by Unbreakable- The Woman Who Defied the Nazis in the World's Most Dangerous Horse Race (retail) (epub)
Brutus fell at the final fence. Drahoš remounted (naturally), but by then it was too late to catch Forum, who had been labouring away patiently throughout without once looking like a winner. (Thanks to his solidly built thirty-three-year-old jockey, Captain Charous, he was carrying twelve kilograms overweight.) Still labouring, Forum loped home with a fifty-metre lead, in the unimpressive time of fourteen minutes. Few cheered more loudly than the actor Rudolf Deyl, who had met Charous at the Veselka earlier and, following his advice, had placed a large bet on Forum at 20:1. Brutus was second, with Dunka (ridden by Captain Eisner) a long way back in third, just ahead of Esáž.
And then – history does record this – the fifth and final finisher came into view: Nevěsta cleared the final fence with Countess Brandisová on her back, and the crowd, many of them standing on benches in front of the main stand, greeted the weary pair with ‘thunderous applause’ as they dragged themselves to the finishing line. The first woman to ride in the Velká Pardubická had stayed the course.
The achievement was so remarkable that Národní listy saw fit to record it on its front page the next day. Readers of Venkov newspaper were also reassured on another point: at the finish, the young countess had ‘looked completely fresh‘ .
Of the eight military gentlemen who had collectively objected to Lata’s involvement, only three had finished. If the others felt dishonoured, they kept quiet about it. Captain Charous, the winner, had the grace to say afterwards that Lata’s performance had been ‘really impressive’ . He had not seen it, of course, but that didn’t make the tribute less welcome. In fact, relative to her hopes, Lata had ridden a disappointing race. None the less, she had proved one point: she was not a quitter.
15.
The outsider
Some bruises were quick to heal. Others lingered. Lata was soon fit and riding again. The men whose territory she had invaded remained resentful. They weren’t openly hostile: men who feel threatened by a woman’s achievements rarely are. Instead, there were mutterings. Some were said to have developed a habit – on the rare occasions when Lata’s path crossed with theirs – of leaving any room she entered. Lata’s character was blamed. In the words of one racing historian, ‘She was considered very grand and arrogant.’
This was unfair. Like all shy people, Lata could seem aloof. Her heart was not worn on her sleeve but instead was kept deep inside, the only clue to her feelings the look of preoccupation in her grey eyes. Something similar could perhaps have been said about several of the officers who disapproved of her. Yet in Lata’s case, because of her gender and her aristocratic background, this may have been interpreted as haughtiness. In fact, everything else we know about her suggests that she was modest about her social position – a point on which Řitka villagers who knew her seem unanimous. For example: to Alena Brabencová (now the postmaster’s wife) she was ‘very kind, very modest’; to Jana Sléhová (the gamekeeper’s daughter) she was ‘always nice, never reserved or strict’; Vlasta Klabíková, who was a farmhand on the Řitka estate, remembers her as ‘very kind, always helping people’ . ‘She never acted as though she was above the ordinary person,’ says Jaroslava Orolová, whose grandfather managed the estate for a while. ‘People who worked for her wouldn‘t hear a bad word about her.’
What Lata did have, however, was a capacity for matter- of-fact assertiveness, when she felt confident that she was right. Some men would have considered this unfeminine. Women who stood up for themselves were often judged in this way. For example: Avery Brundage, the famously assertive senior Olympic official, once complained rather pathetically that Alice Milliat was too blunt and demanding in her campaigning for women to be allowed to compete in the main Olympic Games. The subtext was (and is) that a woman’s place is to be yielding. But yielding was not really Lata’s thing.
For a while, even so, she retreated from the limelight. She continued to work with Karel Šmejda’s horses. When she could spare the time, she worked with Ra’s horses, too. But I can find no record of her having raced officially in 1928 or 1929. It is possible that her Velká Pardubická ambitions were temporarily satisfied. She had proved her points: she was brave enough to start the race and tough enough to finish it. Nor could anyone dispute her right to try again if she chose. But Nevěsta had reached the limits of her capabilities, while Ra already had another jockey in mind for his promising young Pročpak colt, Norbert, whom Vojtěch Szabó would ride to eighth place in the 1928 Velká Pardubická. In the short term, a fresh attempt by Lata may not have been a realistic option.
