by Unbreakable- The Woman Who Defied the Nazis in the World's Most Dangerous Horse Race (retail) (epub)
It seems more likely, however, that the sight of the race starting without her was agony. Of course, she was less of an outsider, as an ex-countess among the cream of race-going society, than she would have been as a female jockey among the officers of the military riding school. And no doubt the president of the course management committee, Hanuš Kasalický, appreciated her company in the stand. But who wants to be with the grown-ups watching the action when you could be in the thick of it with the boys? Lata had come close enough to glory to have developed a taste for it. Imagine the headlines, if she could win the Velká Pardubická! Five months earlier, Amelia Earhart had been the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, giving a much-needed morale boost to America’s impoverished masses. How wonderful it would be to do something similar herself, for her own compatriots – rather than just standing and watching.
If it was any compensation, the race was a thriller, closely fought and relatively disaster-free. Half a dozen horses were in contention until four jumps from the finish, when the boggy ground around the ‘willow jump’ – a ditch behind a hedge with two willows in it – claimed first Ataraxia, one of the German horses, and then Ben Hur, the favourite. This cleared the way for a desperate battle between Remus – an Austrian horse with an Italian jockey, Rugiero Spano – and Popler’s Gyi Lovam!. Less than a length separated them at the line. Many spectators were certain that Gyi Lovam! had won it, an opinion that was clearly shared by Popler. The judges saw it differently. When Remus was declared the winner, there was a storm of whistles and chants of ‘Popler! Popler!’
Popler accepted defeat politely. That was his nature. Within, however, he was seething. That was his tragedy. Several friends urged him not to ride in the next race, the last of the day: he seemed too upset. But he insisted; perhaps he saw it as his duty not to succumb to weakness. Within an hour of the Velká Pardubická he was at the start again for the Kinský Memorial Chase, in a fourhorse race, on a mare called Ella.
A few minutes later, Popler was dead. Something went wrong at the second: a pair of low wooden bars that, compared with Taxis, barely counted as an obstacle. Some said he had had a heart attack in the saddle. The official cause of death was a fractured skull.
It is difficult to describe the trauma: not just to his family and friends but to the entire horse-racing community. Decades later, Lata said that she could never think of that moment – ‘the death of a young athlete, and of a friend’ – without pain. Popler’s views on gender may have been old-fashioned, but his quiet nobility and fearless horsemanship had been inspirational. He had been revered and idolised, even loved, by his fellow officers, by his fellow riders, by Pardubice racegoers, even by his nation; and seemingly by his horses, too. Now he was a broken corpse. It was a sobering collision between escapism and reality.
It is easy and sometimes fun to talk about deathdefying daring. Death’s hard fact knocks such glib conceits from our mouths. Some such thought must have occurred to Lata. She may not have drawn the appropriate lesson from it.
17.
Norma
In January 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. In March, he was granted unlimited powers. He used them quickly and ruthlessly. The Gestapo, race laws, book burnings, Dachau concentration camp, a ban on parties other than the Nazis: all were launched in a matter of months.
Not everyone saw this as a bad thing. Millions of Germans still believed, at this stage, that the Führer offered the best hope of making their nation great again. Elsewhere, there were plenty who admired his example: in Austria, for instance, where the far-right Fatherland Party was busy setting up its own dictatorship; or in Britain, where the Daily Mail argued that ‘no one here will shed any tears for the disappearance of German democracy’ .
In Czechoslovakia, opinion was divided. For believers in Masaryk’s democratic vision, it was obvious that Hitler was a monster. Others argued that, compared with the horrors of economic collapse and Bolshevism, Nazism – or something like it – was merely necessary firmness. Just across the eastern border, millions were dying in a man-made famine in the Soviet Ukraine. In Czechoslovakia, a million people were jobless. The government seemed baffled. At least the Nazis had a plan.
Sympathy for their approach expressed itself in various ways: through support for fascist parties on the fringes of Czechoslovak politics; through increasing hard-right influence in mainstream parties; and, most explosively, through German separatism. More than 3.1 million Czechoslovak citizens (from a population of 10.6 million) were classified as German. Many were happy to be part of Masaryk’s nation. A significant number were not; and, for those of them living in the predominantly German-speaking Sudetenland, where unemployment was particularly severe, Hitler’s promise of a reborn Germany suggested a radical alternative.
You didn’t have to be a Nazi to buy into this. Most German separatists just had a vague sense that they might be governed more sympathetically from Berlin than from Prague; and campaigned, accordingly, for their territory to be ceded to the Third Reich. Others went further. The Sudeten German Nazi Party had more than 60,000 members when the Czechoslovak government finally banned it in October 1933. Meanwhile, the more Hitler’s regime consolidated power in Germany, the harder it became to disentangle German nationalist and separatist movements from Nazi nationalist and separatist movements.
The old ethnic dichotomy – ‘German or Czech?’ – had been one which many good-natured people had felt able to ignore, or to see both sides of. It would be harder to avoid taking a position on the question that now began to replace it: ‘Hitler or Masaryk?’; or, more starkly: ‘Nazism or democracy?’
