TALES OF A "TRAVELLER"
This is a "horsey" sketch, possibly therefore unacceptable to the
general reader. But any chronicle of my early days, connected as they
were with the birth of a great city, would be incomplete without mention
of the noble animal so dear to every youthful Australian.
Reared in an atmosphere redolent of the swift courser's triumphs, often
compelled to entrust life and limb to the good horse's speed, care
indeed requires to be taken that the southern Briton does not somewhat
overvalue his fascinating dumb companion--overvalue him to the exclusion
from his thoughts of art and science, literature and dogma--to the
banishment of rational conversation, and a preference for unprofitable
society. So thought an old family friend, Mr. Felton Mathew (he upon his
blood bay "Glaucus," and I upon my Timor pony), as we rode towards
Enmore from Sydney in old, old days. He testily exclaimed, "For Heaven's
sake, Rolf, don't go on talking about horses everlastingly, or you'll
grow up like those colonial lads that never have another idea in their
heads." I winced under the rebuke, but accepted it, as became our
relative ages. None the less did I bear in my secret breast that
Arab-like love for horses and their belongings which marks the
predestined son of the Waste here as duly as in Yemen or the Nejd.
How I longed for the day when I should have a station of my own, when I
should have blood mares, colts and fillies, perhaps a horse in training,
with all the gorgeous adjuncts of stud-proprietorship! The time
came--the horses too--many a deeply joyous hour, many a thrill of hope
and fear, many a wild ride and daring deed was mine
Ere nerve and sinew began to fail
In the consulship of Plancus.
And now the time has passed. The good horses have trotted, and cantered,
and galloped away from out my life; most of them from this fair earth
altogether. Yet still, memory clings with curious fidelity to the equine
friends of the good old time, indissolubly connected as they were with
more important personages and events.
Among the earliest blood sires that the district around Melbourne
boasted were "Clifton" and "Traveller"--both New South Wales bred
horses, and destined to spend their last years in the same stud. Of this
pair of thoroughbreds, Clifton, a son of Skeleton and Spaewife, both
imported, was bred by the late Mr. Charles Smith, and named Clifton
after his stud farm near Sydney. "Skeleton," a grey horse of high
lineage, own brother to "Drone," and the property of the Marquis of
Sligo, was imported by the late Mr. William Edward Riley, of Raby, New
South Wales. To him many of the best strains of the present day trace
their ancestry. "Clifton," a lengthy bay horse, possessing size, speed,
and substance, was purchased by Mr. Lyon Campbell, one of the earlier
Melbourne magnates, formerly in the army, and by him kept at
Campbellfield, on the Yarra, near the Upper Falls. His stock, of which
we possessed several, were speedy and upstanding, great jumpers, and as
a family the best tempered horses I ever saw. This descended to the
second generation. You could "rope," as was the unfair custom of the
day, any "Clifton" colt or filly, back them in three days, and within a
week ride a journey or do ordinary station work with them. They were
free and handy almost at once, and remained so, no matter how long a
spell they were treated to afterwards. "Red Deer," with which Mr. Sam
Waldock won the Jockeys' Handicap and the All-aged Stakes at Sandhurst,
was a Clifton, bred by me. "Jupiter," the winner of the All-aged Stakes
in Melbourne in very good company, in 1854 or thereabouts, was another,
bred by Mr. James Irvine. His first purchaser put the tackle on him at
Dunmore and _rode him away the same day_. He was never a whit the worse
hack or racehorse for the abrupt handling. My old Clifton mare,
"Cynthia," was ridden barebacked with a halter once, after nearly a
year's spell. She was only five years old at the time. Observation of
these and other traits confirmed me in the opinion, which I have long
held, that the method of breaking has little to do with a horse's paces,
and less with his temper or general character. _Bonus equus "nascitur,
non fit,"_ as is the poet. You can no more imbue the former with
desirable dispositions by force of education, even the most careful,
than the schools can turn out Tennysons and Brownings by completest
tuition.
"Traveller" was another "Sydney-side" celebrity, bred by the late Mr.
