by Unbreakable- The Woman Who Defied the Nazis in the World's Most Dangerous Horse Race (retail) (epub)
9.
Riding out
Řitka is not a glamorous place; nor was it in the 1920s. Photographs suggest a world barely changed since Napoleon’s day. Dirt roads fade dustily into unkempt verges; oxen pull ploughs; crops are harvested with scythes. The village’s name can easily be misheard, by mischievous ears, as an obscenity roughly equivalent to ‘arsehole’. This risk was arguably exacerbated in 1924, when villagers agreed to update the name’s spelling (from Řidka to Řitka). That may have been the most exciting thing that happened in the village all year.
Even in the chateau, life must often have felt unsophisticated. Electricity didn’t arrive until 1929. The main courtyard, pecked by chickens, was dominated in winter by a large dung heap, packed around the water pump to prevent it freezing. The smell would have been the first thing a visitor noticed. Life wasn’t squalid – there were still five servants in residence – but by aristocratic standards it was basic, and it certainly didn’t feel modern or new.
For some Czechoslovak women those first post-war years felt like a new golden age: a world transformed. ‘Today the Czech woman is free . . . as if by magic,’ wrote the journalist Krista Nevšímalová in 1919. One by one, traditional barriers fell. Female civil servants (including teachers) were no longer required to be unmarried and were recognised as having a right to equal pay. Divorce became easier. Women who were elected to parliament were allowed to take up their seats. By 1922, nearly a quarter of women had jobs.
For Lata, the outlook was greyer. Theoretical freedom is not the same as freedom to do what you want. Her life remained predictable, constrained by convention and duty. Indeed, some of the independence she had enjoyed in wartime melted away now that her nation was at peace. She was still responsible for much of the day-to-day running of Řitka; and by all accounts she continued to exercise those responsibilities well. Ultimately, however, she was not in charge. Her parents were there to be obeyed as well as looked after.
The Brandis family’s story continued on the count and countess’s terms, while Lata did her best to be dutiful. Appearances were kept up, even though there were no longer any archdukes or emperors to impress. There were visits to and from well-heeled neighbours. Churchgoing and formal meals continued to shape the weekly diary. There was also a rationalisation of the estate. From 1921, much of Řitka’s agricultural land was let out, to a tenant farmer called Hugo Polák. This may have ensured a steadier income, although the rent varied according to the price of corn. It also reduced the daily demands on Lata’s time. Hunting rights in the woodland were also let out, but the Brandis family remained responsible for its management. Lata liaised regularly with the gamekeeper, who lived in a house provided by the family.
Řitka’s stables, briefly replenished after the war, were emptied again, presumably to reduce costs. At one point only Luska remained. The old, blind mare was by now so attached to Lata that she sometimes followed her around ‘like a dog’. But Lata still dreamed of adventures on horseback. She would take Luska on long rides in the woods, sometimes accompanied by a sister and usually followed by a dog. Sometimes she would return with game for the pot. And no doubt she sometimes paused by the little chapel on the forest edge to gaze down at the unexplored world beyond Řitka – rolling dark green hills, all the way to Prague. ‘I have no longing for the city’, she claimed once. Yet it would have been hard not to wonder what excitements she was missing out on.
What life there was grew from the landscape. Low-lying, sheltered and fertile, Řitka brimmed with natural abundance. There were fruit trees on the roadside, wild flowers in the meadows, beehives on the hillside; on the Brandis estate, gardens, paddocks, crops and livestock required constant nurture and restraint. Lata and her family continued to play their time-honoured parts in the resulting cycle of local activities: entertaining villagers when the young men cut down the maypole; supervising the annual draining of the village fish ponds; celebrating the completion of the harvest; helping with births, marriages, sicknesses and deaths. If there were more dramatic happenings, they left no trace. It was almost as if the wave of time had resumed the even rhythm of the Habsburg age. Perhaps, if she chose, it would bear Lata from cradle to grave, leisurely and quietly, as if none of the traumas of the past five years had happened.
