Back in the 1950s, Deirdre and her friend Sarah, both just nineteen, came to America. The pair had left Britain, where post-war ration books were still in use for food, petrol, and clothing. Sarah was to train horses and riders for Jamie Kreuz at Bryn Mawr Farms outside Philadelphia. Deirdre was to work for the Insurance Company of North America in Philadelphia and help Sarah on weekends. What follows is Part II of their adventures with Perfec’ Granary. Click for Part I, or type the author’s name in the Search box for more of her stories.
Illustration by Rosemary Coates
Because I loved Granary, Sarah let me exercise her daily. At this time we were experiencing some freezing autumn days, so just going out at all required a gritty determination. One thing with Granary—she had the ability to actually run away whilst merely walking along the road. She would walk faster and faster and a tug on the reins would only slow things momentarily. To make matters worse, her ‘walk-ability’ made it difficult to go out exercising with another horse, the sheer pace of keeping up with her exhausting the others. This ‘power-walking’ classed her as ‘unstoppable’ a lot of the time.
One particular day, I was galloping across the park at Valley Forge when I discovered another bit of jolly information about her. We might have named her ‘perfect,’ but we found she wouldn’t stop when asked to. I tried every technique known to jockeys to stop a horse that is carting them off, but nothing worked. In the end, as we were heading for some trees where I would surely be decapitated, the left rein broke. We then started going in circles—me, hauling on the unbroken rein and taking care not to actually pull the bit through her mouth. She was about to cut loose again when I managed to get a hand free to take some sugar lumps from my pocket, which I knew she loved. Luckily my pockets were bulging with them, for I liked them too! (Rationing, back home, you know.)
“Here Granary, good, sweet, kind, clever, loveable Granary…good girl, sugar,” I drooled.
She knew I’d something in my hand, and stopped! During all this drama, I had had the good rein twisted round my fingers to give me extra leverage, for the stopping process. I had wound it so tightly that it broke one finger. Later that day I had it put back together by the vet, but it has remained crooked for the rest of my life, so far.
Granary’s mortifying habit of carting us off had to be sorted, and it was decided to let her run. Then when she ran out of steam, to kick her on until she wanted nothing more than to stand still. We decided to use one of the immense fields grazed by the Santa Gertrudis cattle from the King Ranch in Texas. These menacing long-horned cattle were sent to Pennsylvania, to be fattened up for the beef steak market. We started the afternoon by fencing off the fields the cattle were in. Then the fun began.
Jamie and Sarah sat on the fence to watch the fun. Granary and I did twenty-four times round the field before she slowed, and the following day she was down to twelve. Eventually exhausted, her common sense prevailed. Although she still took off, going hunting helped. With hounds, her bottomless energy was very much appreciated.
One of my most wonderful American experiences was riding Granary, once her running away had been sorted out. I found out for the first time in my life what it was like to ride a perfectly schooled show hunter, and I have never forgotten the wonderful moments she gave me. The local hunt had English and Crossbred hounds, and I noted with great amusement that one of the dog hounds was Mischief and the bi*ch was Talk. All seemed grounds for a good gossip. Most of our days in the hunting field were spent jumping snake fences, logs, and chicken coops, at tremendous speed, in large groups, all abreast. The pace was often continuous for forty or fifty minutes. Falls were common. It was enormously exciting…if you survived!
At the end of one day I had put Granary out in the field and went up into the apartment. I had hardly slid down in my chair when I heard Jamie’s voice. “Quick, get a head collar, that maddening red-head has done it again.”
‘Done it again,’ could mean only one thing, for she had a way of demolishing stone walls. Sure enough, she was at it again. “Look at her,” yelled Jamie furiously, “teeter-tottering like a seesaw on top of the stone wall. She can’t go forward and she can’t go back. The whole damn thing is falling down round her. If she were mine, I’d leave her there. Crud she is. Never ever bring another chestnut mare into this barn. Do you all hear me? Just look at her!”
Indeed there she was—cuts all over, shaking, her stomach covered in blood. With Purrfec’ Granary in the stable, the working day was never done.
Posted April 4, 2017