In any case, she had other things on her mind. In Řitka, the anniversary of her mother’s death was marked by the death of Marie Rothländer, the Brandis children’s former governess and the late countess’s closest friend. Marie was considered part of the family and was buried in the tomb in the woods. Eight months later, Lata and her sisters returned to the site to bury their father. The last Count Brandis died on 12 September 1928, aged seventy-four. His later years had been sad and subdued, but his final months were eased by the company of six daughters – one of whom was known across Europe for having ridden in the Velká Pardubická. As far as we know, his death was peaceful.
All his daughters had adored him. It has been suggested that this was one reason why they were slow to marry: other men didn’t measure up. Lata was particularly close to him. Yet Leopold’s absence gradually transformed Řitka, and some of the change was positive. For as long as anyone could remember, family life had revolved around the need to (as their mother put it) ‘honour’ the man of the house. Now the house was manless.
Life became simpler and less formal. The family and remaining staff ate meals together in the kitchen. Those of the sisters who smoked (including Lata) did so more visibly. Řitka had never had all that much in common with the kind of stately living that most of us imagine when confronted with words such as ‘chateau’ or ‘aristocracy’ . There were no glittering ballrooms and few spacious, polished salons: that was for the Kinskýs. Instead, Brandis home life was cluttered with old furniture and old dogs, riding tackle, guns and mud. The outdoors was constantly having to be kept at bay. And whereas the count and countess had liked to keep up the appearance of living like the high aristocracy, their daughters were happy to let much of that go. They observed the conventions of respectability but had little interest in grandeur.
And so, as time went on, a new order superseded the old. Villagers spoke less of the Brandis family and more of ‘the contessas’: an almost interchangeable collection of unmarried ladies whose benign influence helped give the village its distinctive character. The sisters in turn felt an almost maternal sense of obligation to the village. They nursed the sick and attended births, just as their mother had done. If a service was held in the little roadside chapel, one of the contessas – usually Lata – would read the litany.
Each sister had different strengths and different duties. Johanna was in charge of the cooking. Kristýna kept the house clean and tidy (although each sister was expected to take care of her own room). Lata was responsible for the woods, which had to be kept in good order so that hunting rights could be rented out. But her main role was as overseer. She was not the most senior sibling in the house: Gabriele was five years older. But, says Jan Pospíšil, ‘She was a natural leader. She always took charge of things.’ Thus it was Lata who dealt with bills and wages, liaised with tenants and suppliers and attempted to balance the books. And it was she who kept on top of leases and other legal documents with the help of the family’s friendly lawyer, Hanuš Kasalický.
At some point, room was found in the house for a distant, German-born cousin from Austria, Alžběta Jarocká – known, to avoid confusion, as Gikina. Elsewhere on the estate lived a Russian exile, Kasian Rusniak, who worked for the gamekeeper. He had arrived in Řitka during the First World War – he may have been a prisoner of war at the time – and had been provided with accommodation in an outbuilding. Later, a White Russian exile, Sergej Jaroševský, was recruited to assi
st with the estate management and was provided with living space in the servants’ quarters. His arrival was of particular interest to Lata’s sister Markéta, who some years later married him.
At around the same time – history does not record precisely when, but it must have been after Leopold’s death – Kasalický and Lata developed the habit of going for afternoon rides together, starting at Řitka and disappearing into the woods above. This continued for years, increasing in frequency. The village girls who watched them were convinced that they were lovers.
There were plenty of perfectly respectable reasons for the pair to spend time in each other’s company. Perhaps they were visiting the family tomb. Perhaps they were discussing leases. More probably, they were discussing horses. Kasalický had several – Büvös, Misserl, Ossiana – in training with Šmejda. It would have made perfect sense for him to seek feedback from Lata; and, equally, for their conversations to take place on horseback.