Charles Roberts--if I mistake not, a turf antagonist of Mr. C. Smith. He
was a very grand horse. "The sort we don't see now, sir," as the veteran
turfite is so fond of saying. A son of "Bay Camerton," his ancestry ran
back, through colonial thoroughbreds, to the Sheik Arab. Not more than
fifteen hands in height, a beautiful dark chestnut in colour, he was a
model of strength, speed, and symmetry. His shapes inclined more to the
Arab type than to the long-striding, galloping machine into which the
modern thoroughbred horse has been developed. Standing firmly on
shortish, clean, iron-like legs, which years upon years of racing (in
the days of heats too) had never deteriorated, he was a weight-carrier
with the speed of a deer--a big-jawed Arab head, a well-shaped,
high-crested neck, oblique shoulders, just room enough between them and
a strong loin for a saddle, a back rib like a cask, high croup, muscular
thighs, and broad, well-bent hocks. Everything that could be wished for
as a progenitor of hacks, racers, and harness horses. His one defect was
moral rather than physical. I shall allude to it in its place. His legs
were simply wonderful. At twenty years old--about which time he died
suddenly, never having suffered an hour's illness or shown the slightest
sign of natural decay--they were as beautifully clean and sound as those
of an unbroken three-year-old. He had run and won many a race,
beginning as early as 1835, when he competed with Mr. C. Smith's
Chester--a half-brother, by the way--on the old Botany Road racecourse,
near Sydney. I, with other schoolboys, attended this meeting, and have a
clear remembrance of the depth of the sand through which the cracks of
the day--Whisker, Lady Godiva, Lady Emily, and others--had to struggle
for the deciding heat.
He was the property of Mr. Hugh Jamieson, of Tallarook, Goulburn River,
as far back as 1841 or 1842. That gentleman, one of the originators of
the Port Phillip Turf Club, temporarily relinquished breeding, and
Traveller passed into the hands of a discriminating and enthusiastic
proprietor, Mr. Charles Macknight, late of Dunmore, and by him was
employed in the foundation of the celebrated Dunmore stud.
When I referred to the moral defect of "Traveller"--a horse that
deserves to be bracketed with "Jorrocks" in the equine chronicles of
Australia--my meaning had reference to the temper which he communicated
to his immediate, and, doubtless, by the unvarying laws of heredity, to
his remoter descendants.
This was as bad as bad could be, chiefly expressed in one particular
direction--the crowning characteristic vice of Australian horses--that
of buck-jumping. Curiously, the old horse was quiet and well conducted
himself, though there _was_ a legend of his having killed a man on the
Sydney racecourse by a kick. However that might be, he was apparently of
a serene and generous nature.
So was his first foal born at Dunmore. "St. George" was the offspring
of "Die Vernon" by "Peter Fin," well known afterwards as a hunter, when
owned by Alick Cuningham and James Murphy. "St. George," from
circumstances, was a couple of years older than the first crop of
Traveller foals, and, having been made a pet of by Mr. Macknight, was
very quiet when broken in by that gentleman personally, a fine
rough-rider and philosophical trainer as he was, a combination not often
reached. Hence, from "St. George's" docility, great expectations were
entertained of the temper of the "Traveller" stock.
"All depends upon the breaking," says the young and ardent, but chiefly
inexperienced, horse-lover.
"Not so! The leading qualities of horse and man are strongly hereditary.
Education _modifies_, but removes not, the inherited tendency--sometimes
hardly even modifies."
So, whether "Traveller's" dam had an ineradicable taste for "propping,"
or was cantankerous otherwise, disencumbering herself, on occasion, of
saddle, rider, and such trifles, or whether he himself, in early youth,
used to send the stable-boys flying ever and anon, I have no means of
knowing. Nothing can be surer, however, than this fact, that most of the
Traveller colts and fillies at Dunmore and surrounding stations
displayed an indisposition to be broken in little short of insanity.
When ridden for the first time they fought and struggled, bucked and
kicked, fell down, got up, and went at it again with unabated fury.
Tamed by hard work and perseverance, when they were turned out for a
little rest, they were nearly as bad, if taken up again, as at the
first onset. When apparently quietened, they would set to work with a
stranger as though he were some new species of pre-Adamite man. All
sorts of grooms were tried, dare-devils who could ride anything, steady
ones who mouthed carefully and gave plenty of exercise and preparation.
