BRAVE BUCKLEY

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, 1 December 1919, Page 28

BRAVE BUCKLEY

BUCKLEY is a horse--2 | breaker. I believe the name given him at his baptism was 5 ji) David, which was quite early in life turned into Dave, that again being changed in fav-

our of the nickname “Brave,” which to my personal knowledge he has earned many times over. As I saw him yesterday he was a little old man, bent and lame, walking with the help of an “ash plant and looking sixty-five or perhaps more. To-day, mounted on a rough, underfed, three-year-old, he looked about fifty, which is, I believe, near his age. A series of hard falls and drinking bouts, many of which have left permanent marks on a face which to start with would have been “no help to him in the dock,” as I once heard a “Web and rope halter” woman tell him during an altercation in a horse fair, makes it impossible to do more than guess at his age. An inventory of his features, or rather want of them, would include but one eye, a broken nose and a curiously crumpled ear, the result of his having been “riz off the ground an’ shook like a terrier would shake a rat,” by a savage stallion. For at least thirty years he has been at his precarious trade unceasingly, generally having half-a-dozen colts on hand at the same time, using the most unruly one as a hack to carry him backwards and forwards to his other pupils’ stables. His fees are reasonable in the extreme, being “two pounds for making a lepper of him, an’ fifteen shillings for puttin’ him so you can plough wid him.” He has no regular place of abode but feeds just wherever he happens to be breaking a colt, seldom two consecutive meals in the same house, and sleeps, anywhere when drunk, when sober, preferably with a paitlybroken horse. The moment a colt is sufficiently educated to allow of his being ridden away from home and this takes an almost incredibly short time in “Brave’s” hands —he is “broken to public house” in the following manner: — The 'first step is to ride him up as close as possible to the door, dismount, take the reins over his head and go far enough inside the door to reach a glass of whisky. Frequent disappointments in the shape of sudden backward jerks at the critical moment on the part of the colt, and the consequent spilling of his drink, have made “Brave” an adept at swallowing a glass of spirits at one gulp. After a day or two of this “whisky snatchin’ ” as he calls it, you may see your valuable colt tied to anything, preferably to the wheel of an ass-cart, while “Braye Buckley” gets comfortably drunk inside. Strange to relate, no serious accident ever happens. Your colt may take fright at a drunken yell from the bar or at the sudden exit of Buckley—who, being quarrelsome in his cups, is frequently flung out — and pulling back, either break the rope and gallop home or capsize the ass-cart. In neither case will “Braye Buckley” be the least worried. It is his proud boast that “No horse is fit for a gintieman to ride till he has carried me home, drunk, straight across country in the dark,” and I believe this has been the copingstone on the education of all the best hunters in the country.

I once had what I at first thought the misfortune to become the owner of a horse that had fairly earned a most unenviable reputation. He came into my possession, through a mistake, in the following rather remarkable manner. A certain wellknown sportsman and horse-breeder of the neighbourhood having died, all his stock was advertised to be sold by auction. Amongst the horses was one which I particularly wished to buy, but being at the time confined to my room from the effects of a fall, I was unable to attend the sale. Not wishing to miss a good animal I marked the number on the catalogue and sent my farm steward with orders to bid up to a hundred and fifty pounds. Imagine my amazement when he returned and told me that he had bought the horse for seventeen pounds, ten shillings. I insisted that there must be a mistake which would be cleared up when I received the auctioneer’s bill.

