Illustrated by Alfred
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Unknown Worlds April 1943.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Say, that is mighty white. I do not mind if I do, though I remembersthe day when I would not of touched beer with a ten-foot pole. Weight.Jockeys has got to watch their weight like it is tombstones they isputting on instead of pounds.
Well, here's luck, mister. May all your double parlays give the bookiesfits.
What's that? Yeah, sure I am a jockey. Was. There is not no point ingiving you the old three and five. You look like a right guy. Whyshould I kid you? I have not been up on a horse for four years. Sixmonths cold for a jock is a wide turn, but four years—say, four yearsis—what the devil, I am washed up cleaner than a choirboy's ears.
And this is not my fault. That is what gives me the burn. It is not myfault. When Lady Luck smiles in the racing game she has got a grin sobroad you can count her back fillings, but, when she quits smiling,brother, she just quits and you might as well go wrap your head in asweat blanket and forget it.
You know, you is going along good, not winning no Champagne Stakes nornothing like that, but hitting the percentages and going along O.K.,see, when all of a sudden you finds that things begin to happen. Andthey keeps right on happening and you can spit in the wind all you wantto and chew four-leaf clovers and take a horseshoe to bed with youand it does not have no effect. Things just keeps right on happeninguntil after a while the trainers puts the double O on you and you cannot even get a leg up on a spavined brood mare and everybody takes tocalling you "Jinx."
That is me, mister. Jinx Jackson.
Oh, I am not beefing none. I manages, what with one thing and another.But believe me, buddy, it is enough to give you the yelping wipes whenyou stands there by the fence with the sun beating down on you, and thecrowd milling around excitedlike, and the bugles blowing, and the flagswaving, and the horses walking past—nervous—and the colors up withtheir pants skintight and their shirts bellying out like silk balloons,and then they are wheeling the barrier in, and you look at the trackand it is smooth and sweet and fast as a filly with bees in her ears,and everything gets still except the popcorn peddlers, and there isthat awful minute when you is waiting and the shirt sticks to your backand you gets that old, familiar, tight feeling on the inside of yourthighs, and your tongue is like a sponge bit between your teeth, andthen that cry—like a rising wind—"THEY'RE OFF!"
That is when it hits you. Right here. As if somebody has yanked yourstomach out and let it go wham back at you, like a pair ofsuspenders.
That—and when you see a snipe getting hisself boxed on a inside turn,or bearing out in the run through the stretch, or—aw, nuts with it. Itgets you, that is all. It gets you.
Once you has got the feel of horses in your blood you is a goner. Agone goner. It is there, brother, and there is not no use fighting it.You cannot no more keep away from a paddock than you can stop blinkingyour eyes.
Jimmie Winkie used to say, "You can shake grief and sorrow, you canbury remorse—but you can't never lose the feel o' a horse."
Jimmie Winkie. Yeah, Wee Willie. That is the same.
Good! Man, he had the magic touch. Why, he could add twenty lengths toanything on four legs. Easy. Jimmie was tops. Why, I has seen him comefrom behind the hard way and spot them a extra advantage by pulling outand still win and t