I LOVE MYI HORSE!

I was lofted up onto Blind Rosy at the age of four at our little farm near Feock in Cornwall and she became my best friend in real and imaginary life. So began my love of anything four-legged and smelling horsey. Rosy's best friend was sadly an enormous carthorse with whom she shared a field.

Catching Rosy became difficult as Carthorse decided if she was not to be included in any fun going on outside the field, then we were not separating her from her friend. I can still hear those enormous thudding feet chasing Rosy into a corner of the field to be guarded from capture!

Our farm lad used to have to come to our aid with a bucket of corn and just occasionally we caught the pony and I got my ride. I can still feel the earth shake as Carthorse thundered past me kicking his heels high in the air and snorting. From my two feet six viewpoint he seemed and I suppose was, as high as a mountain and just as intimidating.

Rosy did not resemble her namesake and in fact was quite ugly and her manners were no better. I was lucky if I got her to leave the gate where her friend was hanging out and if I did get her fifty yards up the road at a dragged out walk, then our return was at a half gallop as she bellowed her return to the gate.

Luckily we moved soon after to a new farm in a new location and having mourned my first meeting with the four legged brigade and started school, one day a commotion began as up the drive appeared a little white pony pulling a flat bed cart which carried a gypsy looking women wearing a turban, dirty green wellies and pulling any number of beautiful dogs and a couple of stunning arab horses.

Mother met Miss Stevens who became one of our most valued friends in Cornwall. We never discovered her parentage but learned that she lived less than fifteen minutes from us and bred Arab horses and the beautiful breed of dog, the Saluki. The sight of ten horses galloping around the outside of a field with ten salukies following them all with mains and tails flowing in the wind will remain with me for ever.

Miss Stevens lived with her elderly Mother in an old farm The Pelere Stud just above Penryn. When we visited we entered through the kitchen where several piglets had made their home, a couple of chickens were clucking having laid their eggs and a sickly cat and dog were being nursed.

The smell as you entered immediately made you want to turn tail and leave before unconsciousness took over. Miss Stevens Mother was called and we were shown into the front parlor and served tea in formal grandeur from an elegant tea service. This room was for the elegant side of life and obviously its owners came from one of the finest families in the land.

The smell however followed one wherever you sat.

The biggest surprise was the art that surrounded us. We heard later that the family owned much land in Penryn, the old Nunnery, many acres surrounding the peninsular and that Miss Stevens was a famous artist. Her front parlor was full of her porcelain figurines and horse sculptures sponsored by the Saudi Royal Family and Royal Doulton. They had also asked her to sculpt the Beatrice Potter figurines so highly regarded and purchased for years to come.

She however had said she did not have the time as her animals took up her life. Mother always said what a terrible waste of such an enormous talent. I still have a picture she sent me on my birthday which I think is a lino cut of an Arab horse's head. Quite simple but quite beautiful.

Outside of the house the smell and the dirt were no better. Her beautiful horses were kept in stables so overloaded with dirty straw that they had to bend their heads to leave through the door. She kept three or four Jersey cows that stood feet deep in manure which she milked every day sitting on a stool surrounded with the same filth.

My mother begged her to accept all the commisions for her art but to no avail, she kept going with her animals, knee deep in filth, whilst teaching me to ride her beautiful Arab stallion Darky and taking me to Carnivals dressed as a Burbah in bright blue swathed from head to foot. We walked all the way there with four or five other scared children on very dangerous horses and all the way back and enjoyed every minute.

Dina, the pony who had pulled Miss Stevens up the lane of our farm had in the meantime been lent to me as my next pony. She was fine except she kicked from behind and bit from the front. In between, once caught very often with a pitchfork as she was so nasty, she then refused to budge. It did great things for my thigh muscles but not much for my temper.

Tommy was my next pony and he was the BEST. One very snowy cold morning around Xmas time my father told me to put on my riding gear as we were going to see a friend who owned ponies. It turned out that the friend was a horse-trader called Capt. Micklam of Scorrier. I faintly remember arriving and being introduced to a pony of no particular character who was dragged out of his stall by his tail and who was then presented as my Xmas present!!!!

The joy of owning my first own pony still stays with me and the ride home on very slippery roads and down Frog Hill in the snow is one I will never forget. Tommy taught me how to ride and never once behaved badly. I am sure that could not be said of me but he just was a joy and we explored the whole of our world in Cornwall together. I never wore a dress or skirt, just rubber boots and trousers. In fact my toe nails were so worn down at one side by the boots that to this day they still do not grow to the satisfaction of my manicurist.

However, he did win me the title of Most Improved Junior Rider of the Year at the local hunt pony club and to this day I have a photograph of me being presented with a cup by John Williams, master of the Forburrow Hunt in the Headland Hotel in Newquay. I was wearing short white socks and black velvet flat shoes to my eternal dismay while everyone else wore heels and stockings.

Of course Tommy could not progress at the speed I wanted and with the crassness of youth he was put out to grass and a new faster, sleeker model was introduced. Father announced that we were going to see a friend of Miss Stevens who was selling a fast cob who could jump the moon. I had forgotten to tell him that I couldn't and was terrified.

We arrived at the address, someone got on and indeed proceeded to jump everything in sight including every hedge between every field, at the speed of light.

I shrank into the bushes and decided this was a hedge too far but Rhythm was duly bought for the grand price of thirty pounds and delivered to the Pelham Stud, the grand name for the rather dirty farm of my teacher.

She took great care to introduce horse to rider and by the time I left and took my new posh horse to our farm, I had fallen head over heels in love with this equine Ferrari.

She and I jumped our way over everything in the county and out hunting she was even asked to give the lead over a hedge by the aforementioned John Williams whose horse had refused a rather large bank.

Rhythm pulled like a train and even if he hadn't signalled me through I don't think I would have stopped her anyway. She had no fear and when faced with a mountain of wall would scramble up one side of it, look to see what was the other side, if not liking what she saw, sidle along the top and drop down when it looked safe. She saved my life many times and was as affectionate as she was agile.

Everyone loved her including Mother but she did have a habit of rearing on to her hind legs at the drop of a hat and this alarmed most who met her. Only she and I knew it was a bit of showing off and the more we did it the more people thought we were good at our job!

I loved her for ten years but boys gradually entered my life and several followed us to the local gymkhanas around Cornwall. We jumped for joy but we were unaware that she was suffering from some form of cancer and soon after I left Cornwall at eighteen to work in London, she was found by my mum dead in the field.

I think Mother was as upset as me. Rhythm loved Mother's kitchen garden and was often found with her face dripping with blood red saliva. She had broken in and eaten all of the beetroot!

While I was in London Mother used to bring her in at night in the winter and horse and eighty year old would walk quietly one after the other to the stable, no halter necessary!

In London Misty Haford was bought off the Spanish Ambassador who kept falling off in Richmond Park.



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Later I truly learned to ride on her fabul