The Channel Sprint was run on Thursday in conditions this correspondent can only call splashy. Eleven started at the agreed whistle, which most parties agree was sounded slightly late.
The race goes the length of the east channel, from the Old Willow to the Sluice, every three moons. Its origins are old enough that the Clerk of the Race claims not to recall them. The course has no fixed distance, the channel having a habit of relocating between races without notice. On Thursday the Clerk judged it “shorter than usual and more to the left,” a judgement not shared by everyone who swam it. The start was the base of the Old Willow. The finish was the first bend past the Sluice, marked the traditional way, by the Clerk’s own beak held out at waist height.
Eleven entered. Ten were recognised. The eleventh was the coot, who had entered under a category the Clerk of the Race had not previously known to exist. The recognised field was two Sprint veterans, four rising geese from the north bank, three mallards in various states of readiness, and a gosling entered by its elder sibling “for the experience,” over written objection from the gosling’s mother.
The running order at the finish, recorded by the Clerk before the first protest landed, stood thus:
- A rising young goose from the north bank (name withheld pending paperwork): seven splashes and a bit
- A veteran mallard, formerly of the south shore: seven splashes and a bit, but longer
- The coot (category disputed): eight splashes exactly
- A mallard of the middle shallows: eight splashes and a half
- A goose of the east bank: nine splashes
- A gosling: did not finish, observed examining a reed 7 to 11. Remaining field, times unrecorded, variously present.
The winner came in at seven splashes and a bit. This paper has agreed to withhold the name until the paperwork is complete. The margin over the veteran mallard was narrow, the veteran’s run being called “courageous, if underwatered,” which it was. Third went to the coot. The coot’s entry, besides being of a category nobody had heard of, carried a misspelling the coot refuses to recognise.
The protests began before the leaders had dried. The first, from the veteran mallard’s second, alleged a false start, on the theory that the whistle had sounded twice, once for each of the two front runners, the first whistle audible only to the eventual winner. The second protest, from another party, alleged a late start, and was thrown out on the ground that both protests could not be right at once. The third, from the coot, sought clarification on its category, and was referred to the Subcommittee, which will not sit until the tides have changed.
Accounts of the race itself do not converge. One witness at the finish called the winner’s closing stretch “a thing of beauty, if you like splashing,” and meant it kindly. Another, posted at the start, called the first two seconds “confusing, and not in the usual way,” then declined to expand. A third party watched from a distance. He is known to this paper for the reliability of his judgement in ordinary matters, and his judgement here was this: at no point in the race was any competitor, by any reasonable definition, ahead. This paper reproduces the verdict and offers no opinion on it.
HONK, said the winner, once able. The crowd clapped a little and went back to lunch. A rematch is rumoured for the feast of next moon, conditions permitting and the Clerk of the Race willing to stand at the finish a second time. He was last seen at the bend, beak still out, waiting to be told whether the thing he had just measured had in fact been a race.