PBOTD: 20th May 2014, Richard Ball - Broncho

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This book had been languishing on my to be read pile for years. It's not the oldest resident, which is rather depressing. Generally I put off reading books because I think they'll bore me, but I've enjoyed Broncho so far. If you've read Michael Morpurgo's War Horse, you'll enjoy this book. It was written in 1930, 12 years after the end of the First World War, and is billed as "the imaginary biography of a horse" - I don't like books in which the horse tells its story, but the narrative in this book is actually told from the third person, so there are none of the uncomfortable anthropomorphisms which usually lurk in equine autobiographies.

Country Life, 1930, illus G D Armour
Broncho is a much abused horse who has ended up at a rather shady dealer's. He's bought by Robert, who, very slowly, gets him round. And then they go off to war.... 

Broncho disembarks in France
I believe the story is loosely based on Colonel Malise Graham and his horse Broncho, which he rode at Olympia. 


Colonel Malise Graham on Broncho
Country Life, 6th July, 1929


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