III

Emerald had just finished his oats when he was led out. It was warmer now, and the ground had softened a little, but the stable walls were still hoary with frost. The heaps of dung newly shovelled out of the stable sent up a dense vapour, and the sparrows pottering in the dung chirped excitedly, as if bickering among themselves. Bending his head low in the doorway as he stepped over the threshold, Emerald joyfully drew in the spicy air, then shook his head and his whole frame, and gave a loud snort. “God bless you!” said Nazar earnestly. Emerald could not stand still. He longed for vigorous motion and the tickling sensation of air rushing into his eyes and nostrils; he wanted his heart to pound hotly, wanted to breathe deeply. Tied to the picket-line, he neighed, danced on his hind legs and, twisting his neck, squinted at the black mare behind him a round dark eye streaked with red veins over the white.

Gasping with the effort, Nazar raised a pail of water above his head and dowsed the stallion’s back from withers to tail. The sensation was familiar to Emerald – it was bracing but frightful because it always came so unexpectedly. Nazar fetched more water and splashed it on the horse’s flanks, chest and legs, and under the tail. After each wetting he would pass his horny palm over the horse’s coat, squeezing out the moisture. Looking back Emerald saw his own high, slightly sagging croup darkened and glossy in the sun.

It was a racing day. Emerald knew it by the peculiar, nervous haste of the grooms bustling round the horses; they put leather stockings on the pasterns of some horses which, on account of their short trunks, used to overreach themselves, wrapped linen bandages round the legs of others – from the hobble joint to the knee – or tied broad fur-trimmed pads across the pits of the forelegs. The light two-wheeled sulkies with the high seats were rolled out of the shed; their metal spokes glistened gaily in the sun, and their red rims and red shafts, thrown wide apart, shone with fresh varnish.

By the time the chief jockey of the stable, an Englishman, came along, Emerald had been thoroughly dried, brushed, and rubbed down with a woollen mitten. Horses and men alike respected and feared the gaunt, slightly stooping, long-armed man. He had a clean-shaven, sunburnt face and firm, thin lips set in an ironic curl. His pale blue eyes looked with a steady, calm glint through gold-rimmed spectacles. He watched the cleaning, straddling his long legs in high boots, his hands deep in his trouser pockets as he chewed a cigar, shifting it from one corner of his mouth to the other. He wore a grey jacket with a fur collar and a black cap with a long rectangular peak. Occasionally he made laconic comments in a jerky, casual tone, and at once all the grooms and workmen would turn their heads to him, and the horses would strain their ears in his direction.

He kept a particularly watchful eye on the harnessing of Emerald. He examined the horse’s body from forelock to hoof, and under that scrutinizing gaze Emerald proudly raised his head, turned his lithe neck slightly, and pricked up his thin, translucent ears. The jockey himself tried the tightness of the girths by sticking his finger under them. Then the grooms put on the horses grey red-bordered linen cloths with red circles and red monograms that hung below, near the hind legs. Two grooms, Nazar and the one-eyed man, took Emerald by the bridle and led him to the racecourse along the familiar roadway, between two rows of big stone houses. It was less than a quarter of a mile to the course.

There were already many horses in the paddock, and grooms were walking them slowly round in the ring, in the direction in which the horses normally ran during the races, that is, counter-clockwise. In the inner circle of the paddock they were leading about pacers – small, strong-legged horses, with docked tails. Emerald at once recognized the little white stallion who always galloped beside him, and the two horses greeted each other with a friendly snicker.

IV

The bell rang at the course. The grooms took off Emerald’s cloth. Blinking at the sun from behind his glasses and baring his long, yellow horse teeth, the Englishman came up, buttoning his gloves, a whip under his arm. One of the grooms gathered Emerald’s rich tail, which reached down to the fetlocks, and carefully laid it on the seat of the sulky, so that its light-coloured end hung down. The shafts rocked under the man’s weight. Emerald squinted over his shoulder and saw the jockey sitting just behind his croup, with legs stretched out and straddling along the shafts. Deliberately the jockey picked up the reins, uttered a monosyllable, and the grooms at once let go the bridle. Rejoicing at the coming race, Emerald tried to plunge forward, but as the strong hands checked him he merely reared slightly on his hind legs, tossed up his head and ran through the paddock gate towards the course at a round, unhurried trot.

