My Animals and Other Family

by Clare Balding

  For a while, Andrew wanted to be a show jumper—but he had also wanted to be a fireman, an astronaut and a Jedi knight, so we took his career choices with a pinch of salt. It was when, at the age of eight, he announced that he wanted to be a racehorse trainer that something happened. It was as if the wind had changed direction, or that smell there is when it’s about to rain had come.

  My father began to have serious conversations with him about the horses, and my grandmother started sentences with the words “When Andrew’s in charge . . .” or “When Andrew lives here . . .” It wasn’t that my brother became someone else—he was still motivated by pizza, chips and chocolate—it’s just that everyone else seemed to change their attitude toward him. It was as if he mattered now.

  I caught snippets of whispered conversations about Andrew’s future as the master of Park House.

  “Well, thank God he wants to do it,” my mother said.

  “Of course he wants to do it. What kind of idiot wouldn’t want to do it?” was my father’s clipped response.

  Any suggestion of a life other than the one my father had led perplexed him. Being a racehorse trainer was surely the most valuable, important and respectable job on the planet.

  Women were allowed to hold a training license by now, thanks to the efforts of Florence Nagle, who had fought hard to persuade the Jockey Club that, even though she didn’t wear trousers, she could still train a racehorse. There were a few female trainers around—Jenny Pitman started training in 1975 and won the Grand National in 1983 with Corbiere; Mercy Rimell took over from her husband, Fred; and Mary Reveley had consistent success over many decades. But, in our household, training was a man’s job.

  Andrew read the Sporting Life and the Racing Post every day. He could work out fractions if it was computing his winnings from a five-pound bet at 6–4; he knew how many lengths to a pound over a mile and how it differed over a mile and a half; he remembered the effect of the draw at Chester or Doncaster; he understood weight for age and weight allowances for fillies. He could suddenly speak a language that allowed him to communicate with my parents and with Grandma. I listened to them all and nodded occasionally, saying things like, “Makes sense to me.”

  But none of it did. I just didn’t get it, and I hated it because I didn’t understand what they were all going on about and why it was all so important. I resented that every conversation was about which horse was running where, who was riding it and which one of them was going to saddle it. No one read a proper newspaper or watched the news. Nuclear war could’ve broken out—we were near enough to Greenham Common for it to be all too real a prospect—and none of them would have noticed unless it meant that Royal Ascot was canceled. The world revolved around racing and, if I wasn’t in, I was out.

  Once Andrew had decided he wanted to train at Park House, it was clear that I was going to have to find something else to do with my life. I was ten.

  I talked it through with Frank. Well, I talked. He listened, brown ears flickering back and forth.

  “I’ll show them,” I vowed.

  I was riding on the farm, where twenty or so drag-hunt fences had been trimmed up, ready for the children’s meet. I squeezed him in the belly and we sailed over the tires, the timber and the barrels by the side of the Range Road. I patted Frank on the neck and slowed down to a trot, then let him open up into a stronger canter on the grass of Long Meadow. This is where I felt alive—with the wind in my face, galloping and jumping with Frank.

  My beloved Frank devoured solid cross-country fences, but show jumps were a trickier prospect. He wasn’t at all sure about colored poles. For our first Pony Club event, Liz, who was working at the stud, had helped me wash Frank with soapy water. We had attempted to braid his spiky mane and make the best of his dreadful tail. Poor Frank looked like a farmer forced into a morning suit—it wasn’t him at all. Nevertheless, we trotted into the show-jumping arena.

  “Next into the ring,” said the announcer, “we have Clare Balding riding Prince Frank.”

  Mum and I had decided that we ought to at least give a nod in recognition of Frank’s former name, just in case it really was unlucky to change it.

  I sat into the saddle, took a strong contact on the reins and squeezed Frank into a collected canter. The bell went. We found a lovely rhythm and cantered into the first—red-and white-striped poles. I thought we met it on the perfect stride, but Frank didn’t really take off and crashed straight through it. Thrown off balance, I nearly fell off but picked his head up off the floor and on we went.

