Black beauty I couldn’t leave behind
By Jane Fryer
THIS is a love story so tender, touching and enduring that it will surely warm even the hardest of hearts.
It involves two handsome and surprisingly sentimental males.
One is a 23- year- old, 18- hand, rather arrogant mountain of muscle and sinew, with an impossibly glossy black coat and three flashing white socks. He’s called Agricola, or Aggie for short.
The other is a 35-year- old construction worker from Lancashire, a semi-professional footballer, father- of-two and former Household Cavalry Guard with exceptional cheekbones, called Ezphia Rennock, or Ezzy.
They met 17 years ago when they were partnered in the Household Cavalry and, for five hard years, they spent practically every waking hour together.
They guarded Buckingham Palace and Whitehall. They protected the Queen at State events, played their parts to perfection at the funerals of the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, and were key members of the royal escort, flanking the Queen’s carriage at Trooping the Colour and numerous parades and investitures. Both novices, they made mistakes and learned the hard way, supporting and encouraging one another during the long, demanding days and, often, even longer nights. It was an unhappy time initially for Ezzy, who was just 18 years old.
‘It was hard and I was homesick, but Aggie was a huge comfort,’ he recalls. ‘We lent on each other and I’d hug and kiss him and chat on and on about life, the job, the world.’
Although he knew it was madness, he promised Aggie that, one day, when their military careers were over, he’d come back for him.
‘It was crazy, I knew. How could I ever own a Cavalry horse?’ he says now, smiling.
‘But you know when a horse is listening. And Aggie would put his head on my chest and breathe really heavily as I said it.’
In 2007, after six years as a Guardsman (one of only two mixed-race guardsmen at the time), Ezzy returned to civvy street.
He missed his trusty steed, though — pined for him, even — and talked about him to anyone who would listen. But that was that — until now.
Because, against all the odds, at considerable personal cost and after a gap of 12 years, Ezzy has fulfilled his promise and adopted his service horse.
This month, he settled Aggie into a luxury livery stables near his home in Preston, where, once again, he can chat to him, groom him and ride him whenever he likes.
‘It was like my whole life had been working towards this place,’ he says, all aglow.
Ezzy was never the obvious Household Cavalry recruit. He grew up on a council estate and was obsessed with football and building camps — although he loved school, too. ‘I didn’t miss a single day.’
He’d never been to London and the closest he’d come to a horse were the mounted police at football matches.
But, after an aborted electrical apprenticeship (‘I lasted six weeks — it wasn’t for me!’), Ezzy decided to join the Army, inspired by his grandfather who had been in the Scots Guards and had been posted outside Buckingham Palace in his bearskin hat.
His heart was set on the Household Cavalry — formed of the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals, the two most senior regiments in the British Army.
‘It’s hard to get in,’ says Ezzy. ‘You can’t just be any old muppet to join the Cavalry — and, while 95 per cent of guards have never been on a horse before, you’ve got to have a bit about you.’
You also have to be resilient. The ‘Cav’ is notorious for being one of the toughest regiments in the Armed Forces, with the longest days, the least leave and, according to Ezzy, the highest suicide rate.
The horses the Guards ride are all bred at the same stud in Ireland and must be black. They have their regimental number stamped on their hooves and are named alphabetically — with a different letter for each year, like car registration plates — after Greek gods, Roman emperors and generals (Agricola was a Roman general), battles and places of historical importance.
They usually measure at least 16 hands and must be exceptionally strong to be able to carry up to 30kg of ceremonial regalia, plus a rider.
Many do not make it through the training process, either because they don’t move well enough, look good enough (an impeccable appearance is non-negotiable), or have the right temperament.
AS FOR the Guards, they rise at 5.30am and spend their days mucking out, grooming and dressaging their charges, and their nights — often into the early hours if they are on parade — polishing and cleaning tack, helmets, chest plates, swords and tunics.
‘Our job is to protect the Queen, and it is a huge privilege to do it, but it is very hard work,’ says Ezzy. ‘I had never lived away from home and, to start with, I was very homesick.’
It didn’t help that, after 12 months’ intensive training on a much more malleable mount, Ezzy, ‘an 11 st whippersnapper’, had been paired with one of the biggest — he weighs more than three quarters of a ton — strongest, cleverest and naughtiest horses at the Hyde Park Barracks in London.
‘Aggie was known for chucking people off — and hitting concrete is not fun,’ says Ezzy, cheerily. ‘ He chucked me off many a time.’
Amazingly, he was never injured — although there was a near-miss. Once, with both of them in full state regalia, Aggie tripped on the low chains outside Whitehall and nearly fell on Ezzy.
‘I thought that was it,’ says Ezzy. ‘If his full weight had landed on me, he’d have snapped me in half, but, somehow, he managed to twist as he fell and I was OK.’
Eventually, after a couple of years, Aggie calmed down and Ezzy found himself popping into his loose box for a hug and a chat every time he felt low. ‘He could always tell if I was near breaking point or just very lonely,’ says Ezzy.
‘He could hear the shouting and could always read the mood. I’m a tough guy, so never shed tears, but I built up a lot of inner tears, and he helped me. He was my best friend.’