“What bill?” said the steward. “I paid for the horse and here’s the receipt.” The mystery was cleared up a little later when the horse arrived, led, with a borrowed rope, by the man who had been sent to ride him home. The order of sale had been altered, and No. 5, instead of being the steady hunter that I coveted, turned out to be a beautiful chestnut five-year-old, evidently just taken off grass, which was instantly recognised by my groom as being given up as hopeless by every rough-rider in the country except “Brave Buckley.” His only virtue was that he was perfectly gentle in the stable until saddled. Out of it he was a regular fiend. The mere fact of his having become mine for the ridiculous sum of seventeen pounds ten shillings, when from his looks alone he should have fetched at least a couple of hundred, showed how wide and unsavoury his reputation was. My old groom firmly refused to have any “truck with him,” and the steward suggested that I should turn him out to grass and leave him there till

there was another war to which he could be sent, like what he called “the Kruger horses that was the sweepin’s of the country.” His only alternative being that I should “hand him over body an’ sleeves to Brave Buckley,” who, he assured me, “would knock the divil out of him no matter how deep-rooted he was in him.” Following this advice, much against the wish of my groom, my acquaintance with “Brave Buckley” began. Immediately after breakfast next morning, I was told that “I was wanted in the stable yard.” And “wanted” I certainly was to judge by the loud and angry voices which greeted me. “Am I to have me own way wid this horse or am I to be dictated to be them that would be in dread to see another ride him, much less ride him themselves?” was the question I was asked by a very angry and apparently half-drunken “Buckley.” “Beg pardon, sir,” said the English groom, “but is it your wish hand borders that this savage ’oss is to have three feeds of corn like the ’unters?” “I wouldn’t give it to say to any man,” burst in “Brave,” “that it was be starvation I bruk him, an’ moreover, no man can put a wake, hungry horse into his bridle. If I don’t feed him and care him meself, the Englishman can do his choice thing to him. I’ll lave it all to your Honour an’ I’ll take nothin’ from you if he

isn’t bruk to suit you whin I’m done wid him.” This seemed such a very fair, not to say one-sided, bargain that I instantly closed with it, and the horse was forthwith handed over “body and sleeves” —as the steward had originally suggested—to “Brave.” While this arrangement was being come to, the English groom stood by wearing a look of amused contempt. “ ’Ow long will it take you to be finished with the ’oss, or as I should say, for the ’oss to be finished with you?” he asked. “I don’t know till I have the first ‘who shall’ wid him,” replied “Brave.” “I suppose you ’aven’t ’eard what ’e did to the man they fetched hup from Tipperary to ride him, ’ave you?” continued the groom. “There isn’t a thing he ever did that I don’t know better than yourself, even to the time he was tuk to Cahirmee Fair, saddled an’ bridled an’ led behind a car in the hones that the strange place an’ the big crowd of horses might put behaviour into him for a while. The first man that mounted him was a poor innocent Englishman like yourself. ’Twas four miles from the Fair field he was got afther, an’ no account of the horse. They toult me that he wasn’t hurt at all but just bewildered wid the fright.” “Now,” he continued, “as I’ll undertake no other horse till this won is off me hands, I may as well begin at him.”

Having fetched a saddle and a snaffle bridle, he disappeared into the horse’s box saying, “shut the door an’ boult it an’ don’t open it till I’ll tell you.” Being most anxious to see what was about to happen, I managed, with the help of two inverted stable buckets, to reach the window, where I had a capital view. The horse stood perfectly quiet while being saddled and even opened his mouth to take the bit as if anxious to go out, which no doubt he was. He seemed rather to resent the next item on the programme, however, which was the production of a filthy red handkerchief from “Brave’s” cap. With this he was quickly blindfolded. He no longer stood upright, but crouched with knees and hocks bent and seemed to have suddenly become perfectly rigid. “Brave” now began to pull at the near stirrup leather, leaning his whole weight on it and finally slapping it hard against the skirt of the saddle, making a noise like a pistol shot. Still the horse remained crouched and rigid. He next took hold of the ring of the snaffle, and having drawn the horse’s head as far as possible towards himself, suddenly gave him a sharp blow of the ash stick on the quarter and began to twist him round and round as quickly as he could. Having continued this for quite five minutes, he again began to pull

