Book 6 – Jill and the Horsemasters

Chapter One – Alight with Ambition

I awoke one morning in June 1963, nearly twenty-years-old, alight with excitement and anticipation. Today was the day that I would ride my dream dressage horse, Skydiver. The plan was he would carry me to glory, Riding for England in the dressage competition in the Olympics. Well, that was the grand scheme. I hadn’t actually been selected yet. In fact, I had only ever ridden in one dressage test, but I did have oodles of experience riding in small gymkhanas and local shows, and I’d even competed in a point-to-point! How hard could it be?

My immediate plan was to begin training and competing in dressage competitions around England and perhaps even venturing over the Channel to compete in Europe. The long-term plan was the 1968 Mexico Olympics. Putting aside my sporadic attempts to study German, I might have to start learning Spanish.

For months, I had been trying to buy my dressage horse, Skydiver, and finally, I had pulled it off. My previous book Jill Dreams of a Dressage Horse, detailed how I acquired him. I don’t want to give away the story for those of you who have not read this book but suffice to say, it was not a straightforward purchase but had been achieved through a series of adventures and misadventures. In the past, my dreams had been more modest and had never stretched beyond competing in the open show jumping competition at Chatton Show, the village where I grew up.

You need to understand that in 1963, in England, dressage was not exactly the Done Thing and was only gaining popularity, probably in no small measure, due to the Pullein-Thompson sisters writing pony books that championed the cause. Let no one underestimate the power of pony books. To some of us, they are quite definitely the Stuff of Life!

Skydiver was beautiful, rather like the horses I had ridden in Germany. A warmblood-type with some thoroughbred mixed in. He was not just the commonplace grey, his coat had an almost metallic sheen, and he had a luxuriant jet-black mane and tail with dark markings on his legs. His head was small, with a wide distance between liquid dark eyes fringed by black eyelashes that needed no mascara. His ears are very neat and pointed, almost pixie ears, an elegant neck, perfectly sloped shoulders and a peachy bottom – which is a wonderful feature on a horse. Not so great for people! 

I had only just done the deal to purchase him with a somewhat dubious person called Tatiana de Vere and brought him back from Essex, not yesterday but the day before. Yesterday was Susan Pyke’s wedding, and that grand event is also described in my previous book.

Moving on. Today I was to ride Skydiver, a schooling session I had planned in excruciating detail, lying awake in the still watches of the night. The small area in my field where I had schooled my ponies during my youth was not particularly suitable for this. I had dreamed of floating along the ground in an extended trot. To achieve this, I needed space. So, I would ride down to Neshbury Common. Secretly, I rather liked the idea that we might attract an audience. I had that wonderful feeling when you want to shout to the world about your happiness and hope that others might join in, cheering from the sidelines.

It was a perfect summer morning. Sunlight fell in golden swathes, and the road verges were shimmering with creamy-white Queen Anne’s lace, offset by densely green hedgerows. The way to Neshbury Common led past a succession of little cottages wreathed with flowering creepers, a riotous combination of oranges, yellows, reds, and pinks. From high up on Skydiver’s back, I could glimpse the fields in the distance, standing grass shivering and rippling in the breeze.

Skydiver was a divine horse. His stride was long and straight, and he delicately held the bit in his mouth. When Tatiana had owned him, he had been stabled twenty-four hours a day and only exercised in arenas until called upon to perform on a film set. I thought he might enjoy some dollops of fresh air in the glorious outdoors. I wondered if perhaps he was a little too perfect, whether the strain of always doing the right thing might one day overwhelm him and end in disaster. But this was too gloomy a thought for such a morning of bright hope. I returned to surfing my wave of happiness.

A few people on the far side of the Common were walking their dogs, but I had a large flat area to myself. I began to circle at the rising trot. Then I sat down and tried a sitting trot. This was not one of my best subjects. However, it was more comfortable on Skydiver than any horse I had ever ridden. I pushed him on so that he used more impulsion and kind of compressed himself, bringing his hindquarters beneath his body and bending his head at the poll, that is the top of his head.

I gave him the aid to progress to an extended trot, and it was then that I felt pure elation. He flung his feet out, pointing his toes like a ballerina. We literally floated across the luxuriant grass that grew on the Common in the summer. I wished then that my old enemy, Susan Pyke, would happen by and see me riding my new horse. She would be pea-green with envy. But the two of us were no longer competing on the same level. 