The broad track, strewn with yellow sand, ran along a wooden fence, forming a mile-long ellipse; the sand was rather damp and compact, and felt springy to the feet, returning their pressure. The sharp imprints of the hooves and the straight, even tracks left by the gutta-percha tires traced a neat pattern.

Here was the grand stand, a wooden structure measuring two hundred horse lengths, with the black mass of people seething and humming from the ground to the roof supported by slender pillars. By a slight flick of the reins Emerald knew that he might mend his pace, and snorted gratefully.

He now ran at a square, sweeping trot, his back scarcely swaying, his neck stretched forward and slightly turned to the left-hand shaft, his face thrust up. Because his strides were unusually long, from a distance he did not seem to be running very fast; you had an impression that the trotter was unhurriedly measuring the track with his forelegs, straight as a pair of compasses, and barely touching the ground with the tips of his hooves. This was American training, which is designed to make breathing easy for the horse, reduce air resistance to the utmost, and eliminate all motions useless to the race and merely wasting strength, and which sacrifices beauty of form to ease, spareness, long wind and vigorous pace, thus transforming the horse into a flawless machine.

Now, in the interval between two races, the trotters were being warmed up, which is always done to condition their breathing. There were many of them running round the outer ring, in the same direction as Emerald, or round the inner ring, in the opposite direction. A tall dapple-grey trotter of a pure Orel breed passed Emerald; with his arched neck and flying tail he was like a merry-go-round horse. His fat, broad chest, already dark with sweat, and his flabby groins shook as he ran throwing his forelegs outwards at the knees, his spleen clacking loudly at every stride.

Then a slender, long-bodied brown half-breed mare with a thin dark mane came alongside from behind. She had had an excellent training by the same American method as had been applied to Emerald. Her short, well-groomed coat glistened on her back, rippling as the muscles played under the skin. While their jockeys were discussing something, the two horses ran abreast for a while. Emerald sniffed the mare and was about to play as he ran, but the Englishman would not let him, and he had to obey.

A huge black stallion sped past them at a full trot, going the other way; he was swathed from head to tail in bandages, knee-guards and pit-pads. His left-hand shaft stuck out, being longer than the right-hand one by fourteen inches, and through a ring fastened above his head was strung the strap of la steel overcheck, which held the horse’s nervous nose cruelly pinched. Emerald and the mare glanced at him simultaneously, and both instantly appreciated him as a trotter of extraordinary strength, speed and hardiness, but terribly obstinate, vicious, and touchy. The black stallion was followed by a small, smart light-grey one. Looking from the side you would have thought that he was running at an incredible speed, because he worked his feet so fast, threw them up so high at the knees, and had such an industrious and busy air about his arched neck with the small well-proportioned head. Emerald just squinted contemptuously at him and jerked one ear his way.

With a short, loud neigh-like laugh the other jockey finished talking, and gave the mare a free rein. She pulled away from Emerald’s side as calmly as if it did not cost her the least effort and ran ahead at an easy trot, smoothly carrying her even, glossy back, with a hardly visible strip along the ridge.

But immediately a galloping flaming-red trotter with a large white star passed and threw back both Emerald and her. He raced on with long frequent leaps, alternately stretching out and seeming to hug the ground, and then almost joining his fore and hind legs in mid-air. His jockey was lying rather than sitting hack, his whole weight thrown on the reins. Emerald got fretty and lunged aside, but imperceptibly the Englishman reined him in, and those hands, so supple and sensitive to the horse’s every movement, suddenly felt as hard as iron. Near the grand stand the red stallion, who by then had galloped another lap, passed Emerald again. Although still galloping, he was already in lather and had bloodshot eyes, and his breath came with a rattle. The jockey, bent forward, was laying the whip on the horse’s back with all his might. At last grooms intercepted the horse near the gate, seizing him by the reins and the bridle. He was led off dripping, gasping and trembling, having lost weight in a matter of minutes.

Emerald ran another half-lap at a full trot, then turned into a side-track that crossed the course, and walked back into the paddock.