by Unbreakable- The Woman Who Defied the Nazis in the World's Most Dangerous Horse Race (retail) (epub)
Lata, unfit to work, stayed at home. She received a small disability pension. None the less, she spent most of each day working, unsteadily, with her hands. There was water to be fetched, in a bucket, from a well more than a hundred metres down the steep hill. There were logs to be chopped, too, and chickens to be fed, and an unreliable septic tank to be maintained, and clothes to be washed, and a tiny, cluttered house to be cleaned. Johanna usually cooked the evening meal, but Lata made sure that everything was ready for her. For someone who struggled to stay upright without a stick, it was a heavy workload. It was also lonely. Kristýna and Johanna used to leave at 6 a.m. for the railway station at Bojov – nearly a mile up the hill – to get to their shifts at the factory; they did not return until the end of the afternoon.
Sometimes, there would be visitors: Alžběta, or one or more of her children, from Prague; or the Satories (Josef and Gikina), who were now living just north of the capital, working on a pig farm. But visits were confined to weekends. As for neighbours, the only other habitation in sight was a weekend cottage further down the hill. Its owners, the Breyer family, were friendly, but they spent their weeks in Prague. From Monday to Friday, all through the 1950s and into the 1960s, Lata spent her days alone.
She kept herself sane through discipline and ritual: each task performed at its allotted time, each meal consumed formally and correctly, at the same invariable point in the day. She was not the sort to sit around feeling sorry for herself, and she would not have wanted to feel that she was not doing her bit, relative to her sisters. So she got on with it. She usually had a dog to keep her company: there was a succession over the years, of which the ones most often mentioned are Harryk, a large hound, and Jenka, a fousek (a Czech breed not unlike a pointer). There were, however, no horses, which saddened her.
But she did have God. That thought had always meant a lot to her. Now, as she grew older, it seemed to mean more. Every Sunday, unfailingly, she and her sisters would walk to Líšnice, making their slow way over the hill, dressed in black. It was a long slog for an invalid with a stick, yet Lata seemed happy to continue, at her own pace, indefinitely. If they reached the village in time (as they usually did, since they always started out at the same time), they would stop for coffee with a church warden’s wife, Růžena Pojerová, before the service. Then they would continue to church, where their attendance was probably noted by an StB informer or two. (Religion was not quite illegal but was highly suspect politically.) They sat in their usual place, always in the same positions, and worshipped as their parents had taught them, oblivious to the congregation’s curious gaze.
Lata, in particular, always seemed to concentrate intently, both hands neatly raised together in prayer. A few feet away, on the wall, a painted statue – a crucified Christ, grotesquely skewered with a large spear – emphasised the creed of redemption through suffering. Its relevance to her own journey – from worldly riches and glory to a life of poverty, disgrace and obscurity – hardly needed spelling out.
After the service, the sisters would talk briefly to the priest, Father Josef Javůrek, and perhaps to the church wardens, but rarely to anyone else. Johanna was chattier than the others. After a brief diversion to buy provisions, they would then walk home: spread out this time in a long line, each deep in her own thoughts.
Back in the cottage, the observance of ritual continued. Each meal was eaten, usually in silence, at its allotted time; each sister sat in her invariable place. A grandfather clock from Řitka, known as ‘Big Ben’ , dominated the room. Afterwards, they went on the verandah and smoked. In the evening, they listened to the news on the radio: not the official radio, but a Czech-language broadcast – presumably Voice of America – transmitted from the West. Sometimes, depending on who was present, they spoke German to one another. They probably found it easier. It may also have occurred to them that their loyalty to the Czech nation had not been well rewarded.
While Lata and her sisters adapted to their new lives, the Velká Pardubická underwent its own metamorphosis. The carnival atmosphere ceased. The wealthy no longer drank and shopped and showed off their cars and their finery; nor was there any celebration of the race’s aristocratic origins. Lata, its most famous Czech victor, was all but unmentionable. Instead, the race became a celebration of the friendship and sporting prowess of the nations of the Soviet bloc.
