Taken from an article by Morag Fraser – Courtesy of Sydney Morning Herald August 4 2022
Drewe’s new narrative, Nimblefoot, is a gallivanting feat of historical resurrection, and you’d swear the writer had been present for every moment of the story. Nimblefoot is a deft hybrid of history and fiction, a reimagined life for a character who has slipped from collective memory.
When Drewe saw an image in the National Library of a 10-year-old boy named Johnny Day, and learnt that in 1866 Johnny had been the pedestrian (that weirdly constrained walking sport) wonder and champion of the world, and at 14, a Melbourne Cup-winning jockey, he was intrigued.
“Johnny and his exploits were completely unknown to me – and also to everyone to whom I subsequently mentioned him. I was riveted by the sepia print of a confident little Australian kid wearing a winner’s sash and red athletic shorts and leaning nonchalantly on a milestone on a winding dirt road in the English countryside.”
Even more tantalising for Drewe was the fact that, after his 1870 Melbourne Cup victory on a horse called Nimblefoot, Johnny Day disappeared. “How strange, I thought, that the famous walker and rider had left no cultural footprint.”
Nimblefoot by Robert Drewe is published by Hamish Hamilton.