In 1920, Lata’s younger sister Alžběta, aged twentytwo, became engaged to a dashing young military pilot, Josef Pospisil. He was not from a noble family, which was a blow to Lata’s parents, even though in theory such things no longer mattered. But he did have a reputation for reckless courage – he was said to have flown his biplane under a Prague railway bridge – and this redeemed him in Leopold’s eyes. They married in Řitka, on Lata’s twenty-fifth birthday, then went to live in Prague.
The following September, it was the eldest sister’s turn. Thirty-three-year-old Marie Therese married an Austrian knight named Leopold Haan, who took her to live in Austria, in a large hilltop chateau called Reiteregg. Gabriele, the closest to Marie Therese in age, made frequent visits. Kristýna, too, seems to have spent time away – possibly in Germany.
It would have been easy for Lata to feel left behind. But she, too, had dreams. Better still, she understood that dreams rarely come true unless you try to make them do so. ‘One should not wait for a miracle from God,’ she wrote once, ‘but one has to give one’s own best.’ And so, as soon as she could think how, she took steps to pursue her riding ambitions. Horse racing resumed at Velka Chuchle in 1920. More or less immediately, Lata – probably accompanied by her father – resumed her habit of going to watch. Then, apparently on the suggestion of a racehorse-owning neighbour, she began to make additional journeys to the racecourse alone, between race meetings. One of the trainers who was based there, Karel Šmejda, agreed to let her help with the exercising of some of the horses in his yard.
Šmejda was fifteen years older than Lata, but they got on well. A diffident, thick-set man, rarely seen without a flat cap, he was known for his gentle nature and his love of animals. At work, he preferred jockeys who did not resort too readily to the whip. At home, he kept hens, ducks, geese, turkeys, rabbits and goats, and grew apples and carrots as treats for horses. Like Lata, he may have been more comfortable dealing with horses than with people. He certainly saw at once how horses felt about her: she had a way of greeting each horse she met, her head close to its as she patted it softly on the neck, that seemed to instil calm and cooperation. Her assistance was welcome.
Her first attempts at riding thoroughbreds on the gallops left her ‘totally shattered’: she had never had to manage such power before. By the fourth morning, however, she had adapted, learning to relax in the saddle as she would with any other kind of riding. On the racecourse, she realised, her philosophy of riding was more important than ever. With ‘peace and love for the horse’ you could do anything.
Her visits to Šmejda’s stable became an important and regular part of her life. She reached it by bicycle, a twelve-mile trip. Then, after a few hours in the saddle, she cycled twelve miles back. Sometimes her father came to watch her, presumably travelling on horseback. In good weather the journeys must have been pleasant for both of them. Velká Chuchle lies in a wide floodplain, at the foot of an isolated hill. The River Vltava winds quietly past, about a kilometre away, while small trains occasionally rattle alongside on the nearby railway.
Šmejda lived in a small house by the level crossing but was usually to be found at the stables by the racecourse at the edge of town. Several trainers kept horses here, and the racing community was growing fast: by the end of the decade there would be more than a dozen stables. The buildings have gone, but the horsey air must have smelled much the same then as it does now: of manure, grass, leather, stale sweat, old and new hay. Lata would have felt at home – in some respects. In others, she may have felt far from comfortable. Šmejda himself was kind, but the locker-rooms of Velka Chuchle were rough and rude. Even in our supposedly enlightened times, women who reach the male-dominated higher echelons of horse racing risk bar
baric abuse. (Just ask the British trainer Gay Kelleway, who in the 1980s became the first female jockey to win a race at Royal Ascot and, in the course of a long and distinguished riding career, endured everything from aggressive ‘banter’ to attempted rape.) We should assume that the racing yards of the First Republic were little better.
One young man who worked at Velká Chuchle in the 1920s, Eduard Zágler, became an internationally successful jockey. He was so disgusted by the crude culture of the racetrack – with its drinking, smoking, swearing, fighting and worse – that he refused point-blank to allow his horse-obsessed son (who still lives close to the racecourse) to have anything to do with the sport. Perhaps being known as a (former) countess protected Lata from such behaviour. Perhaps it had the opposite effect. Either way, Lata seems to have developed a defensive shell. She smoked: the stronger the brand the better. She made a point of being wiry and (despite the smoking) fit. Like the men around her, she took fierce care to show no sign of weakness or fear. Unlike them, she kept herself to herself.