  The next was a rustic brown fence and he sailed over, then a blue-and-white oxer—crash, the back pole came down. Into the green-and-white double and Frank brought the first part down with his hind legs, the second with his front legs, the pole coming with us for two more strides.

  I didn’t know what to do apart from keep going. The plain white or rustic fences were fine, but the colored ones he smashed to pieces. We finally finished; I patted Frank on the neck and the announcer said, “An interesting round there for Clare Balding and Prince Frank. Thirty-two faults. Don’t think we’ll be winning any prizes with that.”

  My face turned bright red as we trotted out of the ring. I could tell from looking at my mother that she was in shock.

  “I just don’t know what happened,” I said. “He jumps so well at home and he was fine in the collecting ring. Something must have scared him.”

  “Never mind,” my mother was saying. “Poor old Frank, maybe show-jumping’s not for you.”

  From across the horse trailer park, I had just caught sight of a woman running. She was making a strange sound, like a goat bleating.

  “Oooh, ooh, ooh. It’s Prince. It’s my beloved Prince.”

  She had flung her arms round Frank and was kissing him on the neck. He looked bemused and I felt a pang of something I would later identify as jealousy.

  “Hello,” said my mother, as politely as she could. She didn’t do well in the face of public displays of affection. “Can we help you?”

  “I heard the clattering,” said the woman, “and I thought—I only know one pony who could knock down that many show jumps.”

  She stroked him gently as her words came tumbling out.

  “Oh, I thought he’d died. I thought I’d never see him again. Where did you find him? How is he? Where’s he been? Did you know about the animal-testing place? You do know he needs sunblock, don’t you?”

  The questions came so fast I couldn’t take them in, but it emerged that this woman, Sarah, had ridden Frank when she was a little girl. When she grew out of him, her father promised he would find him a nice home but, in fact, the pony had been earmarked by some scientists who had noticed his extra-sensitive skin. They wanted to test creams and potions on him and offered £1,000 for him to go to an animal-testing unit near Newmarket. Her father had accepted. When Sarah found out, they had a huge quarrel and she left home. She had not since spoken to her father.

  Frank—or Prince, as she called him—had been rescued from the animal-testing place by a trainer called Frankie Durr, had gone through various racing families and had ended up at Swindon market, where my mother had bought him for £500.

  “It’s the colors,” she was saying. “He’s scared of the colored poles. You’ll find he’s fine with plain ones, but stripes and all that—he hates them. Oh, I’m so pleased you’ve got him. You will keep in touch, won’t you?”

  Sarah scribbled her address and phone number on the show program and thrust it into my mother’s hand. She kissed Frank on the nose and she was gone.

  “Well, that was an experience,” my mother said, as she filled a bucket with water. “An animal-testing unit? Poor old Frank.”

  Mum sent Sarah a letter every few months with a photo of Frank to let her know what we were up to. I tried to accept the fact that I was not the first to love him, and I hoped that Sarah would keep her distance.
Over time, I realized that, as Frank couldn’t read her letters, she was not a threat.

  ~

  The day of the children’s meet was upon us. This was the one day of the year when children were actively encouraged to go drag hunting. The fences were smaller than usual and you could go around them all if you had to. Dad had given Andrew and me a stern talking to. We were to listen to him and to stay right behind him.

  I was so excited I had barely slept the night before, and I arrived at breakfast dressed in my beige jodhpurs, my shirt and my Pony Club tie. I had, however, learned my lesson. They were covered by a scruffy pair of jeans and a sweatshirt so I could get as dirty as I needed to, peel off the top layer and be spotless underneath.

  Andrew didn’t mind so much, nor did he intend to do much in the way of preparation for Raffles. If he was nervous, he didn’t show it. I couldn’t stop chattering on about what we were going to jump, who would be coming, which lines we were doing and how much I thought Frank would enjoy it. Andrew sat there, stuffing toast into his mouth, grunting.

