Winston Churchill
In his new book, Churchill at the Gallop, Brough Scott delves into an often unknown part of the ‘Greatest Briton in History’s’ life: his prowess in the saddle
An exclusive look inside Brough Scott’s new book on Churchill’s oftenforgotten prowess in the saddle
IT is actually pretty difficult to do — and that’s if the horse is standing still. Without taking your left hand off the reins, you have to raise your cavalry sword in your right hand across in front of you, and re-sheath it in the scabbard attached to the near side of the saddle.
At 8.40 on a steamy hot morning in the Sudan on 2 September 1898, Winston Churchill did it at the gallop. Then he reached forward with the same hand, pulled his Mauser pistol out of its wooden holster and cocked it ready to fire. He needed to. Other bullets were already whistling past him, and 400 yards ahead lay 2,500 pumped-up dervishes intent on cutting him and his fellow cavalrymen to pieces.
Think about it, as I have a lot over the years. In an earlier life, I galloped over steeplechase fences for a living. In the 1965 Grand National, there were a mere 47 runners, not 440 Lancers, and, at the end of the most hectic 10 minutes of my life, just three of us were on the way to Walton Hospital, not 22 dying in the desert sand after a similar period of infinitely more frenetic and bloody action. The more you think about it, the tougher it looks.
Like most people who have ever heard about Winston Churchill — as a war baby his “Blood, sweat and tears” speech was an accompaniment to my childhood — I sort of knew about the Charge at Omdurman. But, dumbly, it has taken me three score years and 10 to consider its equestrian implications.
For Churchill to keep his seat as he and his
horse crashed into, down, and through the seething, hacking throng in that dried river bed, where the main body of the enemy were concealed, took riding skills and dexterity with a pistol almost off the scale. How intense had been his preparation? How much did riding figure in his upbringing — and how much in his later life? To my, and maybe your, surprise, the answer is a great deal and, in fact, he rode more extensively than any British Prime Minister before or since.
MAYBE we shouldn’t be surprised. Winston Churchill was born a full 20 years before the first car was driven on a British highway, making spectators goggle and horses bolt. Both sides of his family had horses as a necessary part of their existence, as well as a major source of their pleasure. For Winston, horses were his escape in childhood, his challenge in youth, his transport in war, his triumph in sport and his diversion in dotage. They were even involved the day before he was born. The rough ride his mother had while returning in a pony trap from a shooting party caused Churchill’s premature birth in an anteroom at Blenheim Palace in the early hours of 30 November 1874.
For this child of distant parents, trotting the pony Rob Roy around his grandfather the Duke of Marlborough’s ancestral park at Blenheim was one of the solaces of an often-lonely childhood. As the little accidentprone boy grew to frail-framed adulthood, riding horses increasingly became the means of proving the courage that was to become the core of his being. Physical and mental courage are not always shared in the same person. I am here to tell you that pulling the goggles down and galloping at the first fence in a steeplechase can at times seem far less daunting than fronting up a big TV programme, let alone, as in Winston’s case, taking on the leadership of a world whose very existence is under threat [...].
Churchill was fearless in body as well as mind. For while he struggled to even enter the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, three terms later, he passed out in the top set of cadets and gained second place overall in the riding exam. Such equestrian attainment heightened into fox hunting, point-to-pointing and steeplechasing, and an early obsession with polo, climaxing with a winning hat-trick in the coveted Inter-Regimental Cup Final at Meerut in India.
His courage, and that trained suppleness in the saddle which saw him survive the dramas of the charge at Omdurman, again saved his life two years later in South Africa during the Boer War, by enabling him to grab a stirrup and vault up behind his mounted rescuer after a seemingly fatal ambush. It also meant that when Winston had already achieved high political status, he had the expertise as well as the enthusiasm to undertake an arduous and highly hazardous horseback safari in Kenya in 1907, lead a 1,200-horse gallop at Yeomanry camp in 1911, go boar hunting in France, continue playing polo into his 50s and, in November 1948, just three days shy of his 74th birthday, hire a horse and hack off with the Old Surrey and Burstow Hunt in protest against an upcoming bill against fox hunting.
