Horses in History & Music

WHEN THE SHOE'S ON THE HORSE'S FOOT, STORIES FLOW.
By Angela Goode, The Advertiser July 20, 2006

JACK, the farrier to our two steeds, is due today and as I sit in the winter sun I wonder about the bravery of the first person to drive a nail into a horse's hoof to hold on a metal shoe.

There would have been plenty of limping horses before the art was perfected and probably more than a few humans sent skyward.

But we've been banging metal on to horses' feet for about 2000 years to ensure the feed that goes down the neck is balanced by useful work.

I always love Jack's visits, which are much more than just work. He's been shoeing since he was 14 and his bank of stories could give him an alternative job as a stand-up comedian if he wanted, if he was that sort of bloke. But he is too shy for that.

Instead, with a horse standing on three legs, flicking its ears back and forth as it follows our conversation, I get my own private comedy festival. From working in trotting stables, at country racecourses and with owners of hacks far and wide, Jack has met colourful characters.

With his dry turn of phrase in the tradition of the best rural yarners, stories flow, and tears roll down my cheeks. It probably takes twice as long to shoe the mare, but she seems to enjoy the stories too.

There is not much he doesn't know about horses but don't start him on the novice horse owners he sees these days who are more sentimental than practical.

If horses muck around, he'll give them a thump or put a twitch on their top lip – that's how you get things done when there's work to do. Jack has no time for fools who allow their horses to push them around and be dangerous.

If it weren't for horse shoes, Genghis Khan could never have swept across Asia in the 13th century, the Romans could not have invaded Britain and the Crusades of the 7th century would not have happened. Horses with sore feet are useless.

Through my childhood mornings, the clip clop of shod feet brought milk and bread to our street. The milkie's horse was often the target of young jokers.

Jack admits wryly he was one of those long ago. He and his brother once let off a cracker under one quiet old horse. He reckons the milk would have turned to butter by the time the horse stopped.

When I was 14 and first had a horse – an ancient ex-trotter which lived in the parklands adjoining Victoria Park Racecourse – I put shoes on him for school holidays.

My friends and I would trek to the Hills and explore areas now covered with houses. The only farrier I knew then was an old-fashioned blacksmith who had a forge at the back of his house in St Morris. I can't remember his name, but I can still see him standing in his huge leather apron holding a mallet.

He would belt the glowing red metal into shape, put in nail holes, dip it into water, making a fizz of steam, and then whack it on the horse's feet. I always felt very proud riding home to Norwood on a horse which made a noise on the road instead of being almost silent in its bare feet.

These days, there's big money in horse shoes. Jack reckons a farrier based in a city doing racing and riding horses could earn about $1000 a day. Jack says that's not for him, which pleases me and the horses. We like his stories

AS IF HE KNOWS
From Eric Bogle's Cd- The Colour of Dreams
During WW1, Australia shipped about 53,000 horses overseas to serve in the various theatres of that war. Of that number only one returned to Australia at the end of the war, and it was, of course, a general’s favourite mount. The rest, or at least the survivors of that original 53,000, were not allowed to return home mainly because of quarantine restrictions as it was feared they could spread anthrax and similar diseases throughout Australia’s cattle industry.

So the ANZACS were ordered to get rid of what horses they had left. In the European theatre of war many of the horses were sold or given to the French and Belgian farmers and peasants and such like. But in Palestine the Light Horsemen refused to either sell or give their horses to the local Arab population, as they thought that the Arabs in general treated their animals with dreadful cruelty.

Mind you, I can’t think of anything more cruel than subjecting innocent horses to the horrors of modern warfare, but I guess those were the prevailing attitudes of the times. So, rather than leave their horses to a lifetime of slavery, as they saw it, the Light Horsemen shot them. Each man shot his best mate’s horse and that was that.

I wrote this song after reading an Anzac Day newspaper article about an old veteran Light Horseman named Elijah Conn, who was talking about his horse, Banjo, and how his best mate shot Banjo just before they marched off to the ship that was waiting to take them home to Australia.

Even after 70 years, Elijah’s eyes filled with tears when talking about it. This song is for Elijah and Banjo. Sorry to take up so much of your time with this little story, but it’s one that deserves to be heard, I think.

LYRICS

It’s as if he knows

He’s standing close to me

His breath warm on my sleeve

His head hung low

It’s as if he knows

What the dawn will bring

The end of everything

For my old Banjo

And all along the picket lines beneath the desert sky

The Light Horsemen move amongst their mates to say one last goodbye

And the horses stand so quietly

Row on silent row

It’s as if they know

Time after time

We rode through shot and shell

We rode in and out of Hell

On their strong backs

Time after time

They brought us safely through

By their swift sure hooves

And their brave hearts

Tomorrow we will form up ranks and march down to the quay

And sail back to our loved ones in that dear land across the sea

While our loyal and true companions

Who asked so little and gave so much

Will lie dead in the dust.

For the orders came

No horses to return

We were to abandon them

To be slaves

After all we’d shared

And all that we’d been through

A nation’s gratitude

Was a dusty grave

For we can’t leave them to the people here, we’d rather see them dead

So each man will take his best mate’s horse with a bullet through the head

For the people here are like their land

Wild and cruel and hard

So Banjo, here’s your reward

Eric Bogle July 2001

Eric’s Web Site

TEARS WILL FALL FOR PAMPERED EXISTENCE
By Angela Goode
from The Advertiser, Adelaide, Saturday April 24, 2004

Guilt. Is that what’s behind the popularity of Anzac Day – guilt that our lives are so soft and easy?

Paying homage to our soldiers makes us feel better. Pampered and protected (and our animals are too), we take comfort for granted until we hear about the deprivations and suffering of war.

I read this week an article by Ion Idriess about his time with the 5th Light Horse Regiment in Turkey and Palestine between 1914 and 1918.

It makes me look at the three horses in our paddocks with shame. It makes me wonder if humans have evolved towards a soggier state than is optimal. What we ask of our animals and ourselves today is desperately inadequate by comparison.

I am certainly not suggesting we be tested as those poor wretches were in the blazing desert sands. But the fact that man and beast could march for five days without food, water or sleep suggests to me that the modern human creatures and the horse today no more than scratch at their potential and their capabilities.

My mare would throw a hissy fit and get the sulks; I would fall out of the saddle.
Just read what trooper Idriess and his 20,000 compatriots and horses endured: “Swaying in the saddles, riding by the stars, the long black columns winding through the ghostly sand hills.

“The horses with bowed heads doggedly pressed on, heartened by the murmuring of their thousands of hooves, by the breath of their tight packed columns, by the smell of sweat and humanity, by the reassuring feel of the riders.

“Halting instantly to the voice, you could hear them sigh. “Flopping down to the sand as the riders dismounted, lying motionless in the weariness of utter exhaustion.

“Many a time have I dropped to my knees and used my old horse for a pillow, his body for warmth during that heavenly moment of time, that 10 minutes each hour. Then the horses would hear the voice again.

“We would stumble to our feet. They too would stumble to theirs and the columns were on the move again, asleep in the saddles, the horses doggedly ploughing on, on, on.”

During battle in Palestine, Idriess recalled: “My old horse was wounded in the early morning. He gave no sign throughout a furious day of galloping, heat and thirst. It was only at sundown that I noticed the congealed blood under the saddlecloth”.

Those men loved their horses, sharing last drops from their water bottles. They calmed their fears and received devotion in return.

Those stoic home-bred horses, their riders and their achievements will be remembered at a mounted Anzac dawn service at Naracoorte’s showgrounds tomorrow. My tears will fall.

Angela Goode - Great Working horse stories