A Job for All Seasons

by Phyllida Barstow

  Very few horses are perfect rides, some go too fast and some too slow, some carry their heads in the air or have a disconcerting tendency to buck, rear, nap, or indulge in some other form of equine wickedness which I, like most other owners, have always sought to counter by buying just one more set of boots, or a different bit, or a cat’s cradle of complicated straps (known collectively in family-speak as ‘hooping farthingales’) which, I am convinced, will banish the problem. Of course they hardly ever do, but hope springs eternal and the alluring smell of new leather, the enticing heaps of brightly coloured ropes and rugs, saddles and bandages, have too often proved irresistible.

  There, for instance, among once-necessary, now redundant treasures is the extra-long folded-leather girth I had made to measure when my own little thoroughbred mare, Dino, who had never been quite up to my weight, died suddenly, and my uncle very handsomely softened the blow by offering me a big bay ex-’chaser on permanent loan as a substitute. Who could turn down such a proposal?

  Preciway was of distinguished lineage, his sire being Preciptic, and his relations included many stars both of flat-racing and over the sticks, notably those whose names began Pre – Premonition, Precipice Wood, Precipitation and so on – but his own career had been patchy. He never shone very brightly on the racecourse, though he had tried most things, first on the Flat in France, then over hurdles and eventually moving on to steeplechasing in England, where the height of his achievement was to win – against all expectations – a three-mile race at Newbury at Tote odds of 92–1.

  ‘That’s nearly £500, darling,’ gloated my grandmother in triumph. She had, with unswerving loyalty through many disappointments, asked my mother to put yet another fiver to win on Preciway. At last, she thought, her son’s horse had come up trumps.

  But alas, Mummy had taken advice from his wily old trainer, who told her the horse was only half fit and unlikely to get the trip. She had therefore, with the kind intention of saving her mother’s fiver, failed to place the bet. Gritting her teeth, she felt honour bound to pay Granny with her own money, which slightly prejudiced her against Preciway. He never won again, finally breaking down and being pronounced unfit for further racing. That was when he was offered to me.

  ‘Breaking down’ is a blanket term that covers differing degrees of injury, and many a horse recovers enough for less serious work than galloping and jumping at full speed. Six weeks later, when Preciway was said to be sound again, I went to look at him.

  High on the Wiltshire Downs, alone in a bare, stony paddock on a bleak day in early Spring stood this gaunt, dejected animal with prominent hipbones and sharp high withers, hunched against the wind, looking like a giant toast-rack coated in mud, with long coarse ‘cat-hairs’ sticking out of his otherwise clipped coat. No company, no rug, no forage except some hay scattered at random, plus what he could grub from the muddy ground. His head was hanging low and looked much too big for his thin neck, but he raised it, cocking his ears and whinnying in a hopeful way, then stood looking after me as I went back down the hill.

  ‘The poorer he gets, the quicker he’ll mend,’ growled his trainer when I tentatively questioned this treatment. He was probably right, but to anyone not in the racing game it seemed pretty rough on a horse to be rugged and cossetted and fed like a prince until he was injured, then turned out to fend for himself on a bleak, windy hillside. At once I made arrangements to collect him.

  The arrival of Preciway at Bromsden had echoes of Gulliver’s incursion into Lilliput. At 16.3 h h, long and rangy in build, he was much the biggest horse we had ever stabled in the wooden shed which Duff and Bert, a local handyman, had built at the bottom of the garden, and inevitably most of my existing tack was too small for him. As well as the folded leather girth, I had to buy a new bridle and headcollar, new rugs and an enormous striped wool blanket, and raise the height of rings and brackets for buckets – this last bit of adjustment less for the horse’s benefit but to stop his companion donkey from guzzling half his rations.

  Introducing him to Donk was hair-raising. We did it the approved way, letting Preciway settle into his new field for a few hours before bringing the donkey to the gate, whereupon the big horse trotted up with bulging eyes and ears braced forward, gave a trumpet blast down his nostrils and bolted for the fence at the far end – no great distance in so small a paddock – and it looked to me touch and go whether he would fly it and crash into the trees, wrecking his leg all over again.