Even riding was not enough. In 1949, at the ripe old age of 74, Churchill bought a three-year-old from France called Colonist II which, as a gallant, front-running grey, went on to win 13 races and trigger 13 extraordinary, ecstatic scenes as his Homburg-hatted, cigarchewing owner gave “V for Victory” signs in the unsaddling enclosure. Many other winners followed, mostly bred by Churchill himself [...].
ALLOWANCE must be made for exaggeration when Churchill writes “best horses in the world”. But [...] the galloping grey [Colonist] embarked on a run of success [in 1950], which was little short of phenomenal.
In May, he won at Kempton and Hurst
Park before finishing a gallant fourth in the Ascot Gold Cup to the French horse Supertello, and then running up a sequence of victories at Sandown, Goodwood, Kempton
and Ascot. The five-timer was set for the Lowther Stakes at Newmarket on 12 October, the day after Churchill had been elected a member of the Jockey Club, at the same time as he was in Copenhagen to receive an Honorary Doctorate at the university and Denmark’s highest honour — the somewhat oriental-sounding Order Of The Elephant.
In the Newmarket race Colonist went to the front as usual, and although a 15-year-old Lester Piggott swept through to lead 150 yards from the line, Colonist thrust his way back to win on the post, causing John Hislop, one of the greatest of amateur rider/journalists, to write in that Sunday’s Observer, “He seems to have become imbued with the unshakeable determination of his owner, Mr Winston Churchill, so that he simply will not accept defeat”.
More immediately, Peter O’Sullevan, then just a sharp-eyed reporter, his velvety tones not yet familiar to the broadcasting world, left us a quite unforgettable picture in the next morning’s Daily Express.
MAN OF 75 HAS A DAY OUT
What a man. What a horse. Winston Churchill, I mean. Colonist II, I mean. Well, look at them. Winston is 75. The day before yesterday he wrote a big speech and delivered it before 7,000 people. Yesterday he got into a plane and flew 500 miles from Denmark to London. Then he got into another plane and flew 70 miles to Newmarket. And there, Colonist II came into the story.
The horse is only four years old. But it is the Churchill type. It ran a mile and three quarters and won by a short head at the astonishing price of 11 to eight. Astonishing because Colonist II keeps on winning at odds against, when everyone would expect him to be odds on.
This horse has now won 10 races for Mr Churchill — and the public — at nice prices the last five wins in a row. Eleven to eight.
Such charitable fellows, these bookmakers. Who backed the other runners in this race is a riddle, because everyone was clapping as the winner came in. Winston went to pat his horse. He arrived from Denmark with the brim of his Homburg hat turned up, but now the brim was turned down. He looked as happy as a man could be who has backed a winner.
Colonist II, a “wonder horse” if ever there was one, has an objection to standing still after being unsaddled. Once or twice after his victories, Mr Churchill has to step round warily to pat the horse’s nose.
So it was yesterday. The fact that Mr Churchill is now a member of the Jockey Club made no difference. Just one pat, then he had to dodge as the horse turned round.
After that Mr Churchill stepped into a plane for his third flight of the day — 170 miles to Lytham St Annes, near Blackpool.
Crowds were waiting there to cheer him. His hat brim was now turned up again. He gave the throng a grin, a wave of his cigar, and the V-sign. What a man.
Then and now, owning racehorses is a risky dalliance for a politician, and his secretary Jo Sturdee was not the only one to tell Churchill that it might lose him votes in the upcoming General Election. But owning a successful horse on which ordinary punters win money leads to a sense of common ownership.
Owning one that keeps winning makes it even better. But best of all is to have one that is grey, runs over long distances, and sets off in front to make the running. The most popular horse in all my time was the grey trailblazing steeplechaser Desert Orchid.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the most popular was Colonist II. What a vote winner for a politician!
While Churchill was heading for the Conservative party conference, the afternoon proceedings had been stopped to announce the result of the 3.15 at Newmarket, and the whole hall had burst out cheering.