She would be on her honeymoon today, enjoying her first day as Mrs Bartholomew King – what a mouthful! Susan’s husband appeared to my jaundiced eye to be an incredibly boring man, a mere solicitor – the dullest and dreariest swain in the local muddy pool of young-to-middle-aged men. 

The happy couple, no doubt oozing conjugal bliss, were to move into a new house built in an upmarket housing development in Rychester, our nearby town. Susan was aiming to become one of those ‘ladies that lunch’. To me, this was utter anathema. I would rather be a gipsy living in a caravan on the edge of the moor or an exotic socialite who summered in the south of France before I married a dull-as-ditch-water, middle-class professional man and lived in a housing estate in Rychester!

Seeing lots of our old friends at the wedding had been fun, and I had had a tremendous stroke of luck if only I could pull it off. April Cholly-Sawcutt had suggested that I contact the assistant to the Deputy Editor of Horse and Hound regarding my writing articles about dressage. This had quite literally Fallen in My Lap as I had thought about the possibility of being a journalist, and that meant, of course, a journalist who wrote about horsey subjects and dressage, in particular, was my Big New Thing.

I would phone the assistant to the Deputy Editor straight after lunch. Now I wanted to concentrate on riding my amazing new horse. It would have been better if I could have taken him to Linda McNally’s so she could train us. She had a riding school down the road from Blainstock Castle in Scotland, where my mother, stepfather, and brand-new baby brother, Hamish, lived. It was Linda who introduced me to the fine art of dressage riding and suggested that I go to Germany to get some training. She was a brilliant rider. I had tremendous respect for her. But I wasn’t planning on returning to Scotland until early August, just after Chatton Show. 

The paying guests who stayed at the castle for the grouse shooting season would arrive before the Glorious Twelfth when the season began. So I had at least seven weeks ahead of me. Furthermore, I had not only my beautiful new dressage horse but also Balius, my thoroughbred with a dash of Highland pony blood, to ride in the local showjumping competitions.

I continued riding, now cantering in elegant circles, and I found that my new horse was utterly faultless. I wondered who had trained him. It surely wasn’t the people at De Luxe Movie Horses from whom I had bought him. I thought it might have been Henry Wynmalen, who was probably the top horseman in England at this time. I wondered if I should write to him and send him a photo and ask if he knew anything about Skydiver’s background. This cunning plan might just result in him asking us to stay so he could train us, in the same way, he had invited the Pullein-Thompson sisters and Sheila Willcox, the current glamour girl of the eventing scene. 

We cantered a full circle, and then I turned up a straight line. I had done four tempi changes on Skydiver when I had first ridden him a few months ago. This time I asked for two tempi changes. That is when a horse changes their leading leg at the canter every two strides. I was struck with the 

thought that Skydiver was just too good for me. I wondered if I was going to mess it up. I have described how I used to make these fancy moves with Black Boy in one of my original books, Jill and the perfect pony.

The phone rang when I got home and put him back in his loose box. It was Tatiana de Vere, the woman who ran the Movie Horse company. She wanted to arrange to come and pick up Copperplate and her colt. This had been the deal, a part-exchange of Copperplate’s colt for Skydiver. Copperplate was to go and stay in Essex at Tatiana’s stables until the colt was weaned. Then, I would get her back.

It would certainly make it easier to juggle the horses at Pool Cottage. I had Balius and Skydiver, and Ann, my best friend, who lived in the cottage with me, had my former steeplechaser, Black Comedy. During the day, Black Comedy went down to Ann’s parents’ house to stay in the field, but then we brought him back at night. There were only two loose boxes, four horses, and one foal. Now that I was the proud owner of Pool Cottage, I might perhaps build another loose box, but the expense would be huge. I wasn’t sure I would stay at Chatton for any length of time. I was regularly shuttling between Blainstock Castle and Oxfordshire.

I made myself a cup of tea and a sandwich before I rang the woman at Horse and Hound. Her name was Beatrice Garter. I gave myself a good talking-to. This could be the cataclysmic breakthrough in my career as a journalist. I had a proven background in writing books as I had authored my own series of autobiographical pony books. But writing as a journalist was another field of endeavour and would require quite a different technique. Although, if April Cholly-Sawcutt had been contracted to write about showjumping, how hard could it be? I wondered how much was talent and how much the pony club-old tie brigade. Her father was Captain Cholly-Sawcutt, who had represented Britain as a showjumper for many years. Unfortunately, he had Alzheimer’s now and hardly recognised his family members.