  In the last two yards he skidded to a halt, whirled round, galloped back for another horrified look at the furry stranger, and hightailed off again round the field, dodging trees and drain covers while Donk, who was a friendly chap, compounded the problem by lifting his head and releasing a heartrending bray.

  ‘Take him away,’ I said urgently, handing Duff the lead-rope, and myself dashed to get halter and bucket in the hope of catching Precy and calming him down. Donk was reluctant to leave and had to be dragged away, braying in protest, and it was several fraught minutes before I managed to get a headcollar on the horse and lead him, sweating and shaking, into the stable.

  It was a problem we hadn’t expected. The two simply had to get used to one another if they were to share a field since I had nowhere else to put either of them. I couldn’t understand it. All the other horses we had kept had loved Donk and indulged him even to the degree of letting him share buckets and haynets.

  Over the next few days we niggled them closer by degrees, keeping both under restraint as we groomed them on opposite sides of the fence, progressed to leading them down the lane side by side, letting them sniff over the stable door and finally turning Precy into the field again while Donk yearned over the gate of the tiny yard. By evening they were fraternising warily, and the following day – hard-heartedly docking them both of breakfast – I risked turning them out together again. After an anxious half hour while Donk made overtures and Precy warily retreated, they settled down to graze on opposite sides of the paddock and that was the end of the trouble. A month later they were inseparable, sharing everything including the stable, and when my uncle came to see how his horse had adapted to his new life, he nicknamed them ‘Les Deux Gugusses,’ after the French clowns.

  Apart from his fear of donkeys, Preciway was the most laid-back character imaginable. ‘Seen that, been there, done that,’ was his motto, and his wide experience of travelling, training, schooling, and racing crowds made him pretty well bomb-proof in situations other horses found stressful. The only time I remember him getting over-excited was when we passed a game of football: I suppose the keyed-up men in bright shirts reminded him of jockeys coming into the paddock.

  He took to hunting with enthusiasm and I found it a great thrill to ride this perfectly biddable Rolls Royce of a horse, who could easily out-gallop and out-jump the rest of the Field, but was equally prepared to stand calmly when there was nothing going on. He even acted as lead-master when I took Alice to her first Pony Club meet on her Dartmoor pony, Nutty, who had to take about four strides to every one of Preciway’s, but in the bath that night I found Alice’s thigh black and blue with bruises from banging against my stirrup and we decided to leave her entirely to the care of Nutty in future.

  Plenty of reminders of Nutty – full name Gingernut – still lurk about the tackroom. Her tiny rugs, her elastic-sided safety stirrups, and most treasured of all, her brass-mounted driving-harness, complete with breast-collar sporting a bell engraved Victoria, and probably dating from the last years of the old Queen’s reign. I bought it for a tenner from the retiring proprietor of a seaside donkey-rides outfit, and for a time Donk wore it to pull a small light exercise cart. He was, like all donkeys, only moderately receptive to instructions, and we never dared to take him on the roads since his cavalier attitude to traffic might have ended in disaster.

  With Nutty between the shafts it was a different matter. She fairly rattled along, steady as a rock whatever the traffic. When Alice was nine she used to drive her the three miles from Brom
sden to Nettlebed to buy what we called Indelicatessen – ie basic stores – from the village shop, because I knew of no rule or by-law that a child has to attain a particular age before driving a pony and cart on the King’s Highway. I always supposed that she took the lane through the woods, and only drove on the road within the village’s speed limit zone, so was somewhat taken aback when accosted in the supermarket by a bossy neighbour.

  ‘I must say I’m surprised you let your little girl drive that pony up the A423,’ she said accusingly. ‘There’s such a lot of traffic. I’d never be brave enough to risk it.’

  Whoops! Alice on the very straight, very fast, main road through the woods? I shot home to scold her, but she took the wind out of my sails by pointing out that I had never specified which way she was to go, and the lane was so rough and potholed that they couldn’t go faster than a walk. Besides, the main road was safer. Drivers could see the cart from a long way away, and always slowed down to give her a wide berth and a friendly wave. All true enough, but even so Mrs Bosspot’s words had spooked me, and I decreed that for the moment, at least, the shopping trips must stop.

