saw the favourite suddenly swerve.

  ‘What happened?’ Cassie cried up in the box where near-pandemonium was reigning. ‘Did McDonagh catch him with his whip or what!’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Mattie yelled in return. ‘But whatever happened he must have lost it now! Just when he had him, too! Just when he was galloping all over bloody Glockamorra!’

  From having the race at her mercy, all Josephine could do now was sit and steer, since carrying no whip herself the only way she could try and straighten The Nightingale out was not with a slap down his left shoulder but by trying to ease the horse back into a straight line with left leg and right rein before sitting down to ride him for all she was worth.

  But that was not the only problem she faced. On top of her struggle to get her horse back on course Josephine no longer knew how far there was to run. As the field jumped the last one of the horses in front of hers had kicked up a huge divot of mud, most of which hit Josephine full in the face, covering the best part of her goggles which were already half fogged up with condensation. In her race plan she had intended to push her goggles up on her helmet the moment they turned for home, but in the heat of the moment with everyone jockeying for their final positions on the bend she had forgotten all about them with the result that now about all she could see was the shape of the horse on her right and the blurred outline of the running rails on her left. She had no idea as to whether or not they had passed the final furlong marker and worst of all, never having ridden the horse in a flat-out finish before, she suddenly thought she might well have been misinterpreting the signals she had been getting from The Nightingale and that in fact there was nothing left in the locker. If that was the case then thanks to The Nightingale’s sudden deviation they were beat.

  But on the other hand if her horse had indeed something left to give then if she could only straighten him up and ask him for it there was still a very slim chance they could get up and win. If there was just anything left of his famous flying finish then they could still catch the horse two lengths in front of them. So rather than waste a split second more in trying to get her bearings Josephine locked her left leg well forward of the girths, loosened off her left rein and hauled in her right rein as much as she could. Immediately the horse responded, and the moment she felt him straighten out under her Josephine sat to her horse and did precisely what Dexter Bryant had told her to do only the night before on the telephone from Hong Kong.

  When you’re ready to go but not a moment earlier or you’ll never get him back, he said, just sit down and shake the reins. That’s all, Jose, just shake those goddam reins.

  And that is all Josephine did. She sat, she slackened the reins and she shook them just the once at The Nightingale.

  One moment the horse was two lengths down on Glockamorra whom Robert McDonagh now had back on a straight line, with his whipless rookie lady rider appearing to have as much chance of winning the race as a man has of learning to play poker on an ocean liner, and the next he was up alongsides the leader. The crowd, witnessing this sudden breathtaking burst of speed, suddenly realized that their hero might not after all be going to taste his first defeat, and they let fly a massive tidal roar of exultation which rolled down from the very top of the stands to the bottom, across the packed lawns from steps to rails and up from the thousands of throats of the masses packed in the public enclosures in the centre of the course. In response to the urgings of tens of thousands of racegoers, the famous horse now stuck out his great neck and fought, with Josephine urging him on with every stride that he took, urging him up the last fifty yards of the hill with just her voice and her hands. For a moment it seemed he had used up all the speed he had to get back to Glockamorra as the two horses seemed to race as one, matching each other stride for gallant stride, so that as they raced towards the line it seemed the only result could be a dead heat. But then Josephine threw away the rule book and shook the reins at her horse again, and incredibly the moment that she did The Nightingale picked up and seemed to turn the last heartstopping uphill muddy fifty yards of the finish into a flat track with perfect going, so quickly did he kick away from the horse beside him.

  And as he flew for the line, the thousands of racegoers massed on the famous course and the millions watching on television around the world all witnessed a flight that was to pass into racing legend as the mighty mud-covered horse literally sprinted away from the game, gallant and courageous Glockamorra who now looked as though he had been nailed to the spot, so fast did his adversary fly by. With less than eighty yards to run The Nightingale had still been over a length and a half down, but by the time he had flown those last dozen strides to the line so fast had he raced that when he flashed past the winning post ahead of the now dethroned champion the winning margin was an unbelievable two lengths.

