Дорин Тови - The Coming Of Saska

As was always my downfall, it was on a downward slope.

For most of the ride I’d ridden ahead of the group, like Napoleon on his charger. Mrs Hutchings said she’d found it the safest way with people who were likely not to be able to hold him. If he took off when he was in front he wouldn’t stampede the rest – in fact when he was in front he usually didn’t bother to go. It was just his desire to show he could beat them that sent him zipping past the others.

She was right. Out in front... very much out in front: I had no desire to play a harp... I walked him, trotted, cantered, and wondered what the fuss was about. He certainly was stronger than when I’d first ridden him; even walking one could sense his sprung-steel gait. But even at his fastest he still reacted straight to the bit: I didn’t have to fight to stop him, as with Mio.

Until, that was, we were on the homeward run, with the horseshoe bend ahead of us, and Mrs Hutchings, knowing my record on downward slopes, said I’d better take him, now, to the back. If I kept him well into the other horses’

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The Coming of Saska tails he couldn’t get through if he tried. They’d be walking down it anyway, so there wouldn’t be any incentive, and once we were down and round the bend... Well, if he took off then, I knew I could always sit him.

Unfortunately he took off before that. There we were going downhill to the bend, the horses bunched tightly, me at the back. There, on the right of the track, was an open, boulder-strewn plateau simply asking to be run away on. ‘Quick! Across here!’ snorted Barbary, who’d apparently been watching cowboy films on television.

And across there, like escapees from an Indian war-party, we suddenly wheeled and went. Jumping rocks, narrowly missing holes, racing to cut off the others... who by this time, having been set off by Barbary’s antics, were going like a posse themselves: sticking to the track, though, with Mrs Hutchings at their head.

‘Sit down,’ she shrieked across at me, but I couldn’t.

Not going downhill with Barbary’s bouncing gait. I clung, sweating, to his neck. I saw the track reappear beneath his feet. At least we’d missed all the boulders. ‘Mind the edge ,’

yelled Mrs Hutchings – and boy, now there was another snag. We’d shot across the track and now we were zooming round the horseshoe on its inside, right on the edge of the dropover.

There was nothing I could do about it. By this time Barbary had bounced my feet out of the stirrups and I could only cling to his neck and hold on. We made it, though, and once round the bend I got my stirrups back and heaved myself upright in the saddle. We went up the track as if the Apaches were after us... but at the end of it we stopped as suddenly as we’d started and waited placidly for the others.

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Doreen Tovey

‘So endeth that lesson,’ said Mrs Hutchings when she came up. ‘It’s all because you won’t sit down .’ Which wasn’t what she said when, shortly afterwards, she too began to have trouble with Barbary.

Whether it was his natural behaviour, coming out now that he was on form. Whether it was that, encouraged by his success with the rest of us, he was determined to complete his record in full. Whether it was that Mrs Hutchings, seeing what he did with us, became temporarily demoralised herself... the fact remained that the time came when she couldn’t hold him either and the rider who came belting past from the rear, shouting ‘Quick! Out of the way! I’m coming!’ was as likely to be her as one of us.

It created an interesting situation. As she said, she wasn’t scared of him: she knew she wouldn’t come off. But she couldn’t very well ride him when she was shepherding children or beginners: it set a bad example to say the least. At the same time she had to try to master him – in competition with the other horses, because it was only under those conditions that he bolted... so when did she do her practice? When Tina and I were with her.

Nowadays there were four of us who usually rode together. Tina, myself, a girl called Penny and her husband Keith. Keith, a good rider, always had Kestrel. Penny, more nervous, generally had Kelly. With us, said Mrs Hutchings, she didn’t mind. There were enough of us to block her way if she wanted to try staying at the back. We were competent enough not to chase her if Barbary was out in front. ‘Oh yes, you are,’ she said, seeing my eyes roll heavenwards.

‘You can hold Mio if you try.’

So now we embarked on a series of rides when, instead of Mrs Hutchings shepherding us and giving us 29

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The Coming of Saska encouragement, we solicitously took care of her. ‘Wait here, I’m going to try to walk him,’ she would say when we got to a stretch where the horses usually cantered, and there we would sit in careful order. Mio and Kestrel in front so that, being fastest, when we did go they wouldn’t tangle with the other; Nutty next so that if he did his pirouette and take-off there were two of us ahead to block him (not that Tina minded it by now but we had Mrs H. to think of); Kelly at the rear because, apart from being slowest, he kicked out if any other horse tried to pass him.

And Mrs Hutchings would advance alone, like a knight going out to joust. One step... two... Barbary would start his prancing. ‘You’re doing fine! You’ve got him!’ we would call encouragingly from behind. And then she’d ease the reins the fraction necessary to allow him to go forward...

and there’d be a sudden volcanic eruption and Barbary would be gone.

I got my practice for the prairies, all right. I got it in those vital moments after Barbary took off. When Kestrel, Mio and Nutty wanted to go too and we, to give Mrs Hutchings a breathing space, doggedly fought to hold them.

Kestrel’s method of protest was to buck – and never outside of a rodeo have I seen a horse that could buck so high and wide. Keith, hat over his eyes, flew up and down on him. I, on Mio, pranced sideways, backwards and in circles.

Nutty, with Tina aboard, cavorted and sidestepped behind us. Once, trying to free himself from the bit, Mio backed into Kestrel as he was bucking. Like a stone from a catapult Mio shot forward, bucking furiously too. ‘For goodness sake get going!’ shrieked Tina from behind us. ‘I can’t hold Nutty another second with you two doing that circus act!’

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Doreen Tovey

How right she was. The next instant she went past us like Annie Oakley, disappearing up the track in a cloud of dust.

Kestrel came down from his buck and took off after Nutty.

Kelly, his Irish gloom forgotten for once, came galumphing up from the rear. So far I’d managed to hold Mio – only because I had him back to front, mind you, facing away from the way he wanted to go – but now, with a wrench of his head, he was on his hind legs... he’d turned, he’d done his leap, and we were zooming after the others. ‘Like Roy Rogers,’ I remember thinking as we spun round in the air, and if only we’d had a cine film of the incident...

A cameraman would have had a field day over our escapades with Barbary. One fast horse perpetually taking off along a track and, a few seconds later, three equally fast ones racing after him. Sometimes, when we caught up with her, Mrs Hutchings would be at the end of the track, with Barbary under control and peacefully grazing: we slowed to a trot before we got there then, not to set him off by charging up to him. Sometimes we misjudged and caught her up halfway and then we all swept along together...