PBOTD: 25th January, Lois Castellain: Adolphus the TV Horse

-
Adolphus is one of those creations you look at and wonder how you missed. He seems such an ebullient creature, it's difficult to believe how completely he and his friends have faded from view.

Adolphus, Constable, 1964
Adolphus the Clydesdale was created by author and illustrator Lois Castellain, and first appeared as a sort of cross between cartoon and short story in Riding Magazine. Riding had a Young Rider's section, which included a short story, two pages of letters from young readers, and, from September, 1939, Adolphus and his friend Dodie, the Shetland. They were there to do a job: Adolphus was a walking anatomy lesson. He was so bony that it was easy to see his points. His sidekick was a much better covered equine: a Shetland called Dodie.

Adolphus in Riding Magazine, September 1939
The books are not particularly easy to find. The first book, Adolphus, was published in 1939, presumably to tie in with their introduction in Riding. The second, Adolphus the TV Horse, was published nearly 30 years later, when times had changed, and the farm horse was a rare beast. Adolphus has been made redundant, and is not happy. He runs away and finds a brief spell of fame on a tv show until he finds he is needed, after all, on the farm.

~  0  ~

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rollkur and the blue tongue

-
I've been meaning to write about this all week, but reading the exclusive in Horse and Hound about the controversy tipped me over the edge. For my non-horsy readers, rollkur is a training/warming up technique used by some dressage riders. It basically involves riding the horse with its jaw pulled in virtually to its chest, in order to increase suppleness. Patrik Kittel , a Swedish competitor in Odense was videoed riding his horse in this way. If you watch the video , you'll see the horse's tongue hanging out - blue. It takes a while before the rider notices this. When he does, he stops, puts the horse's tongue back in, and carries on. There are two things which bother me about this. Firstly, I am fully aware large sections of the dressage world, and some of its brighest stars, consider rollkur perfectly ok, but the FEI guidelines state this practice should only be for short periods, allowing the horse to rest. Patrick Kittel apparently rode the horse for two hou...
Read more

Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes

-
Image
My friend Louise sent me this picture today. It's from a children's book with the rather wince-making title For The Wee Ones. I thought, when I read that (because I read the message before I looked at the picture) that the picture was going to be a typical winsome production from the school of artists who think (or who are paid to think) that the child is a thing sent from God and a blissful thing. They had obviously never met a child, and certainly not mine. I should have known Louise better. The artist responsible for Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes slipped this one past the editors. Just look at the poor, broken Mother Rabbit. She knows she has not the faintest chance of being listened to, and poor thing, she is stooped in the way of a mother to whom this is just the lastest in a long line of horror; with nothing good to come. And Archibald is obviously the spawn of the Devil. Just look at those eyes. He'll have the bed after he's finished the bedclothes...
Read more

Dick Sparrow - 40 Horse Hitch, and Neil Dimmock's 46 Percherons

-
Image
Here's a clip of Dick Sparrow driving 40 horses. It's an amazing sight, particularly when the shot changes to show the team from the rear and you get the great incongruity of modern American corporate architecture as a background to the wagon and horses. I love the anticipation in the video: the sense of something amazing being just round the corner is palpable. Thanks to Christina Wilsdon for telling me about this world record 46 Percheron hitch (alas just stills) but you get the idea.
Read more