West with the Night

by Beryl Markham

A race is not a simple thing. This one is not. There are not just ten horses down there, galloping as fast as they can. Skill and reason and chance run with them. Courage runs with them — and strategy. You do not watch a race; you read it. There is cause in every flux and change — jockeys have ability or they haven’t; they bungle or they don’t. A horse has a heart or he lacks it. Questions must be answered before the rap of one hoof follows another — when to hold back, when to coax, when to manoeuvre. More speed? All right, but will he last? Who can tell? A good boy — a sound judge of speed can tell. Slow pace, medium pace, fast pace — which is it? Don’t let a second-rater snatch the race! Sonny shouldn’t; he’s sensitive as a stop-watch. But he might. What’s that behind — trick or challenge? Don’t be fooled, don’t be rattled, don’t be hurried. Mile and three-quarters, you know — with ten in the field, and every one a winner until you prove he’s not. There’s time, there’s time! There’s too much time — time for errors, time for a lead to be stolen, time for strength and breath to vanish, time to lose, with the staccato insistence of forty hooves telling you so. Eyes open — watch the score! Wrack’s first, then the black stallion pulling hard. A brown horse