Some places adapted to the new battle lines more quickly than others. Pardubice carried on much as before. There were some local fascists, encouraged by frequent visits from the far-right leader General Radola Gajda; and there were some anti-fascists. But the town’s revived tradition as a destination for lovers of horses, thrills and luxury from all over Europe left little room, at this stage, for nationalist rivalries. The 1933 Velká Pardubická would be the most cosmopolitan for a generation. German, French, Austrian and Czechoslovak horses all had a serious chance. For those preparing to ride them, the new hatreds that others were stirring up on their behalf mattered less than their own prospects and preparation, and the strengths and weaknesses of each runner and rider, and the bond they shared with the other jockeys who dared risk Taxis and the rest.
In the months preceding the race, patriotic officers of the Czechoslovak and French armies continued to ride with patriotic officers of the German and Austrian ones, on the racecourses and in the equestrian arenas of several nations. They socialised with them, too, when the chance arose. Unlike us, they didn’t know how the rest of the decade would pan out.
Some of the warmest international socialising took place in the Pardubice Zámeček, a small neoRenaissance chateau set in extensive grounds behind a curtain of conifers on the south-eastern edge of town. This was the home of Leopold von Fugger, a German sports enthusiast who since late 1930 had been renting the property with his wife, Věra, and their four children.
Known to his friends as Poldi, Fugger was a slightly mysterious figure. A keen equestrian, tennis player and aviator, just turned forty, he was a charming but erratic socialite. He was well-dressed, slim and good-looking – with slicked-back hair and big, snake-like eyes – and he made friends easily, at least among Pardubice’s Germanspeaking classes. He was an active member of the tennis club and was on warm terms with many of the officers at the military riding school, notably Captain Popler, before his tragic end, and Captain František Statečný, Popler’s fellow Olympic showjumper. He also enjoyed going flying with Major Alois Snášel of the 4th Air Regiment; which, given Fugger’s record as a much-decorated reconnaissance pilot in the First World War, was perhaps not surprising.
He kept six servants and a motor car, and, depending on circumstances, between one and three horses, which he rode over a jumps course that he had set up in the grou
nds of the Zámeček. Yet he appeared to have limited means. The heir to a banking fortune, he was said to be awaiting the outcome of litigation in Bavaria. He had debts in Pardubice – for example, at the saddler’s – and he paid his rent irregularly.
Locals also noted that he and his wife were rarely seen together. In fact, since 1932 Věra and the children had lived mainly in Vienna. (The Fuggers would divorce in 1936.) Poldi enjoyed close friendships with at least two much younger women, while his widowed mother, Princess Nora von Fugger, was also a regular guest. But for much of his time at the chateau he was alone with his servants and horses. This may explain the enthusiasm with which – when funds permitted – he entertained his privileged friends.
The Zámeček was modest compared with some stately homes, but Fugger employed an excellent cook, Josefa Minářová, and the chateau’s arched, polygonal dining room, with underfloor heating, was grand enough for any aristocrat. Aristocratic guests who enjoyed Fugger’s hospitality included Count Heinrich Schaumburg, Baron Jan Nepomuk Widersperg, Countess Irena Széchenyi – and, on many occasions, Count Zdenko Radslav Kinský and various members of his family; almost certainly including, at least once, Count Kinský’s cousin, Countess Lata Brandisová.
The attractions for Ra and Lata were obvious: not just the fine dining and aristocratic gossip but the company of a man with an eye for horses and a gift for riding them, within easy reach of both Obora and Pardubice racecourse. Ra, in particular, enjoyed the company of Fugger, who became a frequent visitor both at Obora and at the Kinský stables at Chlumec. In addition to being a serious horseman, who rode in several races at Pardubice and won at least one showjumping contest there, Fugger was a war hero and, best of all, a gifted tennis player, willing to travel as far as Brno to take part in a tournament. In Ra’s world, that made you a decent chap, to be welcomed into the social whirl in which he liked to live.
With Lata, as so often, the evidence is thinner. She was neither a tennis player nor a socialite. But she would have respected Fugger’s abilities as a horseman, and would not have objected to spending time with him at the Zámeček, at Chlumec or at Obora, especially when there was riding to be done. Their paths crossed on social sporting occasions, too: for example, the drag hunts that Ra usually organised around the time of the Velká Pardubická. Lata also got on well with Poldi’s mother. If Poldi was not a close friend of Lata’s, he was certainly a familiar one.
One day, those carefree moments at the Zámeček would acquire a special significance. In 1933, they were light distractions. Lata was preoccupied with weightier concerns: the future of the Řitka estate – which that year had one of its fields expropriated under land reform; her foray into racehorse ownership; the future of her houseful of contessas – one of whom was thinking of marrying and two of whom were rarely at home; and presumably also her own relationship with Hanuš Kasalický – whose increasing closeness must, at the very least, have been creating confusion in her heart.
Meanwhile, there was a more practical question to distract her, which needed to be resolved soon. Both Lata and Ra were keen for her to have another go in the forthcoming Velká Pardubická. But which of Ra’s horses should she ride? For a long time it looked as though she would opt for Neklan, a six-year-old stallion described by one expert as ‘the most beautiful and noble Kinský horse in the [Chlumec] stud’s history’ . Two weeks before the race, the press was reporting that Neklan would be Lata’s mount. Then she changed her mind. She would ride Ra’s unfancied isabella mare, Norma.