Yet children see some things that others miss. Lata was human. She left no trace of any other romantic involvements, with men or women. Yet she must have had feelings, and feelings tend to find a focus. Lata had lost her father and her brothers. She may well have welcomed a strong male figure in her life. Kasalický was around, and he appears to have been interested. And while it is hard to feel much affection for the Hanuš Kasalický who emerges from archival records, he may have been more impressive, and perhaps more attractive, in the flesh. His grandson, Jan Doležal, remembers him as ‘proud but sympathetic’ . We can at any rate infer from the frequency of his visits that he found the modest, feminine character of life at Řitka a pleasing contrast to the luxury and grandeur of Všenory. Perhaps he felt that, in Lata’s company, close to nature and away from more materialist concerns, he became a better person; and perhaps in turn she saw that better person in him. But this is speculation. We know, however, that Kasalický had a proper understanding of horses and horse racing. For Lata, that in itself would have made him seem less alien than many men. We also know that Kasalický’s marriage was unhappy: his divorce, years later, would be messy. And we know that there were others, eventually, who shared the village girls’ suspicions. Even if Lata’s friendship with him began as a polite, neighbourly one, it seems likely that it somehow warmed, over time, to a degree that went beyond the polite and the neighbourly.
I cannot believe that Lata would actually have had a physical affair with a married man. Religion was as central to her life as riding; moral firmness was one of her defining characteristics. That is not to say, however, that she did not sometimes yearn for things to be otherwise.
If Lata sometimes felt trapped by circumstances, there was always the option of taking herself off to the Kinskýs. Such escapes could be only temporary, occasional and brief. Řitka demanded her presence. In any case, she was suited neither by temperament nor by wealth to her grand cousins’ high-society lifestyle. Yet even a few days in Ra’s carefree world could refresh her soul wonderfully.
Her visits tended to coincide with Ra’s quieter moments: periods when he was spending time with his children and his horses rather than his fellow socialites. This didn’t mean that they were always quiet. At Obora, he liked to organise amateur dramatics. Energetic outdoor games were another favourite: he particularly enjoyed showing off his skills at high jump, which he performed to quite a good standard without the indulgence of a landing mat. Lata was always up for outdoor fun, which made her a popular guest, not least with the children. ‘She was always funny and kind,’ according to Génilde, the second youngest, who was unfailingly encouraged by Lata in her own riding. ‘She loved horses very much: that was her life. But she also loved dogs and children.’ Lata usually stayed on the first floor of a small guest house next to the main building. If the children called her down to play, says Génilde, ‘she didn’t bother going down the stairs. She just jumped down from the balcony. We loved that!’
Lori enjoyed Lata’s visits, too. She was a strong, clever woman, whose unretiring nature had raised eyebrows in high society long before she married Ra. Compared with some of the noblewomen Lori mixed with, Lata must have seemed like a kindred spirit: independent and unbiddable.
As for Lata, she must have felt happy among the Kinskýs, or she wouldn’t have made the ninety-mile journey from Řitka. She would take the train to Chlumec nad Cidlinou, then cover the final eight-mile stretch to Obora by bicycle. If someone spotted her approaching on the straight, flat road that led from the town, Ra would ride out to meet her and exchange his horse for her bicycle. They would then complete the journey together.
Yet there is reason to believe that Lata also felt awkward about the gulf in wealth and status between her family and Ra’s. She never seems to have talked about her own family while visiting: some of Ra’s children appear to have been unaware that she even had sisters. Perhaps she sensed that some would see her as a ‘poor cousin’: a slight embarrassment. I don’t think the Kinskýs really thought in those terms. But Lata clearly fitted in more easily at Obora, in the simplicity of the outdoors, with children and animals to play with, than in the spectacular salons of Orlík, or in Ra and Lori’s palace in Prague.
