Horses in Australia: An Illustrated History PDF
Preview Horses in Australia: An Illustrated History
horses in AustrAliA An illustrAted history • • HorsesInAustraliaText2printCORRS.indd 1 3/09/2014 4:36 pm h o r s e s i n A u s t r Al iA An illustrAted history • • nicolAs Br As ch HorsesInAustraliaText2printCORRS.indd 2 3/09/2014 4:36 pm h o r s e s i n A u s t r A l i A An illustrAted history • • nicolAs BrAs ch HorsesInAustraliaText2printCORRS.indd 3 3/09/2014 4:36 pm For Greg Mitchell (1961–2013) From Pearl Beach to chatswood to randwick, there was only one thing on our minds – horses! A NewSouth book c o n t e n t s Published by newsouth Publishing university of new south Wales Press ltd university of new south Wales sydney nsW 2052 AustrAliA newsouthpublishing.com © nicolas Brasch 2014 First published 2014 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 this book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without written permission. inquiries should be addressed to the publisher. national library of Australia cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Brasch, nicolas, 1961– author. title: horses in Australia: an illustrated history / nicolas Brasch. isBn: 9781742231013 (hardback) 9781742247090 (ePdF) subjects: horses – Australia. horses – Australia – history. horses – Australia – Pictorial works. dewey number: 636.100994 Design di Quick Cover design Blue cork Cover images front jacket Alcopop in the lead-up to the Melbourne cup, 2009 (Kelly Barnes/newspix). back jacket trainer tommy Woodcock with reckless on the eve of the Melbourne cup, 1977 (Bruce Postle). Printer everbest, china extract from hermann Beckler on pp 43–4 are from Beckler, A Journey to Cooper’s Creek, trans. stephen Jeffries and Michael Kertesz, Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 1993. All reasonable efforts were taken to obtain permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book, but in some cases copyright could not be traced. the author welcomes information from copyright owners and cultural owners regarding this. this book is printed on paper using fibre supplied from plantation or sustainably managed forests. HorsesInAustraliaText2printCORRS.indd 4 3/09/2014 4:36 pm For Greg Mitchell (1961–2013) From Pearl Beach to chatswood to randwick, there was only one thing on our minds – horses! c o n t e n t s introduction 6 1 horses, status and colonialism 10 2 equine explorers 32 3 horses of the lawless 58 4 on the road 72 5 romanticising the horse 88 6 Walers at war 98 7 And they’re racing … 118 8 horses on show 162 9 Prancing and dancing 180 10 the wild ones 192 11 the breed for every need 204 12 tilling and toiling 226 13 the horse in art 240 Acknowledgments 254 Picture credits 255 HorsesInAustraliaText2printCORRS.indd 5 3/09/2014 4:36 pm 6 Horses in AustrAliA i n t r o d u c t i o n HorsesInAustraliaText2printCORRS.indd 6 3/09/2014 4:36 pm 7 the most popular horse race in Britain is the Grand national steeplechase. in the united states it’s the Kentucky derby. these races are run on a saturday – a day associated with rest, recreation and frivolous pastimes. Both countries hold their federal elections during the week – when real business is supposed to be conducted, and when the media cycle is at its peak. i n t r o d u c t i o n on the other hand, Australia’s most famous horse race, the Melbourne cup, is held on a tuesday and our federal election is held on frivolous saturday. says it all really. My first memory of horses was not of horses on a farm or in the outback. it was not even on a racecourse. it was at a friend’s house. i would have been about eight and as i walked through the living room i noticed my friend’s dad sitting in a comfy lounge chair with a pair of binoculars on his lap. i followed his gaze and he was watching tV. he was watching a horse race. i was intrigued – not so much by the horse race but by his intensity, his complete and utter focus, and the presence of the binoculars. i still don’t know whether he was on his way to the races and just wanted to catch the first race on tV; whether he associated horse racing with binoculars so had them as a prop; or whether he actu- ally used them to get a closer view on the tV. it was bizarre but this image remained with me. three years later my parents took me to randwick race- course. i had no idea what to expect. i hadn’t expressed an HorsesInAustraliaText2printCORRS.indd 7 3/09/2014 4:36 pm 8 Horses in AustrAliA interest in horses, dad certainly didn’t care, i presume it was Mum’s initiative. i passed through the turnstiles and … well, it was like dorothy in oz. Alice in Wonderland. Arthur in the Galaxy. i had entered a world unlike any i had experienced and which would tease and tantalise and tempt me for the rest of my life. the bookmakers fascinated me. so much so that years later i contemplated it as a career. i got close to this dream by manag- ing a betting shop in london for a year. the jockeys were a sight in their multi-coloured silks – but the nerve of these men (and it was all men in those days) as they stormed down the straight, bal- anced as if on a strand of floss, whips flaying, legs pumping. But even then, as it still is now for me, it was more about the horses than anything else. there is no beast on earth more majestic than the horse. And i have since learnt that their appeal lies not just in the final furlong when their nostrils flair and their blood pumps like pistons. no, their versatility knows no bounds. they are companions, performers, toilers and guides. And whatever they are now, whatever they do, has nothing on their historical signifi- cance. Modern Australia was forged on the horse’s back. the first horses arrived in Australia on the First Fleet. it would be nice to say that these few horses begat the cup winners, war horses, stock horses and work horses of the future. they didn’t. they didn’t last long at all. like the people who brought HorsesInAustraliaText2printCORRS.indd 8 3/09/2014 4:36 pm introduction 9 them here, they were unsuited to the environment: ‘miserable’, as Governor King called them. however, the decades that followed saw some hardier and speedier horses arrive and these ones were far better suited to Australian conditions. local breeders began to realise what was needed. And these horses helped the europeans to explore and exploit. their offspring have transported loads, leapt trenches and tilled the soil. they have pranced, bucked and hurdled. they have been idolised and immortalised. But most of all, they have been ignored. Accounts of explorers focus on the humans, not those that carried them. early chroniclers talk about cattle and sheep and pigs (all food animals) but not about horses. War has made heroes of countless men and women, yet few statues have been erected to the equine heroes. it seems that only in folklore has the horse been elevated to its rightful place. this book goes some way to illuminating this invisible animal. it’s a visual tribute – with stories, lore and reflections interspersed – to the horse in Australia. HorsesInAustraliaText2printCORRS.indd 9 3/09/2014 4:37 pm 1 10 Horses in AustrAliA h o r s e s , s tA t u s A n d c o l o n i A l i s M HorsesInAustraliaText2printCORRS.indd 10 3/09/2014 4:37 pm
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