Bridge of Clay(105)

By the twilight of his career he was like a soldier, or an ancient charioteer; each race was like going into battle. Through the purgatory in his stomach, and the toothaches, headaches, and dizzy spells, the final insult was a raging case of athlete’s foot, caught from the floor of the jockey room— “And that,” he often joked to Carey, age seven, in the car on their way to trackwork, “is what got me in the end.”



* * *



—

The thing is, though, Ted Novac was lying, because what got him in the end wasn’t athlete’s foot, or hunger pains, or dehydration and deprivation. It was, of course, a horse: A chestnut giant, The Spaniard.

The Spaniard was just a sensational horse, bighearted, like Kingston Town, or Phar Lap. On top of that, he was entire, which meant his bloodline could carry on.

He was worked by Ennis McAndrew, the noted broomstick trainer.

When the horse came to his stable, McAndrew made a phone call.

“How much do you weigh these days?”

He’d dialed Ted Novac’s number.



* * *



—

The Spaniard raced in almost all the big ones a mile or over.

He could sprint, he could stay, he did everything you could ask.

    Running second or third was a failure.

Fourth was a disaster.

Up top, every time, was Ted Novac, his name in the paper, and his smile caught napping on his face—or was it a grimace to scratch the itch? No. On The Spaniard he never felt it; he’d put him to sleep for half the race, stoke him slowly for a furlong, and then he’d bring him home.

By the end of the horse’s career, Ted was looking to get out, too.

Only one race had eluded them, and no, it wasn’t the Race That Stops the Nation. Neither McAndrew nor Ted nor the owners cared about that one; it was the Cox Plate that they coveted. In the minds of the true experts, that was the greatest race.

For Ted it was a travesty.

He couldn’t make the weight.



* * *



—

Even at weight-for-age, where he knew the mark well in advance, Ted was too far gone. He’d done everything he’d always done. He’d mowed a hundred lawns. At home he collapsed in the shower. The decision was made a week in advance, a scarecrow hand on his shoulder—and, of course, The Spaniard won.

In later years, it was still hard for him when he told her. Another jockey—the ever-affable, mustachioed Max McKeon—brought the horse round the lot of them, on the vanishing Moonee Valley straight, and The Spaniard won by a length.

As for Ted Novac, he listened in the car, on his driveway.

They lived in a different racing quarter by then—at number eleven, here on Archer Street, years before Penny and Michael—and he’d smiled and cried, cried and smiled.

He itched but didn’t scratch it.

He was a man with burning feet.



* * *



—

For a time, after retirement, he still rode trackwork, and was one of the most popular morning riders in the city. But they soon moved back to the land. Catherine liked the country, and the worst and wisest decision they made was to keep the old house on Archer Street. The game, at least, gave them that.

    As the years climbed by, they had kids out there. Ted grew to his natural weight—or a few kilos heavier, if he went too hard on the cake. He felt by then he’d earned it.

He worked many jobs, from shoe salesman to video shop assistant to cattle hand on farmland, and some of them he did well. It was mornings were his favorite, though; he rode trackwork at the track out there. They called it Gallery Road.

By then he got the nickname: Trackwork Ted.

Two incidents defined him.

The first was when the trainer, McAndrew, brought two promising jockeys out to watch. It was a Tuesday. The sky was blond and beaming.

“See that?”

The trainer had barely changed.

Just the whitening of his hair.

He pointed to the rider rifling past them.

“See his heels? And those hands? He’s on that horse like he’s not even riding him.”

The two kids were standard arrogance.

“He’s fat,” said one, and the other one laughed, and McAndrew slapped them hard. Twice to the chin and cheeks.

“Here,” he said, “he’s coming again.” He spoke like all trainers everywhere. Looking outwards. “And for the record, that guy’s ridden more winners than you two bastards’ll ride your whole life. He’ll have more wins at trackwork.”

Just then, Ted arrived on foot.

“McAndrew!”

And McAndrew grinned, quite broadly. “Hey, Ted.”

“How do I look?”

“I thought, what’s Pavarotti doin’ all the way out here bein’ a jockey?”

They hugged each other warmly, a few good hits, each back.

They thought about The Spaniard.



* * *



—

    The second moment came a few years later, when the Novac boys were thirteen and twelve, and Carey, the girl, still eight. It would be Trackwork Ted’s last trackwork.

It was spring, school holidays, there’d been rain, and the grass was green and long (it’s always surprising how long the grass gets grown for Thoroughbreds), and the horse bucked, Ted was thrown, and everyone saw him fall. The trainers kept the boys away, but Carey somehow got there; she weaved her way through, she parted the legs—and first she saw the sweat, and the blood mixed up with skin, then his collarbone, snapped and bent.