CHAPTER XXI TALES OF A "TRAVELLER"

This is a "horsey" sketch, possibly therefore unacceptable to the general reader. But any chronicle of my early days, connected as they were with the birth of a great city, would be incomplete without mention of the noble animal so dear to every youthful Australian.

Reared in an atmosphere redolent of the swift courser's triumphs, often compelled to entrust life and limb to the good horse's speed, care indeed requires to be taken that the southern Briton does not somewhat overvalue his fascinating dumb companion—overvalue him to the exclusion from his thoughts of art and science, literature and dogma—to the banishment of rational conversation, and a preference for unprofitable society. So thought an old family friend, Mr. Felton Mathew (he upon his blood bay "Glaucus," and I upon my Timor pony), as we rode towards Enmore from Sydney in old, old days. He testily exclaimed, "For Heaven's sake, Rolf, don't go on talking about horses everlastingly, or you'll grow up like those colonial lads that never[Pg 213] have another idea in their heads." I winced under the rebuke, but accepted it, as became our relative ages. None the less did I bear in my secret breast that Arab-like love for horses and their belongings which marks the predestined son of the Waste here as duly as in Yemen or the Nejd.

How I longed for the day when I should have a station of my own, when I should have blood mares, colts and fillies, perhaps a horse in training, with all the gorgeous adjuncts of stud-proprietorship! The time came—the horses too—many a deeply joyous hour, many a thrill of hope and fear, many a wild ride and daring deed was mine
Ere nerve and sinew began to fail
In the consulship of Plancus.

And now the time has passed. The good horses have trotted, and cantered, and galloped away from out my life; most of them from this fair earth altogether. Yet still, memory clings with curious fidelity to the equine friends of the good old time, indissolubly connected as they were with more important personages and events.

Among the earliest blood sires that the district around Melbourne boasted were "Clifton" and "Traveller"—both New South Wales bred horses, and destined to spend their last years in the same stud. Of this pair of thoroughbreds, Clifton, a son of Skeleton and Spaewife, both imported, was bred by the late Mr. Charles Smith, and named Clifton after his stud farm near Sydney. "Skeleton," a grey horse of high lineage, own brother to "Drone," and the property of the Marquis of Sligo, was imported by[Pg 214] the late Mr. William Edward Riley, of Raby, New South Wales. To him many of the best strains of the present day trace their ancestry. "Clifton," a lengthy bay horse, possessing size, speed, and substance, was purchased by Mr. Lyon Campbell, one of the earlier Melbourne magnates, formerly in the army, and by him kept at Campbellfield, on the Yarra, near the Upper Falls. His stock, of which we possessed several, were speedy and upstanding, great jumpers, and as a family the best tempered horses I ever saw. This descended to the second generation. You could "rope," as was the unfair custom of the day, any "Clifton" colt or filly, back them in three days, and within a week ride a journey or do ordinary station work with them. They were free and handy almost at once, and remained so, no matter how long a spell they were treated to afterwards. "Red Deer," with which Mr. Sam Waldock won the Jockeys' Handicap and the All-aged Stakes at Sandhurst, was a Clifton, bred by me. "Jupiter," the winner of the All-aged Stakes in Melbourne in very good company, in 1854 or thereabouts, was another, bred by Mr. James Irvine. His first purchaser put the tackle on him at Dunmore and rode him away the same day. He was never a whit the worse hack or racehorse for the abrupt handling. My old Clifton mare, "Cynthia," was ridden barebacked with a halter once, after nearly a year's spell. She was only five years old at the time. Observation of these and other traits confirmed me in the opinion, which I have long held, that the method of breaking has little to do with a horse's paces, and less with his temper or general character. [Pg 215]Bonus equus "nascitur, non fit," as is the poet. You can no more imbue the former with desirable dispositions by force of education, even the most careful, than the schools can turn out Tennysons and Brownings by completest tuition.