  As he finally stormed home clear of Glockamorra, it seemed as though every hat brought to be worn that day was thrown sky high, while every rafter of the vast grandstand echoed with roars of exultation that must have been heard twenty miles away in Gloucester with every punter on the racecourse cheering The Nightingale’s triumph as he came home with a jubilant Josephine now standing high in her irons, one fist clenched in the air as a salute not only to her wonderful courageous horse but to all those who loved him and who had never for one moment stopped believing in him.

  The scenes in the unsaddling enclosure exceeded by far any other victory celebrations witnessed previously at the great racecourse, even those after the great mare Dawn Run had won her Gold Cup with the brave Jonjo O’Neill piloting her to victory. There was sheer pandemonium, and seeing that there was little or nothing they could do to contain the euphoria, wisely the executive let the party run its course, only making sure that there were sufficient police and security men to provide protection for the hero and heroine of the hour so that they might manage to make their way relatively unscathed through the delirious crowd back to the unsaddling enclosure. As it was Josephine was almost pulled from the horse twice, while at one point such was the level of hysteria it seemed as though an army of shamrocked Irishmen might lift The Nightingale right off his feet to carry him bodily in triumph back into the paddock.

  On the television the commentators, finding words after a time when it seemed the entire team were at a loss for them, prepared their viewers to await the roar which was certain to erupt in greeting as soon as the all-conquering horse entered the unsaddling enclosure, but hardly were the words into their microphones when a storm erupted below their commentary position, drowning out the rest of their description. Through a delirious mass of people The Nightingale had finally appeared, this time now that the race was run led by a beaming Deirdre, with Mattie alongside his saddle. As soon as the victors began to cross the lawns, a crowd of his fellow countrymen descended on Mattie and raised him aloft, carrying him alongside his horse as they cheered the victorious party fit to bust. Josephine once again fisted a punch of triumph in the air as the crowds shouted their plaudits to her while practically every man she passed tried either to shake her hand or slap her thigh while dozens of the Irish unpinned their precious shamrock and threw it at the victors, covering the horse and rider in a welter of bright green. Robert McDonagh had been the first to congratulate her as they had pulled up past the winning post, throwing an arm around Josephine to kiss her on the cheek as he had ranged up alongside her on his own gallant mount, to be followed in like fashion by all the other jockeys who had completed the course, most of them having finished strung out like Monday’s washing in a line down the hill, but now it seemed as Josephine threw the reins over The Nightingale’s head and hopped down off his back that every man at Cheltenham wanted to have the mud-bespattered lady jockey in his arms.

  Josephine looked round for her mother but for a moment was unable to pick her out of the crowds swarming round her horse. While she was warning some of her overkeen male fans not to come too near her horse one of the television roving reporters thru
st a microphone at her and began asking her the statutory questions about what it felt like and how the race had gone, but as Josephine bent down to undo her girths and then straightened up to slip her race saddle off rather than give her full attention to the interviewer and the questions he was shouting at her, it was clear that what she was really interested in was where the other heroine of the hour was.

  Cassie was already down from her private box and in the enclosure but deliberately keeping out of the limelight. ‘This is their moment,’ she told Theodore who was by her side. ‘I don’t want anything to take away from a moment like this, not a thing.’

  So while her children were being fêted and interviewed, Cassie remained where she was, surrounded by her circle of friends who respected her wishes and kept her protected from the media.

  ‘What about Jump For Fun, Josephine?’ the tall, curly-haired interviewer was now asking Josephine, his interview being broadcast over the public address system. ‘What do you think they were trying to do with the horse – worry you out of it? Or do you think like a lot of people were saying before the race that the horse is mad anyway?’

  ‘I’m sure if there was anything wrong in what the horse and jockey did the stewards will attend to it,’ Josephine replied, wrapping her mud- and sweat-stained girth over her saddle which she then hugged safely to her.

  ‘If they don’t, Josephine me girl, we sure as hell will!’ a huge Dubliner close by shouted. ‘If I was the trainer and owner of that horse, I’d be on the first bloody helicopter out of here so I would!’

  ‘There seemed little doubt from the stands that Jump For Fun was leaning into you and crossing you at the first two hurdles,’ the interviewer continued, ‘besides nearly stopping you stone dead at the start.’

  ‘He gave us no room at all,’ Josephine agreed, ‘and Brian Baker hit my horse with his whip before the third as the replay will no doubt show, just as it’ll show how keen he was to try to run us out.’