  Dad was out putting up signs directing people where to park and trying to make sure they didn’t turn their horse trailers into the main entrance of the yard. He kept running back into the house, slamming the back door and shouting, “Emma!” at the top of his voice.

  He had left something behind, or lost something, or forgotten someone’s name. This needed to be solved, immediately, by my mother. Mum was getting Andrew’s things together, so I headed off to the stud to start preparing Frank for the big day.

  Liz, our supersonic groom, had already done most of the work. Liz did things very fast. She even walked fast, like Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing, or Andre Agassi, with short steps. She had curly brown hair and a round face. She never seemed to lose her temper and was so happy every day just to be paid to be working with horses. Liz had cleaned our tack and groomed our ponies, so all I had to do was put on Frank’s tack while I told him who was coming, and paint on his hoof oil. I stood back to admire my wonderful pony in all his glory.

  “Ah, well, you can’t polish a turd.” My father had arrived in the yard. I had no idea what he meant, so I just sighed and said, “Doesn’t he look smart?”

  “I suppose that’s one way of describing him. Now where’s your lazy brother?”

  Dad was wearing his bright-red jacket with gold buttons, white breeches and gleaming black boots. He carried a hunting crop and there was a horn in a leather pouch to the side of his saddle. Paintbox, with his white face and his shiny chestnut coat, looked magnificent. And huge. He was a big horse who pulled so hard no one but my father could hold him.

  I got on Frank, but there was still no sign of Andrew. Raffles was all ready in his stall, so I suggested we lead him up to the house to save time. As we headed up the path, my mother appeared, dragging my brother behind her. His shirt was hanging out, his tie had egg on it and his jodhpurs were too tight. He had spilled butter and Marmite on his smart jodhpurs so was now wearing brown ones. They would at least hide the dirt.

  “He went back to bed,” Mum explained as my father made a low, growling sound, the same sound he made when a puppy peed in the house.

  We rode together to the meet, in the field behind our house. There were loads of children on ponies, their parents on foot looking rather anxious. Andrew and I stood on either side of Dad for a photo and then he hollered at the assembled masses, “Gather round!” I always thought it was a good thing my father had a loud voice, because he seemed to do a lot of shouting.

  “Welcome to the children’s meet here at Kingsclere. It’s lovely to see so many of you. We have four lines today and there is an alternative route round every jump so, please, if your pony decides it doesn’t like the look of something, just go round it. There are certain rules that we all need to follow for safety, so listen carefully while I take you through them . . .”

  As Dad listed all the things we couldn’t do, Frank and Raffles both started to get edgy. They wouldn’t stand still, so Andrew and I peeled off from the gathering and took them for a trot around the field.

  “There’s no point us listening,” said Andrew. “We’ve heard it all before.”

  Raffles had a Balding gag in his mouth, a gag invented by our great-great-grandfather. It’s a bit with holes in the rings on either side and a piece of rope going through them which pulls down on the poll so that the horse lowers its head when the rider pulls on the reins, in theory making it easy to slow the horse down.

  Dad had finished shouting, for now, and the hounds moved off with the Master, Roger Palmer, in his red coat at the head of them, and four more people around the hounds. They were “whipping in,” so it was their job to make sure the hounds were following the scent and staying on track.

  The first line started on the farm, went down the Range Road, left up Long Meadow, through Smith’s Bushes and finished at the end of a long climb at the top of the Downs. My father thought it would take the sting out of the ponies who were too fresh and pulling hard. This was a good plan, but what he hadn’t foreseen was the downhill end to the Range Road and the sharp left turn. With fifty ponies all charging together, this turned into a Grand Prix-type chicane and hairpin bend.

