PBOTD 9th May: Caroline Akrill - Eventer's Dream

-
Caroline Akrill's Eventer's Trilogy is probably the best series of books about eventing. More modern attempts to cover the sport certainly lack the wit, humour and sheer bonkers dash of Caroline Akrill's books. 

Christine Lunness, Caroline's editor at Arlington Books spotted how popular eventing was becoming and commissioned a series on the sport.  Its heroine is Elaine, whose ambition to become an eventer is hugely complicated by her decision to work for the Fanes, the classic aristocratic family who are asset rich and cash poor. As one cannot pay the blacksmith with a bit of ancestral brickwork their livery business is in a parlous state by the time Elaine arrives, and it is the tension between the wayward Fanes and Elaine’s ambition that gives the books their spark. 

Arlington, 1981, 1st edition
The Fanes are extremely funny, though on occasions worryingly callous. It is Elaine who provides the humanity and the calm centre point of the stories. 

Granada, 1984
If you've been in the horse world a long time, you might well know the Fanes' mother, Lady Jennifer. In an interview I did with Caroline, I asked her if the Fanes were based on people she'd met in real life. She said: 
“Yes, but as individuals, not one family. Lady Jennifer is truly out there and she has never recognised herself!”
Armada, 1990
The Eventer's Trilogy
Eventer's Dream
A Hoof in the Door
Ticket to Ride


More on Caroline Akrill
Badminton Horse Trials

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