It was all the same in result. They were hard to break in, hard to ride
when they were broken in, and sometimes hardest of all in the intervals
of station work. Of course there were exceptions. But they were few. And
a stranger who was offered a fresh horse at a station in the
neighbourhood was apt to ask if he was a "Traveller"; and if answered in
the affirmative, to look askance and inquire when he had been ridden
last, and whether he had then "done anything," before committing himself
to his tender mercies.
It was the more provoking because in all other respects the family
character was unassailable. They were handsome and level of shape,
iron-legged, full of courage and staying power, well-paced, and in some
instances very fast--notably Tramp, Trackdeer, St. George, No Ma,
Triton, The Buckley colt, and many others. Triton won the Three-year-old
Stakes at Port Fairy against a good field, and the Geelong Steeplechase
the year after, running up and winning on the post after a bad fall, and
with his rider's collar-bone broken. The offspring of particular mares
were observed to be better tempered than others. Triton's dam, Katinka,
was a Clifton, and he was in the main good-humoured; though I remember
him throwing his boy just before a race. The "Die Vernons" were mostly
like their mother, free and liberal-minded; but many of the others--I
may say most of them--were "regular tigers," requiring the horsemen who
essayed to ride them habitually to be young, valiant, in hard training,
and up to all the tricks of the rough-riding trade. That they seldom
commended themselves to elderly gentlemen may easily be believed. Even
here was the exception. The late Mr. Gray, Crown Lands Commissioner for
the Western District, when on his rounds, took a fancy to a fine bay
colt, just broken in, and bought him. He, however, caused a young police
trooper to ride him provisionally, and for many a month he went about
under one or other of the orderlies. I never observed the portly person
of the Commissioner upon the bay colt. He eventually disposed of him
untried for that service.
Four colts in one year went to "that bourne from which no 'Traveller'
returns"--(James Irvine's joke, all rights reserved). One filly threw
her rider on the run, galloped home, and broke her neck over the horse
paddock fence, which she was too _tête exaltée_ to remark. One reared up
and fell over; never rose. One broke his back, after chasing every one
out of the yard, in trying to get under an impossible rail. And one
beautiful cob (mine) fractured his spinal vertebræ in dashing at the
gate like a wild bull.
The history of this steed, and of others which I have observed more
recently, has most fully satisfied me of the hereditary transmission of
qualities in horse-breeding, and nothing, therefore, will convince me to
the contrary. I was then in a position to try the experiment personally,
as well as to see it tried.
For, observe the conditions. The proprietors of Dunmore were young,
highly intelligent persons, with a turn for scientific research; good
horsemen, all fond of that branch of stock-breeding. The run being of
choice quality was comparatively small in extent. The stock were kept in
paddocks for part of the year. The grooms were good, and always under
strict supervision. The young horses were stabled and well fed during
breaking, brushed and curry-combed daily. They were used after the
cattle when partly broken--an excellent mode of completing a horse's
education. And yet the result was, as I have described, unsatisfactory.
The majority of the young horses turned out of this model establishment
were with great difficulty broken to saddle, and even then were
troublesome and unsafe. How can this condition of affairs be accounted
for, except upon the hypothesis that in animals, as in the human
subject, certain inherited tendencies are reproduced with such strange
similarity to those of immediate or remote ancestors as to be incapable
of eradication, and well-nigh of modification, by training?
I may state here that I should not have entered so freely into the
subject had the Dunmore stud, as such, been still in existence. Such is
not the case. Two of the three proprietors, once high in hope and full
of well-grounded anticipations of success in their colonial career, are
in their graves. Dunmore, so replete with pleasant memories, has long
been sold. The stud is dispersed. My old friend James Irvine, though
still in the flesh and prospering, as he deserves, has only an indirect
interest in the memory of "Traveller," whose qualities during life he
would never have suffered to be thus aspersed. The "Traveller temper,"
still doubtless existent in various high-bred individuals, is perchance
wearing out. After all, this equine exhumation is but the history of the
formation of an opinion. It may serve a purpose, however, if it leads to
the resolution in the minds of intending stud-masters, "never to breed
from a sire of bad-tempered stock."