  Dad let the hounds get well ahead and then, with one last holler at everyone to stay behind him, he set off. I was right behind him and heading toward the first set of tires in relative control. I thought Andrew was with me but Raffles started dancing on the spot as he heard the horn of the Master. He was rearing slightly and jumping up and down, so Andrew gave him a kick in the belly and loosened his reins a notch. That was an invitation Raffles could not refuse.

  The round-bellied little monster took off. As we jumped the second fence I could hear Andrew screaming as he flew past me. He took the third fence upside Dad, who shouted, “Do not go past me, I said, ‘Do not—’” he realized who it was “—Andrew, pull him up, pull him up. Turn left, left!”

  Andrew had never really gotten the hang of left and right, so he went one way and then the other and ended up going straight on. At the bottom of the Range Road is a double-width six-bar white gate. It’s for the tractors and combine harvesters to come into the farm from the Sydmonton road. It’s over five feet tall and made of iron. Andrew and Raffles were heading straight for it.

  Raffles cleared the gate in style but, as they landed on the other side, Andrew fell off—more out of shock than anything else. My father put his hand in the air to signal to the rest of the field to stop and called over the gate, “Are you all right?” Andrew nodded and bit his lip. “Right, catch that damn pony and stay at the back. Clare, you look after him. The rest of you, follow me.”

  With that, the Field Master, our father, took the field and headed up Long Meadow. I opened a small wooden gate to the side, told Andrew to wait there and went trotting off toward the village. I found Raffles not far away, munching grass at the side of the road.

  Andrew and I could see the field disappearing up the hill to the Downs, so we hacked along together, jumping all the fences up Long Meadow. By the time we’d caught them up, Mum was anxiously looking for us. Despite much hurrumphing from Dad that “the boy should carry on—it’ll be good for him,” she decided to take Andrew and Raffles home.

  Over the next three lines, I stuck right behind my father. Frank was brilliant. He put in short strides, saw long ones, met most of the fences just right and didn’t even pull. When we got to the Team Chase fences, Dad said, “Come on then, girl, get right upsides me.”

  We raced the whole way up to the top ring, Frank and Paintbox side by side, the one tall and handsome, the other squat and ugly. Dad turned to me as we pulled up, and grinned.

  “Handsome is as handsome does, I suppose. You’re quite some pony.” He was smiling at Frank.

  I felt so proud as we headed home. I was flushed with excitement; Frank was still high on adrenaline so refused to walk but jig-jogged the whole way bac
k. We were covered in mud, flecks of sweat and froth, but we were happy.

  My Frank wasn’t born to jump colored poles in smart show-jumping rings. He was born for this.

  ~

  Grandma was not a fan of Frank’s. By way of introduction, he had stood on her toe and butted her hard in her considerable bosom.

  “That pony is unattractive and ill mannered,” I heard her say to my mother. “I suppose they’ll suit each other well.”

  I had been reading enough adventure books to think that it would take just one act of heroism for both Frank and me to turn Grandma in our favor. We just needed the opportunity.

  That chance came on a murky evening in 1980, right at the end of the summer holidays. Grandma’s favorite dog was called Dusk. She was a small, fine-boned black whippet and a law unto herself. She would take herself off hunting for hours on end and, on this particular evening, she had been gone for longer than ever. Grandma had walked to every spot she could think, she had whistled and called, but there was no sign of Dusk.

  Seeing my chance to be the hero of the hour, I said, “Don’t worry, Grandma. Frank and I will find her.”

  Grandma was standing in our kitchen with her husky jacket on. Andrew was forcing cake into an already full mouth. My father was out in the yard and my mother was chopping vegetables she had picked from the garden. None of them seemed to hear me as I waved a cheery good-bye and headed off to tack up Frank.

  We rode over to Grandma’s side of the road, along the boundary hedgerows, through Smith’s Bushes and up to the Downs, back down the chalk track, through the farm and over to the avenues, under the hill and down the Far Hedge, me calling all the way, “Dusk! Dusk, where are you?”