And Ezzy needed one: the dayto-day grind in the Cav is gruelling, particularly for those on show.
‘When he was in his prime, Aggie was absolutely stunning,’ he says, proudly. ‘So we were almost always part of the retinue team, right by the royal carriage.’
That meant 2.30am finishes, polishing and buffing like crazy, followed by that 5.30am start — and a lot of time in close proximity to the Queen.
‘She’s a really lovely woman — we met her loads of times and she definitely recognised me,’ he says.
Seven years of soldiering was enough for Ezzy and, in 2007, he signed over his ceremonial kit — £30,000 worth — along with Aggie, who was out to grass on his annual holiday at the Royal Army Veterinary Corps Depot in Melton Mowbray.
‘I didn’t say goodbye. It is one of my lifelong regrets,’ says Ezzy, suddenly quiet and pink-eyed.
And so that was that. Aggie was reassigned to another cavalryman and Ezzy started a new life back in Preston. He went into the construction industry and now runs a successful sub- contracting business. He also joined Longridge Town FC as a striker.
Eight years ago, he met his partner, Kirsty, and they now have a six-yearold daughter, Lilly, and one-week-old son, Lucius. Ezzy says he was happy to be out of the Army, but something was missing: ‘I thought about Aggie all the time.’
He scoured TV coverage of every royal procession for sightings of Aggie, who served at the weddings of the Dukes and Duchesses of Cambridge and Sussex.
‘I kept missing him, but he was definitely there, close to the carriage, protecting the royals,’ he says.
The years passed; he rode other people’s horses, but never wanted his own. ‘It was only ever Aggie.’
Then, in February, on a birthday trip to London, Ezzy met up with some old friends from the Guards who invited him and his family to the barracks for a visit.
In the tack room, Ezzy did a double take because there, among the hundreds of saddles, he spotted Aggie’s saddle. ‘I recognised it immediately! It was distinctive
because he has an odd- shaped back and it still had the blue and red laces I’d hand-painted 12 years before!
‘I couldn’t believe it and kept asking: “Where is he? Where is he?” ’
BUT Aggie, now 23, was back in Melton Mowbray. Despite his age, he had only just retired — most Cavalry hoses retire between 17 and 18 years old and are then put up for ‘adoption’ by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Aggie was already on the adoption list.
Ezzy was like a man possessed. He contacted the MoD that day to find out if he was too late to be considered. He wasn’t, but he had to prove he could provide for Aggie; that he could afford his ongoing livery, vets and farrier bills. that he could keep him in the style of a great Army veteran.
Without hesitation, he filled in the forms, confirmed he would pay the £1,000 guide price and dared to dream. But then, bad news.
Very unusually, five other people were also interested: Aggie was going to sealed bids.
‘I felt really dejected,’ says Ezzy. ‘We’d come so close — and the connection I had with him!’
So he wrote a long, emotional letter ‘from the heart’, explaining their bond, what Aggie meant to him and what he could offer him.
‘It would be a dream come true,’ he wrote. ‘It would be an honour and a privilege to which I can’t find the words to describe.’
He said the thought of rehoming Agricola ‘ makes me beam from ear to ear’, that he still held his military standards and values and that, in his eyes, Agricola ‘will be a veteran as any other soldier would be when his time in the military is done’.
the letter, he admits, was full of spelling mistakes, but it was overflowing with love and hope and, immediately after it had been read, the MoD called to say the horse was his — despite another offer of £5,000 on the table. ‘ I couldn’t believe it,’ says Ezzy. ‘It took me back to all those times I used to tell him: “I’m going to own you one day. I’m going to come back for you.” It was crazy ever to think I could. But I promised him, and it happened.’
And here, the ‘tough guy’ brims over and we sit quietly for a bit until he can speak again through the tears. ‘It just gets me, sorry. I love him. I just really love him.’
they were finally reunited — after 12 years apart — last month in Melton Mowbray.
‘ Horses recognise people by smell and, when I approached him, his nose was going mad and we both just knew,’ he says. ‘It was so wonderful, but I just wanted to get him away in case they changed their minds!’ today, Aggie — who looks more like 13 than 23 — lives in splendour at the Duchy- owned Forrest Sport Horses stables near Preston, which boast carved horses’ heads over the entrance gates, spacious loose boxes, hot showers and more than 40 acres in which to lounge about.
He is on full livery, but Ezzy pops in every single day to groom him, chat to him and just hang out.
the minute Aggie sees his master, he whickers with pleasure and trots over to say hello, tossing his huge, glossy head. Every other day, they ride out — and Aggie still tries to throw him off, just to keep him on his toes, says Ezzy.
It is a huge commitment. Forrest Sport is expensive — £450 a month — but Ezzy’s partner Kirsty, 32, has been ‘ absolutely brilliant’ about it all. Which, given Aggie is likely to live until well into his 30s, is a good thing.
But Ezzy has no regrets and never will. ‘ there were plenty of horses in the Cav — but there was only one Aggie,’ he says. ‘I’m just a normal guy who made a promise a long time ago that I would come back for him, because he was never just an ordinary horse.’