  Driving was only Nutty’s second string, however. First and foremost she was a gymkhana pony, winning the serried rows of multi-coloured rosettes in the tackroom that now fascinate my grandchildren.

  ‘You mean Mummy won all those?’

  Sack Race. Gretna Green. Bending. Musical Chairs. Each has its date and provenance inscribed on the back and each represents a triumph for Nutty and a nail-biting few minutes for me. Though only 10.3 hands high and so broad in the back that no saddle but an inherently unstable pad anchored with a crupper would fit her, Nutty was nevertheless quick on her feet, and she and Alice shared a strong competitive instinct. Where other ponies galloped, she trotted like a metronome, ever-ready to wheel round, pull up, or accurately perform any other manoeuvre the race called for.

  Thus in bending, while other children charged up the line and struggled to wrench their ponies round the end pole, Nutty would change direction without breaking stride and be weaving calmly towards the finish. Balancing potatoes on poles is a doddle if the pony stands still; almost impossible if it won’t, and Musical Chairs, in which they specialised, involves so much vaulting on and off that a very small pony is a distinct plus.

  Jumping was not her forte, but success in gymkhanas continued for years. As Alice grew tall and long-legged and Nutty remained the same size, I used to hear muttering at the ringside. ‘Look at that child! Shouldn’t still be riding that poor little thing. Miles too big for it …’ which was nonsense because Nutty’s forebears had carried full-grown men across Dartmoor since the Ice Age and anyway, Alice always dismounted between heats, as much for her own comfort as Nutty’s.

  In only one respect did she fall short as the ideal child’s first pony, as my mother discovered when buying her. For months she had gently tried to persuade the previous owner to part with her, but only just before the price was finally agreed did the curiously reluctant seller reveal Nutty’s dark secret: she was not safe in a field with small children, and would kick them if she got the chance. Before the sale went through, my mother had to promise that she would never send a child alone to catch her.

  There had, it seemed, been an incident involving broken ribs and a seven-year-old put off riding for good. Indeed, Nutty habitually laid back her ears and presented her hindquarters in a menacing way even when an adult approached with a halter, and though she never wore shoes no one relished the prospect of being lammed in the shins by those hard little hoofs. Sweet talk and something delicious in the form of carrot or apple were needed to bring her head round towards you, but the moment the rope was round her neck she could be safely handled by a four-year-old.

  She and Preciway made a strange pair. Once when I had a puncture on the M4 and was struggling with the wheelbrace, a Good Samaritan in a sports car spotted the horses fidgeting on the hard shoulder and screeched to a stop beside us. We were in a precarious situation. The puncture was in the Land Rover’s back wheel, but I couldn’t use the jack without unloading the trailer for fear of breaking the hitch, and in any case wasn’t strong enough to shift the wheelnuts, which some demon of a mechanic had done up extra tight.

  Nannie – not one of Nature’s horse-lovers – was holding Preciway at arm’s length, while Nutty, with Alice only lightly in charge, guzzled the grass on the bank. If either of them got loose on the motorway, we would have been in the soup.

  Never have I felt such a surge of relief as when the stranger jumped out and said: ‘Let me do that. Where’s the jack?’

  It was plain that he was in a tearing hurry, which made his action in coming to our aid all the more noble. In a twinkling he jacked up the Land Rover, changed the wheel, looked at his watch, and said, ‘Must dash, I’m in the first race at Chepstow. Can you load the mare and foal yourselves?’

  Given their relative sizes, it was a natural mistake. I assured him we could, popped Precy and Nutty back into the trailer and went on our way with a prayer of thankfulness and heartfelt hope that he would win every race he ever rode in.

  Preciway lived with us for six years and was a hard act to follow. When hunting fit he was a splendid sight, his bright bay coat rippling with muscle. So long and smooth was his stride that you felt he was hardly moving and wondered why other horses couldn’t keep up. My sister Olivia’s vivid description of flying wired-up hedges, tigertraps and a five-barred gate on him during the best run of the 1970 season is the highlight of my Hunting Journal.

