The Broken-link Handicap (Unabridged)

The Rudyard Kipling 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».