"Traveller" was another "Sydney-side" celebrity, bred by the late Mr. Charles Roberts—if I mistake not, a turf antagonist of Mr. C. Smith. He was a very grand horse. "The sort we don't see now, sir," as the veteran turfite is so fond of saying. A son of "Bay Camerton," his ancestry ran back, through colonial thoroughbreds, to the Sheik Arab. Not more than fifteen hands in height, a beautiful dark chestnut in colour, he was a model of strength, speed, and symmetry. His shapes inclined more to the Arab type than to the long-striding, galloping machine into which the modern thoroughbred horse has been developed. Standing firmly on shortish, clean, iron-like legs, which years upon years of racing (in the days of heats too) had never deteriorated, he was a weight-carrier with the speed of a deer—a big-jawed Arab head, a well-shaped, high-crested neck, oblique shoulders, just room enough between them and a strong loin for a saddle, a back rib like a cask, high croup, muscular thighs, and broad, well-bent hocks. Everything that could be wished for as a progenitor of hacks, racers, and harness horses. His one defect was moral rather than physical. I shall allude to it in its place. His legs were simply wonderful. At twenty years old—about which time he died suddenly, never having suffered an hour's illness or shown the slightest sign of natural decay—they were as beautifully clean and sound as those of an unbroken [Pg 216]three-year-old. He had run and won many a race, beginning as early as 1835, when he competed with Mr. C. Smith's Chester—a half-brother, by the way—on the old Botany Road racecourse, near Sydney. I, with other schoolboys, attended this meeting, and have a clear remembrance of the depth of the sand through which the cracks of the day—Whisker, Lady Godiva, Lady Emily, and others—had to struggle for the deciding heat.

He was the property of Mr. Hugh Jamieson, of Tallarook, Goulburn River, as far back as 1841 or 1842. That gentleman, one of the originators of the Port Phillip Turf Club, temporarily relinquished breeding, and Traveller passed into the hands of a discriminating and enthusiastic proprietor, Mr. Charles Macknight, late of Dunmore, and by him was employed in the foundation of the celebrated Dunmore stud.

When I referred to the moral defect of "Traveller"—a horse that deserves to be bracketed with "Jorrocks" in the equine chronicles of Australia—my meaning had reference to the temper which he communicated to his immediate, and, doubtless, by the unvarying laws of heredity, to his remoter descendants.

This was as bad as bad could be, chiefly expressed in one particular direction—the crowning characteristic vice of Australian horses—that of buck-jumping. Curiously, the old horse was quiet and well conducted himself, though there was a legend of his having killed a man on the Sydney racecourse by a kick. However that might be, he was apparently of a serene and generous nature.

So was his first foal born at Dunmore. "St.[Pg 217] George" was the offspring of "Die Vernon" by "Peter Fin," well known afterwards as a hunter, when owned by Alick Cuningham and James Murphy. "St. George," from circumstances, was a couple of years older than the first crop of Traveller foals, and, having been made a pet of by Mr. Macknight, was very quiet when broken in by that gentleman personally, a fine rough-rider and philosophical trainer as he was, a combination not often reached. Hence, from "St. George's" docility, great expectations were entertained of the temper of the "Traveller" stock.

"All depends upon the breaking," says the young and ardent, but chiefly inexperienced, horse-lover.

"Not so! The leading qualities of horse and man are strongly hereditary. Education modifies, but removes not, the inherited tendency—sometimes hardly even modifies."

So, whether "Traveller's" dam had an ineradicable taste for "propping," or was cantankerous otherwise, disencumbering herself, on occasion, of saddle, rider, and such trifles, or whether he himself, in early youth, used to send the stable-boys flying ever and anon, I have no means of knowing. Nothing can be surer, however, than this fact, that most of the Traveller colts and fillies at Dunmore and surrounding stations displayed an indisposition to be broken in little short of insanity.

