More Horses

[jacey]

I'm still rummaging through my photographs . heleninwales set me thinking about horses last week and mevennen continued the theme this week with her farrier post.

After posting a photo pf Prince, the first pony I rode back in 1956 I came across a photo of the other Prince, winning the Mountain & Moorland Championship at Weatherby Show in (around) 1973). This was taken with his owner, Margaret Harvey, pretty much an unforgettable character in her own right.

Margaret had been a debutante in her youth but when I knew her was a typical tweedy horsewoman with a booming voice, two golden retrievers and a stack of bills she tried to ignore.

She had a lot of equines, a few of them really good ones, including Prince, a Fell Pony gelding, and a really nice Dales pony mare called Bussy. (That's me and Bussy - right - at the Great Yorkshire Show in about 1973) Margaret bred two or three foals a year, mostly from her thoroughbred/appaloosa stallion Kestrel. I think the riding school was just an excuse to let her keep all her horses. She loved them all.

We discovered her riding school in Menston when I joined the college riding club. I ended up on the rota more often than most because having passed my driving test at age 17, I was one of the few people at college who could drive the minibus legally. (Note I didn't say safely as I never could reverse the damn thing on wing mirrors.)

Even after leaving college and getting married i continued to drive up to Menston to ride at Margaret's because i still had friends there. This is me and Eileen Gomersall (Now Eileen Jack.)

Damn me but after saying I never forgot a horse's name, I can't remember the name of the brown hunter I'm riding. He was 16.2 and a very decent ride. Eileen is on Kestrel, the stud stallion. He could be a bit evil on the ground, but was a fantastic ride if you weren't scared of him.

This was the summer of 1975 and I remember the day so clearly because we'd just come back from taking a party of kids (Best Beloved's school) to Belgium and the night we got back I was given the news that my grandma had got terminal cancer. This was the first time I'd been threatened with losing a loved one to a long slow illness and life was suddenly about to get very weird.

So this was the calm before the storm.

A couple of days after getting the news I went to Menston for - probably - the last time. I'd got my arms sunburned on the ferry home and it was another scorching day, so Eileen is wearing my T Shirt and I'm wearing her long sleeved shirt to keep the sun off.

Annie Bennett. 1900 - 1975.
My maternal grandmother.
When this photo was taken she was the same age as I am now.
That's scary!

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

It is kind of scary when one gets as old as one's grandmother. I'm already older than my mother was when she died. As you say, it gives you a weird feeling.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Weirdness, indeed. My maternal grandma died at 75, but generally that side of the family (if they survived childhood, that is) is fairly long-lived. My granddad made it to 80 and one of my grandma's sisters made it to 93. On the other side of the family the women seem to do OK, but the men don't make it much beyond their early 60s. My dad died at 62. I only have five years to go to beat him, but his mother (my batty paternal grandmother about which much could be written but probably won't be) lived into her 80s.

My mum is still going strong at 83. She's fitter than I am. She's recently taken up painting and started exhibiting (and even selling) her work. She's still driving and running a local 'old folks' group. She bought a new car a couple of years ago, this time with four doors because all her old ladies were finding climbing into the back of a two door car a bit difficult when she gave them lifts. Some of her old ladies are a decade younger than she is.

I hope I'm still around and doing as well at 83. I hope to live to be a great embarrassment to my children.

Margaret Harvey

[morphlet.livejournal.com]

The big liver chestnut was Justice.

Re: Margaret Harvey

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Yes, he was indeed called Justice. How culd I have forgotten? I used to ride him quite a lot. Do I know you from those days, morphlet? I'm Jacey. (Lockyer as was, Bedford now.)

I often wonder what happened to Margaret after her illness. The last I heard of her was that she was doing well, but I guess if she still is she must be in her eighties now. (I never knew how old she was.) We drove through Menston a few days ago on the way to Ilkley and I was tempted to turn up Station road, but I knew I'd be awfully disappointed if the wheels of progress had rolled right over it and I couldn't even find where the stable yard used to be.

I have other photos from those days: Metal and Star, Major, Cracker, Robin, Peregrine etc., some in the stable yard and some up in the gorse field.

The horses I knew will be long-long gone, but it would be nice to think that some of Kestrel's offspring (or Bussy's) are still around somehwere - though thinking about it most of Kestrel's seemed to be colts/geldings (Peri, Robin, Eagle etc.) I can't remember Margaret getting a filly foal from him in all the time I was riding there (maybe about 7 years off and on).