Like the English and the Germans before them, the horsemen of the Soviet nations developed their own special relationships with Europe’s most notorious steeplechase. The Czechs generally spoke of them as ‘Russians’. In fact, they were more likely to come from less central parts of the Soviet empire such as Uzbekistan or Georgia. Whatever their origins, they appeared to be under the strongest of incentives to win. Many adopted the dangerous practice of tying themselves to their horses with ropes around the wrist. This meant that, if they fell, they wouldn’t have to worry about their horse bolting but, instead, could remount quickly. Did it work? You can judge for yourself from the names of the winners, carved on a stone plaque on the back of the main Pardubice stand. The decades before the First World War are dominated by English and Irish names: Moore, Fletcher, Williamson, Buckenham, Geoghegan. As the Second World War approaches, the Germans dominate: Schmidt, Schwandt, Wiese, Lengnik. The 1950s and early 1960s have a different geographical flavour: Fedin, Prachov, Avdějev, Makarov. Once again, the Velká Pardubická had reinvented itself.
Yet Lata still had her admirers in the racing world, even if fewer than before occupied positions of influence. One of these was a young woman called Eva Vítová – future wife of 1953 Velká Pardubická winner Ferdinand Palyza and subsequently celebrated under her married name of Eva Palyzová. Eva was just old enough to have seen Lata race in Pardubice and had been inspired by her achievements to become a steeplechase jockey herself.
The racing world accepted her quickly. That would not have happened without Lata’s example – although Palyzová’s exceptional talent obviously helped. By the early 1960s she had won most major steeplechases in Czechoslovakia, some repeatedly; but the Velká Pardubická eluded her. She first started in the race in 1959, but failed to finish. Then, in 1965, she came back to Pardubice to try again.
Czechoslovakia was a slightly less frightening place by then. The apparent permanence of Communism had reduced the need for terror. The concentration camps had been closed, the show trials stopped, and the first hints were appearing of a political thaw that in 1968 would culminate in the ‘Prague Spring’ . Lata was still unacceptable as a national hero; but she was not quite so hopelessly beyond the pale.
With Palyzová considered to have a realistic chance of winning, someone had the bright idea of inviting Lata to watch Palyzová try to join her in Pardubice’s female hall of fame. She was tracked down, driven over, introduced to her young imitator and seated in a VIP box: a stooped, seventy-year-old figure who had to be helped by Palyzová on the steps. Many people left their seats in order to get a look at her. Jiří Kocman, a former Chlumec stable lad and Velká Chuchle apprentice who had ridden in the Velká Pardubická himself (and who later became a world champion carriage driver), was among those who spent time talking to her, mainly about horses. He found her ‘very friendly’ . ‘The Bolsheviks had tried to suppress the memory of her,’ says František Vítek, the jockey. ‘But people still remembered, and it was great that she could come.’
The thirteen-horse field that year included four Soviet horses, three from Romania and two from Hungary, but the finish was fought out by two horses from Czechoslovak state farms: Cavalet, ridden by Palyzová, and Mocná, ridden by Vítek. Cavalet had looked strong all race, apart from a knock at the fourteenth, and for much of the second half the six-year-old seemed poised to win, especially after Vítek almost fell at the Big Water Jump. ‘At one point I was two hundred metres behind,’ remembers Vítek. ‘I thought I was going to come second.’ So, presumably, did Lata. But Vítek kept Mocná in touch, and as they rounded the Popkovice woods Cavalet began to seem catchable
. Vítek let Mocná go. ‘As we passed the trees, she was flying. There were frozen leaves on the ground: I can still hear the sound of them crunching underfoot as we caught up.’ At the last, they were almost neck and neck. Cavalet took off first but brushed the top and Mocná landed fractionally ahead. This was all the encouragement Vítek needed. Mocná won by half a length.
She was the first mare to win since Norma, much to Lata’s delight. Afterwards, Vítek chatted with Lata; and whereas Palyzová (who rode in six subsequent Velká Pardubickás) does not seem to have been particularly impressed with her warmth, Vítek was. ‘She was very friendly to me,’ he says. ‘She told me that I had ridden a very clever race. I said I had just followed Palyzová. Then Lata said that she was very glad it was me who won, and not Eva Palyzová, because it meant that she was still the only woman ever to win the Velká Pardubická.’