Despite this, the late summer of 1929 saw Lata spending time with the Kinský family at yet another of their homes: at Žďár nad Sázavou, on the Bohemian– Moravian border. The castle there, which Lori had recently inherited, is not the grandest of the Kinský chateaux. It may be the loveliest: a solid eighteenthcentury building on the edge of an old monastery, in a little town whose other charms include a small stone replica of Prague’s Charles Bridge. There weren’t many horses: this was not a playground like Obora. Rather, it was a retreat. From the windows of the chateau’s panelled drawing room you look out over a still, small lake. On the far side is a green hill, from whose low top the star-shaped Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk – the baroque-gothic masterpiece of Jan Blažej Santini Aichel – points quietly up to the heavens. The sense of peace is sublime; and to gaze on the church, with its soft, inverted image in the intervening waters, is to add a whole new layer of meaning to the idea of calm reflection. Lata, whose hungry spirituality made a deep impression on, among others, Génilde, must have gazed on it often.
With Ra, however, nothing remained calm for long. Lata’s stay at Žďár coincided with a visit by Lorenzo and Heinrich Hagenbeck, owners of some zoological gardens in Hamburg. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, the brothers had brought four zebras with them. Lata, Ra and František Schwarzenberg (Ra’s sixteen-year-old stepson) were soon busy training the unexpected guests to pull a coach and four. Lata then returned, presumably by the usual combination of train and bicycle, to Řitka. The zebras proved so adept in their new role that they were later sold (complete with carriage) to the Maharaja of Kapurthala.
A month later, the Wall Street stock market imploded. Global depression followed, slowly but inexorably. Within three years US stocks would be worth barely a tenth of their value at their October 1929 peak. In this harsh new climate, central Europe’s fragile young democracies struggled to survive.
Within a year, Adolf Hitler’s National Socialists – the Nazis – were the second largest party in Germany. Farright politicians, already in the ascendant in Italy and Hungary, were soon on the rise in Poland, Spain and Portugal as well. In Czechoslovakia, the most obvious sign that the world was changing was a growing tension between Czechs and Germans, particularly in the border area known as the Sudetenland, where German-speakers were sometimes in a majority.
There had been complaints for years about anti- German discrimination in Czechoslovakia. Some were justified. But the rise of far-right nationalism turned low-level grumbling into bitter and divisive hatred. Communities that had rubbed along tolerably for decades were suddenly on edge. Even children were affected. ‘We used to play football with the boys from the German school,’ a Czech man who grew up in the eastern most corner of the Sudetenland told me. ‘Then Hitler came along, and suddenly we were all fighting. No one k
new why. It just happened.’
In Prague, news of the Nazis’ electoral advances in September 1930 prompted anti-German demonstrations. A number of German citizens with homes in the Czechoslovak capital had their windows broken. Pardubice, which was neither German-speaking nor part of the Sudetenland, was not immune. The change in mood was abrupt. In 1929 (a fortnight before the great crash), the Velká Pardubická had been won by Gustav Schwandt on Ben Hur. It was the second year running that a German horse and German jockey had won, and the locals had seemed as happy about this as the visitors. The victories were seen as vindication of the organisers’ strategy of using increased prize money – and warm hospitality – to revive foreign interest in the event. By 1930, however, such breezy cosmopolitanism was not so easy.
As the Velká Pardubická approached, signs of the new times became visible. A week before race day, the Czechoslovak racing stable Čechoslavia announced that it had purchased a German horse called Gabarit, whose vendor, Lieutenant Mellenthin, would ride the horse – in Čechoslavia’s colours – in the big race. News reached Lieutenant Mellenthin’s military superiors in Germany. The day before the race he received a telegram forbidding him to compete in Czechoslovak colours. Mellenthin offered to buy back the horse temporarily – so that he could compete in German colours instead. His superiors were not placated. On the morning of the race he was summoned back to Germany. A good German soldier was expected to remember which side he was on.
Such was the fraught context in which eight riders, all Czechoslovak nationals, lined up for the start of the forty-ninth Velká Pardubická on 12 October 1930. The unpleasantness three years earlier about Lata’s involvement may have seemed trivial by comparison. Which was just as well, because Lata was one of the eight.