Some took this to mean that she was aloof. Zágler, who liked her, thought her shy. ‘She wasn’t haughty, like a countess,’ he told his son – although he always addressed her as ‘Countess’. Instead, he claimed, she seemed ordinary: almost like a man. ‘She wasn’t very talkative. But she loved horses.’
Others who met her saw her differently. I have seen her variously described – by those who didn’t know her well – as having a ‘direct, hearty smile’; as being ‘dignified’, ‘humble’ and ‘perhaps a little proud’; as being’suave in an aristocratic way’; as being ‘not at all stiff or affected’; and as being ‘the most amiable woman you can imagine’. The only consistent theme – from many sources, oral and printed – was her kindness; and the fact that, in the words of former Velká Chuchle apprentice Jiĭi Kocman, ‘she loved horses very much: she would have done anything for them’.
As long as Lata was only exercising horses (we would call it’ riding out’, although it was probably done on the racetrack), it didn’t matter too much what people thought of her. It is clear that some of the opinions expressed were unkind: ‘If a woman makes a mistake,’ she complained later,’she is rebuked more for that mistake than a man would be. Immediately she hears comments such as: “But of course, a female! Why is she getting involved in this?”’ But what distressed her more was the limit her gender placed on her progress. The racing world whose rough edges she was discovering was a world she could imagine conquering. Riding out was all very well, but Lata ‘wanted to really achieve and accomplish something’ – if only someone would give her the chance.
In 1921, she seems to have driven in at least three ladies- only harness races held at Velká Chuchle, winning once and being placed twice. She also seems to have taken part in some kind of women’s riding display in the harness-racing stadium that opened in that May on Letná plain – a fashionable park in central Prague. (Sadly, no official records survive: just a photograph.) But racing itself – riding flat out, on turf primed for speed, in a simple, instinctive contest between horse and horse, rider and rider – was an impossibility. The Jockey Club did not sanction races for women. If any such events had taken place, they would have been mere ‘demonstration’ races.
For Lata, who was highly competitive, the restriction must have been maddening. The more time she spent at Velká Chuchle, the more she understood what ‘real’ horse racing involved – and the more she understood her own abilities. She just wasn’t allowed to put them to the test. Racing is ‘the most beautiful of sports,’ she reflected. ‘My only regret is that we as women are excluded from this.’ Yet perhaps, in Masaryk’s new land of equality, it was no longer absurd to wonder if the exclusion might be overturned.
10.
Allies
In February 1923, Alžběta’s husband, Josef Pospíšil, was killed in a plane crash – perhaps not a surprising end, given his reputation. Alžběta moved back to Řitka soon afterwards with their two small children, Jan and Eva. With Lata’s now frail parents also in residence, as well as the old governess, Marie, it may still have been a warm and loving household, but it was crowded, noisy and far from carefree.
Lata liked to get away sometimes: either on solitary rides in the empty forests or, increasingly, on those bicycle excursions to Velká Chuchle. The escapes sharpened her taste for life beyond Řitka. At the racecourse, she grew confident riding faster, less familiar horses. The hard-living jockeys and stable lads, some more welcoming than others, grew used to her presence. She also got to know some of the leading racehorse owners who frequented the course: Eberhard Mauve, for example, the mining magnate and future Jockey Club official; or Hanuš Kasalický, lawyer, businessman and, by the mid-i92os, president of the Jockey Club management committee that organised Velká Chuchle race meetings. Some of these owners, notably Mauve, liked to compete as amateur jockeys as well – which may have given Lata ideas. But Kasalický had a bigger impact on her life.
Surviving records do not portray him in a flattering light. Eighteen years older than Lata, he was rich, ambitious, short-tempered and ruthless: the kind of man who is used to getting his own way. In pictures you notice his thick neck, clipped white moustache and unsettlingly assertive eyes – usually glowering from beneath a Homburg hat. Born Johan Kasalický in 1877, in Prague, he came to Vsenory in 1902 and acquired a large home there – just three miles from Řitka – by marrying Marie, daughter of the wealthy philanthropist Jan Nolč. A pre-nuptial agreement specified that Kasalický should receive half of Nolč’s considerable property, and by the 1920s he was in a position to devote considerable time and money to the turf. Enough remained at the end of the decade for him to commission a major programme of improvements to his already magnificent chateau. By then (February 1927) he had formally adopted the old Czech name of Hanuš: a move whose most obvious explanation would have been a desire for greater acceptance as a pillar of post-Habsburg society.
