WINKING THE DERBY

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14769, 7 October 1921, Page 2

WINKING THE DERBY

WHAT IT FEELS LIKE, (By Steve Donoghue, who rode Humorist.} What does it fee| like to ride the winner of the Derby.’ Well, it is a sensation that only one man in Hie world once in a year can ever hope to experience, so that the feeling is flatteringly exclusive. Personally, I would rat her win I tie Derby once than ride 10 winners of the Oaks past the post.

It is a great sensation —something that one can never forget! II begins right away back in the paddock when you see for yourself exactly how your

mount shapes. Humorist, as all Hie world knows now, was in perfect form: he radiated fitness: tie was trained to the hair, and he looked it. He himself inspires a feeling of confidence; the very “feel” of him beneath your knees increases it. And down in that glad, mad Jostle at the starting-gate, with the sunshine streaming out across the downs, Ihe flash of the racing colours, the prancing of hoofs, and the pungent smell of the horses, the feeling that you are riding to win becomes intensified. “They’re Off!”

Comes a sound that a rider knows by instinct, the swift, upward flicker of the tapes, and a score of horses jolt forward—literally jolt forward. The thrill that surges through the crowd at that moment, forcing from them the involuntary shout, “They’re off!” is nolhing to the intense, tingling thrill that pulses through the heart of the rider. The sea of fares, open-mouthed and hoarsely vociferous, becomes a blur, and, as the horse picks up its headlong stride, dissolves into a white, rushing mist at the side of the track. What though there are a few ntimes In front? They got, away a trifle at the start, hut the glorious animal that carries you so effortlessly ran pick up that hit of lost ground with ease when the time comes. There is a hill ahead (that is where the windy ones begin to slacken down), and here is the thunder of onrnshing hoofs behind, where horsemen are straining every' nerve and sinew to make up the ground they lost at the tapes. The pounding of tlie hoofs grows fainter: it is not that we have forged so far ahead, hut. that (lie roar of a hundred thousand human beings Is beginning to flood the air. Noise! There is noise enough to fill the earth. A dancing dot before your eyes takes cl,carer - shape and becomes ancdher such as you—doing Ids utmost to coax greater efforls of spend from the creature bcneatli him. lie slowly falls hark to your own mount’s outstretched head, back to his flank —and you know that you have passed number one. That Thrilling Pleasure.

Half a minute later the hill tells its own inevitable tale, and two, three, four, five more go slipping back behind you. Then on, into the straight, to challenge with every ounce that,is In you and to see that your horse

responds. The rest cannot be told in words. It is an emotion felt, to the full in a tiny period of seconds. Y'ou are barely conscious of another madly hurtling shape at your elbow; your faculties are too rigidly centred even to notice the colours of Hie rider. The only thing that you are conscious .of is the fact that you are in front, not much, only a neck maybe, hut still in front.

The booming roar of the voices swells to a thunder of sound and something jumps inside you at realisation you have won, and your next memory is that your owner, wreathed in smiles, is beside you, reaching out for the, bridle to lead you in. That, is what it feels like to ride your first. Derby winner, and if t live to ride 12 more surli winning mounts in the greatest race of all, I do not think I shall ever recapture that suffusion of keen, thrilling pleasure again.—Weekly Dispatch.