When ridden for the first time they fought and struggled, bucked and kicked, fell down, got up, and went at it again with unabated fury. Tamed by hard work and perseverance, when they were turned out for a little rest, they were nearly as bad, if taken[Pg 218] up again, as at the first onset. When apparently quietened, they would set to work with a stranger as though he were some new species of pre-Adamite man. All sorts of grooms were tried, dare-devils who could ride anything, steady ones who mouthed carefully and gave plenty of exercise and preparation. It was all the same in result. They were hard to break in, hard to ride when they were broken in, and sometimes hardest of all in the intervals of station work. Of course there were exceptions. But they were few. And a stranger who was offered a fresh horse at a station in the neighbourhood was apt to ask if he was a "Traveller"; and if answered in the affirmative, to look askance and inquire when he had been ridden last, and whether he had then "done anything," before committing himself to his tender mercies.

It was the more provoking because in all other respects the family character was unassailable. They were handsome and level of shape, iron-legged, full of courage and staying power, well-paced, and in some instances very fast—notably Tramp, Trackdeer, St. George, No Ma, Triton, The Buckley colt, and many others. Triton won the Three-year-old Stakes at Port Fairy against a good field, and the Geelong Steeplechase the year after, running up and winning on the post after a bad fall, and with his rider's collar-bone broken. The offspring of particular mares were observed to be better tempered than others. Triton's dam, Katinka, was a Clifton, and he was in the main good-humoured; though I remember him throwing his boy just before a race. The "Die Vernons" were mostly like their mother, free and liberal-minded; but many of the others—I may[Pg 219] say most of them—were "regular tigers," requiring the horsemen who essayed to ride them habitually to be young, valiant, in hard training, and up to all the tricks of the rough-riding trade. That they seldom commended themselves to elderly gentlemen may easily be believed. Even here was the exception. The late Mr. Gray, Crown Lands Commissioner for the Western District, when on his rounds, took a fancy to a fine bay colt, just broken in, and bought him. He, however, caused a young police trooper to ride him provisionally, and for many a month he went about under one or other of the orderlies. I never observed the portly person of the Commissioner upon the bay colt. He eventually disposed of him untried for that service.

Four colts in one year went to "that bourne from which no 'Traveller' returns"—(James Irvine's joke, all rights reserved). One filly threw her rider on the run, galloped home, and broke her neck over the horse paddock fence, which she was too tête exaltée to remark. One reared up and fell over; never rose. One broke his back, after chasing every one out of the yard, in trying to get under an impossible rail. And one beautiful cob (mine) fractured his spinal vertebr? in dashing at the gate like a wild bull.

The history of this steed, and of others which I have observed more recently, has most fully satisfied me of the hereditary transmission of qualities in horse-breeding, and nothing, therefore, will convince me to the contrary. I was then in a position to try the experiment personally, as well as to see it tried.

For, observe the conditions. The proprietors of Dunmore were young, highly intelligent persons, with[Pg 220] a turn for scientific research; good horsemen, all fond of that branch of stock-breeding. The run being of choice quality was comparatively small in extent. The stock were kept in paddocks for part of the year. The grooms were good, and always under strict supervision. The young horses were stabled and well fed during breaking, brushed and curry-combed daily. They were used after the cattle when partly broken—an excellent mode of completing a horse's education. And yet the result was, as I have described, unsatisfactory. The majority of the young horses turned out of this model establishment were with great difficulty broken to saddle, and even then were troublesome and unsafe. How can this condition of affairs be accounted for, except upon the hypothesis that in animals, as in the human subject, certain inherited tendencies are reproduced with such strange similarity to those of immediate or remote ancestors as to be incapable of eradication, and well-nigh of modification, by training?

I may state here that I should not have entered so freely into the subject had the Dunmore stud, as such, been still in existence. Such is not the case. Two of the three proprietors, once high in hope and full of well-grounded anticipations of success in their colonial career, are in their graves. Dunmore, so replete with pleasant memories, has long been sold. The stud is dispersed. My old friend James Irvine, though still in the flesh and prospering, as he deserves, has only an indirect interest in the memory of "Traveller," whose qualities during life he would never have suffered to be thus aspersed. The[Pg 221] "Traveller temper," still doubtless existent in various high-bred individuals, is perchance wearing out. After all, this equine exhumation is but the history of the formation of an opinion. It may serve a purpose, however, if it leads to the resolution in the minds of intending stud-masters, "never to breed from a sire of bad-tempered stock."