The next day, a photograph of Lata and Palyzová together appeared in some newspapers, but readers seeking explanatory text were disappointed. In the words of the Czech sportswriter Pavel Kovář: ‘There was no way that an article about the life of the woman who won the Velká Pardubická could be published. No editor found the courage to do that.’
As time passed, Lata diminished. The tough, agile warrior who had ridden helmetless in Pardubice in 1949 had lost her cat-like resilience. Two decades after her last race, she had the hesitant shuffle of a frail-boned old woman.
Perhaps she was never entirely free from pain. Yet something in her bearing still suggested a sporting champion. There was a firmness in her gaze: a lack of apology for herself. For all her weakness, she never spared herself physically. She was still a natural leader.
The Brandis sisters’ legal difficulties were over by now. They had lost everything. There was nothing else to argue about. Instead, within the constraints of their poverty, they lived as they saw fit. A small circle of friends and family kept in touch – in an increasingly watchful capacity. Lata’s cousin Gikina Satorieová was perhaps the most regular visitor, especially after her husband’s death in 1971. But there were also Alžběta’s children, Jan and Eva; and, in due course, Jan’s wife and son (the current Jan Pospíšil). Petr Jaroševský used to visit, too, and eventually he too brought a wife and children with him. If a visiting family stayed overnight – as tended to happen – the children would share a room with Johanna, while the parents slept on the floor of the tiny dining room. By day, however, adults took precedence. Children were expected to behave impeccably indoors, even if – like the young Brandises – they were allowed to run amok outside. Similar rules applied for dogs.
Lata exchanged occasional letters with Ra, although her side of the correspondence is lost. Both knew that their letters were intercepted and read by the security services, so meaningful exchanges were minimal. But the letters told her that she was not forgotten. They petered out, however, following Lori’s death in May 1967. As for the other man who had once filled much of her life: Hanuš Kasalický had died in 1959, disgraced, dispossessed and bitterly resentful of both facts. His last years were spent barely ten miles from Klínec, in a small villa in Černošice. Lata may not even have known that he was there. Unlike him, she had moved on. ‘We closed the book,’ she explained once, when asked about her past life in Řitka, ‘and we never opened it again.’
Instead, the sisters tried to make the best of the new chapter in their life. They were helped in this by the friendship they developed with their weekend neighbours, the Breyers. The families used to visit one another for evening tea. Sometimes, too, at the Breyers’ house, they would stay and listen to German-language radio (again, broadcast from the West). Lata got on particularly well with their son, Petr, who was six when they first met in 1953. By 1965 he was eighteen and, encouraged by Lata, had become seriously interested in horses – so much so that, to Lata’s delight, he bought one, Lacík, which he kept nearby. Lata loved to watch Lacík and be close to him. There was no question of her riding again, although she must have been tempted. (She had occasionally tried to ride a bicycle – ‘like a man with a bellyful of beer’ , according to Jan Pospíšil – but her sisters had hidden it to prevent a recurrence.) But, even without riding, she thirsted for the company of horses. It was as if they refreshed her spirit. When farmers brought working horses to help mow the meadows above the woods, Lata used to go up and offer to lend a hand. The offer was absurd – there was nothing she could usefully do – yet she found it comfortable to be close to the creatures; and perhaps, too, they found it comfortable to be close to her. She still greeted each horse with a friendly pat, and it was clear from her body language that, even now, she felt entirely confident and relaxed in their company.
Frail-boned or not, ‘I simply do not believe that a horse
could ever deliberately do something bad to me.’
One winter in the early 1970s, Lata was ill. Father Javurek visited her in the cottage. A former political prisoner who had partially atoned for his crimes by driving a tractor on an agricultural cooperative, he felt a natural sympathy for those who had fallen foul of Communism. Parishioners used to warn him when they spotted StB informers at his services: ‘Hold your tongue, Josef !’ He and Lata got on well.