I took five deep breaths and dialled the number. Beatrice Garter answered the phone, and I told her my name and that April had suggested I ring her. She sounded distracted and disinterested. My spirits flopped down through my boots. I was going to have to sell myself. She suggested we have a meeting but couldn’t fit me in for another two weeks, and could I bring in something I’d written, some sort of article between 800 and 1200 words? It didn’t have to be about dressage, but something entertaining, suitable for Horse and Hound.

We made the appointment, and I sat down. I found myself shaking. I had to write an article. I needed something that was going to blow her socks off. I could have been supremely egotistical and written a review of my pony book series, but I decided that just wouldn’t do. Sometimes I had a sneaky 

suspicion that my pony books were indeed what one could call an ‘ecstasy of self-indulgence’. Although, of late, I’ve touched on gritty reality, I soon veer back to what my reviewers have called a representation of Arcadian bliss. Now I needed a story – something entertaining, but also something real, not just another flight of fancy!

I decided to take Balius out for a ride, thinking that the best inspiration comes when one is on horseback, looking at the world through a horse’s ears. And if I were going to take him to some shows in the next few months, then I needed to sharpen him up a bit. Just recently, I’d been caught up in the filming of Macbeth at the castle. Balius had been left on the sidelines. So, we headed up to Mrs Darcy’s riding school, which my good friend, Wendy Mead, had been running for several years. In the ordinary course of things, I would have been straight up there with Skydiver to show off my new horse but, the situation had changed and, I didn’t feel entirely comfortable there anymore.

Off and on over the years, I had worked for Mrs Darcy and Wendy, but they had recently hired a new instructor called Serena. Now I was no longer needed. The worst was that she was ‘qualified’, whereas I was not. This rankled, I can tell you. She had the BHS Preliminary Instructor’s Certificate, which was recognised throughout the horse world. 

This, in conjunction with the fact that Ann had gone back to school to get into Veterinary College and Dinah Dean was studying law at Cambridge, drove it home to me that I wasn’t qualified. I had a ragbag collection of skills such as typing a bit, slow and laborious shorthand, very rudimentary German language knowledge, and teaching horse riding. I had the sense that everyone was forging on with their lives. I was being left behind. It made me feel cold and empty. Then it struck me that one of the consequences of writing autobiographical books was that I had started living my life as if I were a character in a novel, constantly thinking about myself, chewing and worrying over it as if I were a cat at its dinner. 

I rode Balius up to the riding school, hoping to talk to Wendy. Unfortunately, Serena was in the arena teaching some of the Rychester housewives that came up now for regular classes. I told Wendy about my new dressage horse. She was pleased for me, but I could see she was distracted. She had a class of young students coming this afternoon and needed to get the ponies in and saddle them up.

I rode Balius to the back paddock and cantered him around the cross-country course a couple of times. Then, to my horror, I saw Serena standing by the fence, watching me! My feelings about Serena were at best described as ambivalent, but in fact, my Noble Self was being drowned in a flood of envy. I felt very huffy. It didn’t help that she had longer legs than me. This 

wasn’t envy that she might be more attractive, but that long legs were good for riders as they could wrap them around a horse and had less chance of falling off. When I was a child and wanted longer legs, I had considered hanging on the washing line with weights on my feet, to see if I could stretch my lower limbs.

Now I have to be fair-minded. It was not Serena’s fault that nature had blessed her with long legs. And the fact that she had gained her Certificate was all to her credit. She had done absolutely nothing wrong. I had swanned down to the riding school whenever it suited me and picked up a bit of casual work, but when something better beckoned, I was off again. She had been hired full-time, committed, and now had totally made a success! I had even lowered myself to have a lesson with her a few months ago, and although not as brilliant a teacher as Linda, she was sound. There was nothing in her that couldn’t be admired, but although I rummaged to the bottom of my soul for some decency, I found only envy and outraged pride.

I pulled up and walked over to her, trying to look at least a little friendly.

“Hello, Jill,” she called. “He’s looking good!”

“Yes, he’s been a bit neglected lately. I’ve just bought a new horse, a trained dressage horse!”

I was utterly appalled that the comment had slipped from my lips. I sounded just like the boastful Susan Pyke, who was always skiting about her newest horse. She had had a long line of ‘new horses’ all discarded and replaced when she couldn’t ride them. What was I becoming? 

My face went scarlet with embarrassment and humiliation. I felt myself glowing like a beetroot!

“How exciting!” said the saintly and serene Serena. There wasn’t an ounce of envy or malice in her. “You must bring him up. I would love to see him.”