Re: Margaret Harvey

[morphlet.livejournal.com]

Hi My name's Joy and I used to ride at Wharfdale Riding School. I was there from about 1979. Major, Metal, Star and Robin had gone but there was a Metal filly Rebel Maid. Kestrel had two daughters Kite out of the little Irish cob and Skylark out of Nectar. There are some Bussy descendants just Google roan Dales ponies. I believe Pere lived for years into his 30's, she sold him to Robert. About 20 years ago I was friendly with a girl called Sue who rode for Margaret in the 1980's and she owned a Blossom granddaughter. All my photos were lost years ago. I'm in Wales now with 4 horses

Re: Margaret Harvey

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

We didn't coincide. My last time at Margaret's was 1975 - the photo of summer 1975 is the last time I went, though Eileen worked at Acrecliff stables in Burley and kept in touch for a while, and Mike and Lindsey Haywood bought one of Kestrel's offspring - but not one I ever saw. Now you've reminded me I do remember Kite (blue roan, bit of a common looking head (head a big for her size), but very sweet natured. She was quite a youngster, I think. I don't remember Skylark - or Nectar for that matter - though both names ring vague bells.

Hmmm... There was a sweet-natured, dependable mare called Bronwen, heavyset, chestnut with a flaxen mane and tail (almost palomino colouring but not quite). Was she Eagle's mum?

I'm surprised Major and Robin had gone by 1979. Margaret must have sold them, I guess, neither was very old. (Major older than Robin, I think, and mayhave been in his middle teens by 1979.) Metal was about 35 and Star about 25 according to Margaret. That was in 1969/71 when I was riding there regularly, so I'm not surprised they were gone. Margaret also said that Metal was descended form Hyperion - but I've looked up his dates and I find it unlikely if he was 35, though he could have been from the same bloodline. One of her other stories was that when metal was younger he won the open jumping at the Great Yorkshire Show and the following year they made the minimum height requirement 14.2. I've never checked that one up - I'd be so disappointed if and when I found it wasn't the case.

You surprise me about there being a filly from Metal. I didn't thnk he was entire (though I don't think I ever checked his undercarriage). I didn't ride him as one of my friends tended to get him on a fairly regular basis. I do recall he was still very hot and difficult to stop - even at 35. He always had to be at the front - otherwise he'd get there under his own steam regardless. He certainly didn't get the same kind of stallion treatment that we needed to adopt with Kestrel (who could be a bit of a bastard in the stable and certainly couldn't be let anywhere near a mare in season.) In fact Eagle was the result of a rather unfortunate situationin Ilkley when the traffic lights changed and the person leading him got careless. The mare in front stopped and Kestrel didn't. The good people of Ilkley gor a horsy sex education lesson and Eagle arrived nine months later.

I tended to (mostly) ride Justice, Major, Peri, Dominic, Cracker, Prince, Bussy, though to be honest I'd ride anything if it had a leg at each corner and if I wasn't paying (except Pixie!!!) Glad to hear Peri lived to a ripe old age.

Was Tamarisk still there in your day? A skewbald about 13.3 / 14 hands. He is solely responsible for my bad back. Margaret stuck a saddle on him one day and the next day he was my ride. We were supposed to be taking it easy and staying out of trouble at the back, but unfortunately the girl leading off decided we'd all go at 'hunting pace' and took us over a series of ditches. I'm sure Tamarak had never been asked to jump anything with a rider before. We cleared the ditch no problem, but he got excited, gave a massive rodeo buck and I went straight over his shoulder turned a full somersault and buggered my back spectacularly.

I googled roan dales ponies but the only thing I could find was on a list you needed to be a member to access. Was that the one you are referring to? I also googled Margaret Harvey and apart from this conversation could only find one mention and that in a parish magazine in April 2009, listing her under prayers for the sick. I checked, but I can't find an obituary so maybe she's still around. I hope so. IIRC she had a sister (who may have been a bit older than her) and a mother who was a bit of a tyrant by all accounts, but no other family that I knew of. She'd never been married, though i believe she had a season as a deb. and had a couple of very glam photos to prove it.

I'll friend you on LJ. If you want to do the same I'll try and dig out some of my old photos and scan them in.

