The Broken Link Handicap
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Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...
story "The Broken-Link Handicap" was first published in the first Indian edition of ''Plain Tales from the Hills'' in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection. Kipling states that horse-racing among the British community in India is a thoroughly immoral pastime in which almost everyone involved loses money. By chance, an otherwise undistinguished horse named "Shackles" proves to be unbeatable over two miles, "so long as his jockey sat still". His owner takes Shackles to the Autumn Races at the station of Chedputter "in the North", and insults almost everyone. They go to the Honorary Secretary and arrange a race to be called "The Broken-Link Handicap" because its purpose is to "break Shackles". Although Shackles's owner is confident in his horse and his Australian jockey, Brunt, the owner of a less-fancied horse, "The Lady Regula Baddun" (named as a delicate tribute to Mrs. Reiver, see The Rescue of Pluffles), knows that Brunt is traumatised by a horrific fall at the Maribyrnong Plate in
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
where four jockeys were killed and often tells of how the jockey Whalley said "God ha' mercy, I'm done for" seconds before he was crushed. He also knows that at one end of the Chedputter course, two old brick mounds enclosing a funnel shaped hollow focus speech in an ordinary tone of voice into a whining echo. Midway through the race, with Shackles about to pull clear of the pack, Brunt hears a ghostly voice saying "God ha' mercy, I'm done for." He screams and digs his spurs into Shackles, who throws him off. Regula Baddun wins in a close finish. Her owner has won about fifteen thousand rupees. Almost everyone else concerned has been broken, none more so than Brunt who is too unnerved ever to race again. Kipling comments at the end that what he has related is the truth, but nobody will believe it, even though they will believe the most absurd speculation about Russia's designs on India, or the "recommendations of the Currency Commission". :All quotations in this article have been taken from the ''Uniform Edition'' of ''
Plain Tales from the Hills ''Plain Tales from the Hills'' (published 1888) is the first collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Out of its 40 stories, "eight-and-twenty", according to Kipling's ''Preface'', were initially published in the '' Civil and Military Ga ...
'' published by Macmillan & Co., Limited in London in 1899. The text is that of the third edition (1890), and the author of the article has used his own copy of the 1923 reprint. Further comment, including page-by-page notes, can be found on th
Kipling Society's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Broken-Link Handicap, The Short stories by Rudyard Kipling Rudyard Kipling stories about India 1888 short stories