I realised she wanted to be friends. There was nothing but admirable qualities in this rival. It made me feel lower than the lowest worm. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. My Ignoble Nature had cornered me.

“How are you?” I managed to mutter.

She laughed lightly, a delicate tinkle like a musical scale.

“I love this job, the most delightful students and Chatton is such a friendly village,” she replied.

“Did you hear that Susan Pyke was married yesterday?” I asked, then could have kicked myself. It was as if I were taunting her because she had not been invited.

“Yes, Wendy told me all about it. And you caught the bouquet!” She smiled at me merrily. 

Bingo! She’d got me one. Wham! I hated the idea of having to find myself a husband one day. Catching the bouquet had been the absolute end, mitigated only by the fact that Susan had fallen over with her legs in the air, as her Cinderella horse and carriage had run away without their driver just after she’d flung the bridal bouquet into the air.

“Yes,” I muttered. “Anyway, I better head off home.” 

Serena obligingly opened the gate for me and waved me off in a friendly fashion. All the way home I muttered to myself. I knew exactly what Mummy would say, and she would have been absolutely right, but I couldn’t find a skerrick of goodwill in my paltry soul. I turned my mind away from the Serena issue. Instead, I needed to think about the article that I had to produce, like a cat out of a hat, to secure a job with Horse and Hound. My life had gone beyond the bounds of Chatton.  I had to find success in the wider world. I had to prove my worth! 

Ann was at Pool Cottage when I got back.

“Jill, did you ride that darling new horse of yours? I wish I’d been here to see it!” She was all sweetness and light. This made me feel even grumpier.

“Yes, I took him to the Common and did a bit of schooling. He behaved perfectly,” I replied, scowling.

She gave me an odd look but didn’t comment. She probably thought I was becoming a moody old maid!

“I’ve got the morning off tomorrow, so I’d love to see how he goes?”

“Yes, yes, and you must have a ride on him,” I insisted. At least my Better Self triumphed when it came to Ann, who had always been my most stalwart supporter.

“Would you let me ride him?” she asked hesitantly. “Are you sure you think I’m good enough?”

“Of course you are,” I said firmly. “But there’s something else you might be able to help me with, as I’m clueless, and I’ve got to come up with something stupendous!”

“Tell! Tell!” she chirped. She untacked Balius after I dismounted, and together we rubbed him down. There was the usual dilemma of which horse went in the field, as we were short two loose boxes.

“That Tatiana de Vere is turning up sometime tomorrow to pick up Copperplate and her colt,” I said. Then I remembered how upset Ann had 

been to hear that I had sold the foal and looked over at her anxiously.                        

“It’s alright. I’ve come to terms with it,” she said lightly, knowing what I was thinking. “At least this shuffling them around will be more manageable. So, Copperplate and Skydiver in the loose boxes tonight and Balius in the field with Black Comedy. It’s so warm I’m sure they’ll be much happier out under the stars.”

We went inside, and Ann had already prepared a delicious stew or probably picked it up from her mother’s. It was warming in the oven. As we ate, I told her about my telephone conversation with Beatrice Garter and how I had to write an entertaining horsey article to prove my journalistic ability.

“It’s much harder when you have to think of a topic,” mused Ann. “It would have been easier if they’d given you a definite subject.”

“I know,” I groaned. “It’s like at school, when the English mistress said write about anything, and of course, it’s hard to think of one single thing.”

“I’ll give it some thought,” said Ann looking into the middle distance with an intelligent expression.

“Thank goodness, I’ve got you,” I said.

“Don’t be silly, Jill, now don’t you go getting all maudlin and sentimental on me. Surely, you’re not like this because of Susan and Barty King!”

I laughed out loud at this. Then I confessed my feelings about the Saintly Serena.

“I can understand that, but she is a decent girl, and it’s not her fault that Wendy employed her.”

“I know. I’ve been an absolute beast over it. I swanned in when it suited me and expected a bit of work here and there. That was hardly fair on Wendy. She needed proper commitment, someone who put the riding school first. But what about Serena being qualified? I think that is what rubs me up the wrong way so much.”

“Oh, Jill! You lead a charmed life. Blainstock Castle in the Highlands with every equestrian facility known to man. Your own cottage in Oxfordshire with a field and two loose boxes. Not to mention a horse box, the use of a Land Rover, and a two-horse trailer.”

I hung my head in shame.

“And charm, good looks, and intelligence!” she added, really rubbing it in.

“Alright. Alright. I’m going to count my blessings,” I muttered.