and lean his' weight on the stirrup. The horse now resuming his crouched and rigid position and evidently being prepared for a spring the moment he should feel the man on his back. This was soon to come, for “Brave” now quietly put his foot into the iron and crept into the saddle. The instant his right leg was on the horse’s back he took his left foot out of the iron and, raising his arm above his head, gave him a resounding cut of the stick on the ribs. The horse bounded into the air, crashing his head against the wall of the stable with a force that sat him back on his tail. Another blow and another collision with the wall, this time at the other side of the stall, and to my amazement “Brave” —having put both feet back into the irons—reached over and pulled off the handkerchief. The horse, now in a foam of sweat, stood quite still, no longer crouched and rigid, but naturally. A few drops of blood trickling from one nostril and a raw place on the forehead about the size of a crown piece was all the outward damage; but he must have been more or less stunned, for he now allowed himself to be mounted without the aid of the handkerchief and walked round and round the stall, first to the right and then to the left as he was guided by the bit. “I have him now, sir,” called “Brave,” “open the door, an’ open it wide, I’m cornin’ out.” The door was a low one and I expected to see “Brave” dismount and lead the horse out. Not a bit of it, he just bent forward till his head was lower than the withers and rode out, to the amazement of the old groom and an admiring group of stablemen.

“That’s an iligent stall entirely, for that kind of work,” said “Brave,” “there’s such grand head room, an’ moreover the walls are so solid. If ’twas mud walls, like most of the farmers have, he’d butt his head agin ’em a dozen times before he’d be satisfied. I always takes me feet out of th’irons since the time a rogue like this lad took me right clane through a mud wall an’ nearly tore the face off me agin a rafther. He wasn’t half as bad as I expected. I made sure he’d rare up an’ come back on me afther the first puck he hit the wall. ’Tis what the likes of him mostly does.” “Why did I turn him round that way? Sure that’s the quare question to ask me. Hadn’t Ito get him bothered so he’d forget where the wall was.” “Starting to buck before the man was rightly clung to the saddle was the way he ever an’ always thrun them that tried to ride him. Afther another dose like he got now, I’ll engage he’ll let a cripple of an Englishman (this with a scornful look at the groom) mount him.” “There’s a few lessons to tache him, but the worst is over with him. I’d a dale sooner be rough handlin’ the man that put the first coVardly hand on the crature, but it-can’t be helped now.” “His mouth must be med all over agin out of the new, an’ he must ba given a disgust to rubbin’ a man’s, leg agin a wall, which is another nice habit he has. That an’ runnin’ away wid his two eyes closed for fear he might see what would stop him, are the worst points in him.” “Whin I have them out of him you’ll be soon sackin’ me, but don’t be too sure of yourself for a while yet.” Not wishing to lower myself in the eyes of the aptly-named “Brave,” I refrained from telling him how very unlikely it was that I should ever trust myself to the brute. All this time the horse was being slowly ridden round the yard. The sweat was beginning to dry on him, but he still seemed to be in a dazed condition and one eye was beginning to swell. I remarked on this to “Brave,” who replied: “He’ll have to come out tomorrow, whether he’s rightly able to or not, an’ there must be no doctorin’ done to him. The small price you ped for him will keep the life in him; ’tis always them that costs big money that dies. The stiffer and sorer he is to-morrow mornin’, the aisier the learnin’ will come to him.”

Rather more than a week passed by before I again saw the horse. The grass condition had melted off him — no other words describe the change that had come in his appearance—his neck and shoulders seemed to have lengthened, and now that he was tucked up one could see what grandly sprung ribs he had. Altogether, he looked what the old groom called “the frame of a fine ’oss.” He certainly was not much more than a

frame. At the first glance I thought he looked starved, but I was assured that he was the best possible feeder “at night which is the honly time ’e is hever in the stable.” Judging from a big knee and a scar on one hip he and “Brave” had been having more than one “who shall,” the result of which I certainly should have been told by the groom if “Brave” had not been the victor. As it was, I was only told that “the ’oss not being bunder my charge, I takes no responsibility and arsks no questions.” However, it was not long till I was able to satisfy my curiosity. “Send for Buckley at once,” I ordered.

