The horses have now come out, and are off
one after another to the starting-post. Green Cloak would be hard to
miss because of his jockey's colours--old gold, scarlet sleeves, and
green and black quartered cap. The bell has hardly rung to announce
that the race has begun when men in the crowd begin to dogmatise about
the result. One man keeps saying: "Green Cloak wins this race. Green
Cloak wins this race." Another says: "Liberal leads." Another says:
"No; that's Jumping Frog." To the unaccustomed eye the horses seem as
close to each other as a swarm of bees. Suddenly, however, a bay horse
springs forward and seems to put a length between itself and the
others at every stride. The people in the stand shout: "Liberal!
Liberal!" It wins by about ten lengths. Green Cloak is second, but a
bad second. The crowd begins to pour down from the stand again. Those
who have won wait near the bookmakers till the winner has been to the
unsaddling enclosure and the announcement "All right" is made. Then
the bookmakers begin to pay out, and the crowd moves off to the
paddock again to see the horses for the next race.
Friends stop each other and exchange information in low voices. Others
do their best to listen in the hope of overhearing information: "I
hear Tomsk," "Johnnie says lay your last penny on Glasgow Pet," "I'm
going to back Submarine." And the parade of the horses, the hoisting
of the names of the starters and jockeys, the laying of the bets, and
the climbing of the grand stand are all gone through over and over
again.
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