According to one account of their conversation, she expressed relative contentment with her lot: ‘They’ve been taking our property all our lives. First after the establishment of the republic, then Hitler and now the communists. But things could always get worse . . .’
She refused to talk about what she had lost: ‘Communism took everything we had but our pride – they couldn’t take that.’ In any case, she added: ‘You know what the Bible says: the ones who are first shall be the last.’
She did, however, admit to having one remaining wish – although ‘not even our Lord can grant it’. Father Javurek asked her what it was.
‘If only I could, at least for a while, sit in the saddle again.’
30.
The show goes on
Each October, the three old ladies would listen to the Velká Pardubická on the radio. Lata and her sisters were listening when Nestor won in 1966 – the last horse of Kinský descent to do so. They listened to Eva Palyzová’s unsuccessful attempts in 1967, 1969, 1970, 1971 and 1972. The last of these races also featured Jana Nová, who came eighth and last after falling twice but did at least finish.
They did not listen in 1968 because there was no race. The official reason was the weather, but everyone knew the real reason: Czechoslovakia was under military occupation. Eight months of joyous liberalisation had angered the Soviet Union, which in August had led a Warsaw Pact invasion to extinguish what the world called the Prague Spring. Months of brave but ultimately futile passive resistance followed, as Czechoslovaks tried to defend what Alexandr Dubcek, the Communist Party’s reforming First Secretary, called ‘socialism with a human face’. In Řitka, several people got carried away with the anti–Soviet graffiti (‘Brezhnev = Hitler’ was painted on a road) and Pavel Liška, manager of the Řitka part of the state farm, eventually lost his job for having painted the provocative word ‘Neutrality’ on the chateau gates.
But it took time for the reimposition of orthodoxy – ‘Normalisation’ – to take effect, and erstwhile political outcasts remained at least partially rehabilitated. In early 1969 Lata was among a group of prominent racing figures who were invited to a meeting at the State Racecourses organisation to discuss the commemoration of what would have been Rudolf Popler’s seventieth birthday. She didn’t contribute much, beyond saying how saddened she had been by Popler’s death. But it would have meant something to her to be included again, however briefly, among racing’s great and good.
Thereafter, her world continued to shrink. In January 1970, Gabriele died in Graz; Marie Therese died in Reiteregg the following year, on Christmas Day. Both sisters were buried in Austria. There was no question of going to either funeral – even assuming that the news reached Lata in time. Each loss will have grieved her, notwithstanding any tensions there had been
over the years; and it will not have escaped Lata’s notice that she now had more dead siblings than living ones.
By October 1973, Petr Breyer – who with Lata’s encouragement was on the way to becoming a successful event rider – was sufficiently concerned about Lata’s morale to decide that she needed a treat. So he drove her to Pardubice to watch the Velká Pardubická. She was not a celebrity this time: just an ordinary, unrecognised racegoer. But she was clearly delighted by the experience; and, in addition to the relief of seeing Eva Palyzová fail to finish on Metál, she must have been intrigued to see the first English victory in the race since 1906.
Seven months earlier, the British ambassador to Prague, Ronald Scrivener, had written an article for Country Life magazine evoking the glorious traditions – long forgotten in the West – of continental Europe’s most extreme steeplechase. Christopher Collins, a thirty-three-year–old amateur National Hunt jockey and event rider from Buckinghamshire, read the article and decided, in the same adventurous spirit that had brought Popler to Aintree forty-two years earlier, that he would try to win the race. The Cold War was in one of its chillier phases, and visits by Westerners behind the Iron Curtain were tortuously difficult to arrange. But the Czechoslovak racing authorities were eventually won over, and Collins was able to make a summer reconnaissance trip. He was horrified by what he saw – he initially assumed that Taxis was not a jump but ‘a sort of giant boundary between different sections of the course’ – but decided that ‘having got so far, I had better have a go’ . He returned in October with one of his own horses, Stephen’s Society, a seven-year-old Irish-bred gelding who was slow – his steeplechasing career had largely lapsed into hunting and eventing – but could at least be trusted to jump whatever he found in front of him.
