Tipper all about her and Tipper told him. He loved telling him and he was so grateful to Sam for listening. His uncle and aunt just clammed up and carried on as if nothing had happened. But when Tipper was on his own a black cloud descended on him.
Tipper threw himself into the work on the stud. He had nothing else. He listened to Uncle Pat who taught him that the thoroughbred horse is a manmade creature, the result of three centuries of carefully selected breeding. With a set of rules worked out in the eighteenth century and never varied since. The racecourse rule demanded that all horses are proven racers, or at least the offspring of proven racers. The intercourse rule ensures that every mating is a true one, witnessed, recorded and verifiable. Artificial insemination is abominated in this world, unlike in cattle breeding. The thoroughbred stud is an establishment dedicated to natural procreation as nature intended.
Tipper loved working with the foals, which at this time of year meant getting them to walk properly on a leading rein. He chatted away to them about his Ma as he walked them up and down the sandy lanes and somehow felt his soul was restored in the process.
‘Just watch their front legs, son,’ Uncle Pat told him. ‘A foal’s not like a grown horse, who kicks behind. It’s the front legs that are most dangerous in a foal.’
Tipper looked at the youngster he was leading, as if to say, you wouldn’t want to hurt me, now would you? And it seemed he didn’t. Tipper was confident, comfortable in his handling of the foals, and they responded. Uncle Pat was impressed by his nephew’s natural instinct.
‘He’s got a gift with these foals,’ he informed Mr Power. ‘But he just doesn’t know it yet. He’ll be grand.’
Tipper’s favourite foal was a high-strung little filly with an unusual dark reddish, almost mahogany coloured coat. When he had time on his hands and no-one was about Tipper would take her into one of the barns, sliding shut the big door before turning her loose. Usually a foal at this stage of its development is nervous of anyone that doesn’t smell of its mother, and flighty to catch. Red had always been especially neurotic and Tipper set himself the task of making her biddable. He got down on his hands and knees, reckoning that foals were no different from children—intimidated by anyone that loomed over them. Little by little Red came nearer, smelling his hand, chewing his coat, and in that way the two of them got to know each other. Next he took a long rope and attached it to a halter loosely hanging round her nose and neck. If she wanted to back off, he let her, but he would then tease her in again, like an angler playing a fish, rubbing her neck before loosening the line once more. Gradually Tipper was mastering Red, but without ever imposing on her or making demands. Her education proceeded only as fast as she herself wanted.
Red remained fearful when out in the open, and that was almost her undoing one afternoon, when Tipper and Sam were left on their own in charge of the paddocks.
‘Lads, be sure to get the foals in if the rain comes,’ Uncle Pat had told them.
The storm came in suddenly on a southerly wind. The sun was still shining but the sky in the south was black. The wind stiffened, tossing straw and sacking around the yard. At the first almighty clap of thunder the boys rushed out carrying ropes to bring in the foals. As soon as they opened the gate and began calling, the herd walked obediently towards them. All of them, that is, except Red, who hung back. They decided to bring in the others and come back for Red. But as they unhooked the gate a second time, another thunderclap split the air and immediately the frightened foal took off, careering away from them towards the far end of the paddock, where she collided with a railing post. She staggered back and hopped unnaturally on three legs. The fourth was streaming blood.
‘Jesus, Sam, will you look at that?’ shouted Tipper. ‘There’s blood pouring out of her.’ The rain was now hosing down and they were getting soaked.
Sam yanked the gate shut behind him and the boys ran over to investigate. Red shied and tried to hop away as they approached. Tipper held Sam back.
‘Stop,’ he said. ‘She’s dead scared. She might hurt herself more.’
Sam looked terrified himself. He was wiping the rain off his face. The consequences if anything should happen to this valuable filly would be dire.
‘Christ on a bike, we’re in the shite!’ he said. ‘Is the leg broken or what?’
‘Hang on. Let me go to her myself.’
Tipper stepped quietly up to Red, praying that she wouldn’t jink away from him. The injury was in the lower part of the off foreleg, which was pumping bright red blood at an alarming rate.
‘Come on Red, we got to get you in,’ he murmured, slowly putting out his hand and threading a rope through the ring in her head collar. He gave her drenched neck a pat. Then he crept backwards, exerting the slightest pressure on the rope.
‘Come on, Red. Come on, littlun,’ he urged.
Slowly, the injured creature hobbled with him towards the gate. They got her into the barn and knelt to look closely at the leg.
‘It’s a big gash she’s got, right down to the tendon,’ said Sam knowledgably, pulling a cleanish tea towel he’d found somewhere about out of his pocket. ‘It bleeds worse there than anywhere.’
‘Jesus. What’ll we do?’ Tipper asked frantically. This was their fault. They would really be for it.
‘We better get the bloody vet to stitch her up. And in the meantime we got to get this towel wrapped around, or she’ll bleed to death.’
The storm was in full spate now, hammering rain on the barn roof. Red rolled her eyes, hating the sound.
‘She’s spooked by this bloody weather,’ said Sam. ‘How’ll we get near enough and not get kicked?’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Tipper, peeling off his waterlogged coat. ‘Hold her head for me.’
He started by rubbing her wet forehead, quietly talking to her all the time. Then he let his hand slip down her neck, then on down the leg towards the gash. Red started to snatch up the leg and Tipper patiently went back to her forehead and repeated the routine until she accepted his touch on the leg. Finally he was able to wrap the towel tightly around the wound, cinching it tight with some twine to make it act as a tourniquet. The blood stopped pouring out.
The vet was an hour coming.
‘Well done, lads,’ he said, as he bent to clean the wound with antiseptic. ‘She’d be dead by now if you’d not got that dressing on her. No easy job, that. Which one of you managed it?’
‘We both did,’ said Tipper.
‘Tipper did,’ corrected Sam. ‘I just kept hold of her head.’
The vet looked up, peering over his glasses at Tipper with new interest.
‘Tipper? Aren’t you the boy from the city—Pat’s nephew? Well, judging by what I’ve seen today, you could make a career for yourself, if you want one. You did well, d’you know that?’
Tipper cradled Red’s head and rubbed behind her ears while the vet put in the stitches. Suddenly he felt fantastically good. No teacher or authority figure of any kind had ever said such a thing to him. He had lived fourteen years without hearing a word of praise, not from anyone except his Ma. He was proud. She’d have been proud too…
‘Now for Christ’s sake,’ said the vet as he packed up his bag. ‘Will you both go and put some dry clothes on? Or it won’t be this foal that might not see the morning.’
It had been only a couple of months after Tipper’s Ma died that Uncle Pat dropped another bombshell on him.
‘I’ve been talking to a pal of mine. Joe Kerly. He’s Head Lad at Thaddeus Doyle’s place on the Curragh. He says to me they’ll take you on for your apprenticeship.’
Tipper’s mouth fell open. This news had come out of nowhere. The Curragh was a couple of hours’ drive from the stud. But it could have been on another continent as far as Tipper was