Re: Margaret Harvey

[morphlet.livejournal.com]

This is fascinating,here are the 'facts' as I got them. Wharfdale Gay Metal was a pedigree Connemara stallion who MH spotted jumping over a fence and swopped the farmer a Grade A for him. The photo she showed me was unmistakably her on a small chunky grey leaping an enormous ditch and hedge. Rebel Maid was a lovely blue and white Connemara out of Charisma an old fashioned Connemara that was never ridden. Tamarisk had gone but I heard plenty about him also Duke. Nectar was out of Gay Honey by Merlin,she might have been in foal when you were there, she was small and sharp and could jump, Skylark was her daughter by Kestrel. Other youngsters when you were there would have been Kite who was ugly but could jump, her half brother Rizzala, his half brother Woodlark out of Nectar by Furrier and another half brother a palomino Legend.
Was Bonnie there? He was sold at Wetherby as a jumping pony. Eagle was killed on the road at Pateley Bridge after the new neighbours pulled the fencing down for access to their land.
Who was Major by? I thought he was the oldest of the brothers out of Snowflake. Merlin and Kestrel were by Precipitation and Peregrine was be Que'lle Espoir.
Others were Celebrity, Marion, the Fells, Pixie and Trigger, Rosie, Eagle II, Goshawk (thick and ugly)Myron, Beau Brummell, Pandy and Bambi. There were about 40 horses all over the place while I was there.

Re: Margaret Harvey

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Duh, of course I mean eleven months, not nine for Eagle's arrival after the incident at Ilkley traffic lights.

I'm really not sure of the bloodlines, but Metal looked nothing like a Connemara. I didn't even know his full name was Wharedale Gay Metal. He was most often referred to a Mekkie. Most of the time he was roughed off and looked like nothing much and then he'd move and even under the wintercoat, you could see he was special. You couldn't use him for tyhe riding school, though, or he'd gallop some kid off to the next county while your back was turned. He looked more like show-pony or something with a mix of Arabian and thoroughbred and a bit of something else (OK, I might say there was some Connemara in the mix), but very small - note even 14 hands. Maybe 13.2 if he was lucky. He wasn't really chunky and though he was 'grey' he was a white grey not a dapple.

Was Duke a largeish Fell pony? Or am I getting him mixed up with Cracker? I don't know of Gay Honey or Merlin... though I have a photo of MH on a nice chestnut which might have been Honey, but was gone (or elsewhere) by 1969.

I never figured out how many horses MH had. (I'm not sure she knew herself half the time). They were never in the same place at the same time. I think a good number of them were running wild at Pately Bridge. I went up there once and there were certainly a lot of horses I didn't recognise. The foaling mares were up there (mostly) and the young-stock.

Tamarisk would have been a youngster in 1971. I guess it was spring when he buggered my back. I don't remember seeing him around much after that, but after I left college in summer 71 I wasn't there on a weekly basis.

I vaguely remember Woodlark's name but definitely not Rizzala. Kite had just been broken and was being used for the riding school not long before I stopped going regularly. I really liked her temperament. I don't remember jumping her, but for hacking she was sweet.

I don't know Major's history, He was unlike any other of Margaret's horses and certainly didn't look as though he was related to Kestrel in any way. He was a bright bay and quite classy.

I thought Peregrine was Kestrel's was he a broither rather than a son? If so it must have been the dam that gave them both their looks. You could certainly recognise the distinctive family looks shared between Kestrel, Peri, Robin, Kite, Sparrow (actually Sparrowhawk) etc.

Do I recall someone told me Kestrel had died after a severe attack of colic when he was about 15? (Or am I making thast one up?)

I didn't know Bonnie, Legend, Celebrity, Marion, Trigger, Eagle II, Goshawk, Myron, Beau Brummell, Pandy and Bambi, but there was a Rosie. A dark gunmetal grey (or maybe blue roan) mad hermaphrodite (doubly equipped internally & externally) that you couldn't get near. This may not have been the same Rosie. I only saw 'her' once in about 1970. I never saw anyone actually try to ride her. And from what I saw she/he was very pretty, but a dangerous liability for anyone who had the public on their property.

OK I've scanned in some of my old pics. Watch my blog and I'll put them up over the next day or two. There's MH on a chestnut that might be Honey, and a grey colt I can't ID but may well be one of the ones you've mentioned. He's obviously one of Kestrel's.

Sadly I don't seem to have a pic of Peri or Sparrow or Bronwen or Kite. And I don't have a ;pic of the Gypsy vardo that used to stand in the corner of the yard. I wonder what happened to that.

Re: Margaret Harvey

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

OK posted, starting here with more pics taken at Margaret Harvey's between 1971 and 1975.
http://birdsedge.livejournal.com/173367.html