The Brandis family may have seemed shabby compared with some of Kasalický’s grand friends on the Jockey Club board (for example, General Václav Chmelar, ex-Count Jan Pálffy and ex-Prince Bedrich Lobkowitz). None the less, they were near-neighbours, and he sometimes paid visits. Since 1921 he had also done occasional legal work for them. He was thus familiar with Lata’s riding skills, and impressed by them; and he would have been happy for her to ride the thoroughbreds that Karel Šmejda trained for him – perhaps even including his Derby-contender filly, Reseda.
Over time, he and Lata became not just family friends but, improbably, friends in their own right who spent significant amounts of time together. It is possible that there was more to it than friendship, on one side or the other. Lata was young, single and, for all her reserve, full of the sap of life. Kasalický probably had a certain alphamale charisma, and he was not the best of husbands. Maybe he believed in Lata in a way that others didn’t; maybe he was attracted by the relative simplicity of her outdoor lifestyle; or maybe he had cruder motives for encouraging her. Or perhaps it was simply that circumstances brought them together. Their shared devotion to horses – and their specific interest in getting the best out of whichever of Kasalický’s horses Lata was helping Šmejda to train – would have given them plenty to talk about. In due course, Hanuš Kasalický would play a significant role in Lata’s story.
But he was not the only married man to do so. From 1926 onwards, Lata also saw a lot of her wealthy, charismatic cousin, Zdenko Radslav Kinský. Tall, slim, handsome and athletic, Kinský had a light heart and an excess of playful energy. His small, bushy moustache seemed to bristle with good nature. His main passions were horses, tennis and parties, yet somehow there was more to him than that suggests. Friends and family called him ‘Ra’. There must have been some who begrudged him his grand castles and his absurd wealth, which multiplied accidentally as he grew older. But it would have been hard to feel truly hostile to someone with such an obviously sunny nature. Fluent and charming in half a dozen languages, he was a compulsive ma
ker of friends. Fun followed him; caution and inactivity horrified him. Those who enjoyed the brilliance of his presence tended to adore him.
Ra was a year younger than Lata. The son of the previously mentioned Zdenko Kinský (Oktavian’s nephew and heir), he had been raised in the splendour of Karlova Koruna in Chlumec, surrounded not just by luxury and horses but by memories of Oktavian. Initiated into the family cult of gung-ho horsemanship in early childhood, he became a fine and fearless horseman, who in due course would compete at Pardubice, although not in the Velkà Pardubickà itself. In the Great War he had fought bravely with the Hussars on the Russian front before being taken prisoner in June 1916. After two years in captivity he escaped by disguising himself as the servant of a visiting Red Cross representative. He arrived back on Austro-Hungarian territory a few months before the end of the war. In 1919 he had joined the new Czechoslovak army as an interpreter, but he now worked – apparently sporadically – as an attaché to the Foreign Office.
His path may well have crossed with Lata’s when they were children or teenagers, but in adulthood there appears to have been little serious contact before the mid- 1920s. Ra’s company was sought by diplomats and socialites from many countries. He partied tirelessly, travelled extensively, frequented Prague’s nobility-only Ressource club, and was president of the equally exclusive Napoleon Society. He can’t have had much time left over for poor relations in Řitka.
Ra had been brought up to consider himself a servant of the Habsburg Emperor. The empire’s collapse had hurt him. So, to a lesser extent, had the subsequent programme of expropriation of aristocratic property. Tireless lobbying by its intended victims had softened the impact of land reform: the rural economy was too closely interwoven with existing patterns of ownership to be easily unpicked. But it was hard to forget the thought behind it. Noble families had been transformed from pillars of the nation to enemies of the state. ‘They had lost the country they loved,’ says Kamila Pecherova, biographer of Karel Kinský. ‘They had fought for it in the war, but now it was gone.’