  Only a thickened near fore remained to hint at past leg problems, but thoroughbreds are delicate creatures and since the Chilterns abound in flints sharp enough to puncture the sole of a hoof, we all gained a good deal of experience in poulticing and bandaging and spent much time crouching in the straw winding Animalintex and gamgee round his feet. It was tendon trouble, however, that did for him in the end. Veterinary bills mounted after a final injury, and reluctantly we took the decision to put him down.

  Most of the equipment in the tackroom that relates to horse-breaking and training date from the era of his successor, who was a bit of a come-down in every sense. Long reins, lunging headcollar, roller, side-reins, mouthing-bit with little keys, long, snaky lunging whip and bits of many different shapes were all tried and rejected during the years when I tried unsuccessfully to school her to follow in his footsteps, but you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and though she eventually became an agreeable hack, Twiga was never going to rival Preciway.

  Offspring of a spindly thoroughbred mare and a strapping Welsh cob sire, she was unfortunate in her physique. I had hoped for thoroughbred quality combined with Welsh cob sturdiness – quality leavened by substance – but the cross produced precisely the wrong result: a heavy Welsh cob body on fragile thoroughbred legs.

  To add to her troubles, the foal was orphaned at birth, and she survived her rocky start in life entirely due to my parents’ determination and resource. She was born in Wales, without much apparent difficulty, but after foaling, the mare didn’t even try to get to her feet, and when my mother telephoned me at Bromsden to announce her arrival, she already knew something was seriously wrong. By the time I had driven from Oxfordshire, the mare was paralysed, the vet was mystified, and it was clear to us all that she was dying.

  It was a hot, sultry July afternoon, buzzing with horseflies in the small paddock they had put her in for privacy, right under the windows of the house, and it was heartbreaking to see how the foal kept nuzzling and pawing with her small hoof at her recumbent dam, then lifting her head to search vainly for the teats that should have been above her.

  ‘We’ll have to bottle-feed her,’ said my mother, but at once we hit a problem. At the time the only source of powdered mare’s-milk was an Irish company, and owing to a postal strike supplies were not being delivered. Sow’s milk was the nearest substitute, but not suitable for a new-born foal.

  Presently the mare breathed her last, and we removed th
e orphan to a stable as the threatened thunderstorm broke over the valley. Nutty had a foal of her own that year, and for an hour we tried to persuade her to allow the hungry orphan to suckle, but small as she was, she defeated all our efforts. Even with her hind legs tied together to stop her kicking, and her head held by two strong men to prevent her buffeting the usurper, her squeals of fury whenever we manoeuvred the poor foal close to her udder frightened it too badly for it to concentrate on the job. Nor would she let us handmilk her. Rigid with resentment, she held up her milk so that not a drop reached the basin, while with every minute that passed, the orphan grew weaker.

  ‘Isn’t there a kind of Foal Bank?’ my father said, gazing over the half-door at the dejected foal. ‘I’m sure I’ve read about it somewhere.’

  A call to the British Horse Society confirmed it. Not long before, Miss Johanna Varden had set up a Foal Bank specifically to address problems like ours and put the owners of bereaved mares in touch with orphaned foals and vice versa. It was exactly what we needed, but would she have a match?

  For three anxious hours we waited for her to ring back, while the foal lay in the straw, a pathetically angular collection of joints with clapped-in sides in a blackish covering, with a curious yellow fuzz on her saddle area. Although it was steamily hot, she began to shiver, so we bundled her up in a cellular blanket with a duvet over it, but we could see her vital force diminishing minute by minute.

  At last the telephone shrilled: good news for us, but terrible for the teenager whose precious five-week-old foal had broken his neck in a freak accident that morning. She had bought him a top-quality leather ‘slip’ – a tiny head-collar designed for foals – and by ill-chance its ring had caught on the bolt of the stable door when he stuck an inquisitive head over. He had pulled back, the strong, new leather held fast, his neck was dislocated and he died instantly. The mare was distraught, neighing continually; the teenage owner in floods of tears, but Yes, they would allow her to foster our foal and they lived near Worcester.