“Ain’t got far to send, sir,” answered the groom. “Get hup when you’re called, carn’t ye?” A heap of litter in the corner heaved, and my astonished gaze met that of a very blear-eyed Buckley whose head emerged from the straw. “Gawd honly knows what time ’e brought that unfortunate ’oss in last night. It’s a mercy ’e took the saddle hoff before ’e dossed himself in the corner.”

By this time “Brave” had* got on his legs, and having shaken himself like a dog was dressed for the day.

“Your Honour’s welcome back,” said he; “would you like to see the horse out? He’s goin’ on grand. I have him so that you couldn’t put him up agin a wall if you was to try all day. But he tore the sole off

wan of me boots tachin’ him. ’Twas clogs I had on me, for there’s no leather sole could stand the wear an’ tear of a horse buckin’ agin a wall whin your toe is agin it an’ the spur stuck in his ribs. He stood the battle the longest I ever saw an’ I’m in dread he’ll take the marks of the spurs to the grave wid him. But he’s cured.”

The straw of his late couch having been turned over, a saddle and bridle were unearthed. Having put the latter on the horse, he requested the groom to “throw him up,” and this having been done he rode out barebacked; not satisfied with riding him round the yard, he actually galloped round the paddock more than once, the horse bending to his bridle and turning like a polo pony.

“About another week should make a lepper of him, an’ then I’m done,” said he; “but your Honour must give me the price of a pair of boots before I can face the Hunt.”

I was so delighted with the performance that, in spite of warning look from the groom, I handed over a sovereign to the bootless “Brave.” That evening I left home and did not return for four days.

“Please, sir, you’re wanted immediate in the stables,” was the ominous message with which I was greeted. “Heverything in my charge is right as usual, sir,” said the groom, “but that there ’oss that was took hout of

my charge ain’t been seen since last Tuesday, when Buckley rode hoff to buy them boots. I did ’ear that 'e was seen at a funeral at Millstreet, twenty miles from ’ere, but I ain’t putting no dependence on the rumour.” Just as I was congratulating myself on there being only seventeen pounds worth of horseflesh missing, and rather hoping that “Brave Buckley” had departed for ever with it, I was startled by a succession of wild yells accompanied by the clatter of a horse’s feet at full gallop over paving stones. “ ’Ere ’e comes,” shouted the groom, as he hurriedly bolted round the corner of the row of boxes, “and I do believe ’e’s a ranting, raving lunatic.” Certainly “Brave” looked the character. Bareheaded, his face covered with dried blood and dirt, two funeral scarves, one of black crape and the other of white calico, tied round his middle as a girdle, into which was stuck an empty bottle after the manner of Dick Turpin’s pistol in the famous circus act, and, most wonderful of all, with the reins attached to only one side of the bit, the other end having been broken off short at the ring, he sat bolt upright, smiling foolishly at his audience. “ ’Twas a dacent funeral an’ a damn dacent funeral an’ this is a dacent lepper an’ a damn dacent lepper,” he solemnly announced. “I

lepped everything between this an’ Millstreet, an’ there’s people that sez I lepped the hearse, but it’s a lie for ’em. I know I lepped gravestones, for I got this clout on the head for doing so from wan of them that owned the graves. An’ now I beg your Honour’s pardon.” Here he burst into tears and held out one foot, part of which stuck out through the remains of a boot —“but I forgot the boots.”

This episode completed the education of my horse, for although not being a particularly courageous horseman, I decided that perhaps I could manage, with the help of a whole bridle, to do what “Brave” had accomplished with half of one. Three years have passed since “Bravo” —as I christened what is certainly the best horse in my stable — attended the Millstreet funeral. “Brave’s” prophesy that he would “make him so that a cripple or an Englishman could mount him” has come true. I have just seen my old groom ride him in from exercise. I still hold the greater part of the ten pounds which was “Brave’s” fee, as he begged me to keep it for him and never under any circumstances to let him have more than ten shillings at one time. I also established a rule that he was to get nothing unless he was quite sober when he asked for it. This I think accounts for the fact that he has only had three pounds in three years.