It was a life-changing decision. Neklan, for all his nobility, would never be more than a decent steeplechaser. Norma, in the right hands, was special. Those hands were Lata’s.
What did Lata see in her? At first, not very much. There was little about the six-year-old mare that suggested greatness. She was small – about fifteen and a half hands – with a placid temperament and a tendency to ‘round out’ when not being trained hard. You might expect a champion-in-the-making to be more aggressive. When Lata first rode Norma, she thought her ‘weak‘ and declared, ‘I don‘t have much confidence in this mare.’ Yet she had a charming nature; and, whatever else you said about her, she was pretty.
All Kinský horses are pretty. The pure isabellas are prettiest. Their soft buckskin hide shines pale gold in most lights; their blonde manes are rich as yellow butter. With Norma, white ‘socks’ and a white star on the forehead completed the effect. If you were designing a horse for a Disney princess, it would look like this.
Like most Kinský horses, Norma was affectionate and interested in humans. It is easy to imagine Lata making friends with her. And it was easy to imagine the two of them as a pair. ‘Together with the rider, they made a harmonious, attractive unit that was hard to forget,’ observed one contemporary. The observation sounds trite, but many people made it. ‘That’s a beautiful lady,’ a visiting jockey once observed to Ra, pointing out Lata. ‘Yes,’ said Ra, pointing at Norma, ‘just like that horse.’ Norma’s long mane flowed down the side of her neck in blonde waves: galloping, she could look like a Norse warrior-queen. As for Lata, her blonde hair was already prematurely whitened – which made it all the more striking when, as she sometimes did, she galloped hatless on Norma, both pale manes shimmering.
Yet there was a lot more to Norma than her looks. Like Lata, she had remarkable powers of endurance. She worked hard and, according to one former Chlumec stable lad, ‘She couldn’t bear having a horse in front of her.’ Lata soon retracted her ‘unjust’ first assessment and admitted that Norma was a ‘tough, brave and faithful horse’ who ‘gives everything’ . But there was more to her even than that.
Norma’s father was a big English thoroughbred: a dark chestnut called Delibab. Her maternal grandfather was a thoroughbred, too: a Hungarian sprinter named Magyarád. But there may also have been Hutsul blood in Norma’s pedigree – the Hutsul being a hardy breed of mountain pony found in the Ukrainian Carpathians. Norma’s maternal grandmother, Nedejse, was said to be so close to the breed that her golden isabella colouring was marred by a tell-tale crossed dorsal stripe. Perhaps this was mere rumour. What no one disputes is that, compared with the average pampered thoroughbred, Nedejse was startlingly bright.
One Chlumec groom described her as ‘the cleverest horse I ever knew’ . She had had some circus training and could answer simple mathematical questions by stamping her hoof an appropriate number of times. This equine trick, made famous in Germany in the first decade of the twentieth century by a horse called Clever Hans, is thought to rely on interpreting unconscious cues from a human rather than on actual calculation. It’s impressive none the less. Indeed, such sensitivity to human thought processes seems much more useful, in a racehorse, than mental arithmetic. If Norma inherited any of her grandmother’s gifts, it might help explain why she was such a wonderfully responsive ride.
Those who believe that steeplechasing excellence is a matter of pedigree may be interested to know that Norma’s mother, Nepal, had a half-brother, Nedbal (also a Nedejse foal), who sired Ra’s Velká Pardubická winner, Pohanka. But pedigree is an inexact science. Those who saw Norma in her prime were more likely to enthuse about the mare herself. She had ‘chiselled, lean legs’ , according to one expert observer, and she never had injury problems. Those who were lucky enough to ride her talked about her confident jumping, her sure take-off and confident landing. They also praised her ‘toughness, modesty and stamina’ , her ‘brilliant character’ and her ‘eagerness and calm’ . Ra’s stepson, František Schwarzenberg, described her as ‘a love’. If that makes her sound almost human, we could add the opaque verdict of one of her grooms, Josef Soukup, who called her ‘Pan kůň’ – an obscure expression that somehow combines the idea of being ‘the guv’nor’ with that of being ‘all horse’ . This seems to have meant, among other things, that she knew her own worth and considered herself any human’s equal – scorning treats such as sugar lumps, with which some horses are reduced to slavish sycophancy; and that, although she enj
oyed human company, she preferred the pleasures of being a horse. She loved to gallop. She loved to jump. Above all – luckily – she loved to be ridden; especially, it turned out, by Lata.
Their relationship would blossom over several years. In October 1933, it was new. Lata’s choice of Norma over Neklan must have seemed perverse. Ra trusted Lata’s judgement – but he must have suspected that this was a decision made with her heart rather than her head. He was probably right.
The afternoon was brilliant and warm. The streams and water jumps were brimful. The public turned out in their thousands. Once again, the stands were packed with dignitaries: ministers, generals, guests from abroad. It was as if people were hoping for a breathtaking spectacle to distract them from the troubled times.
