I first heard about famous show jumper Broncho through a book called Broncho that wasn’t about him at all.
Richard Ball’s Broncho (Country Life, 1930) was inspired by the horse, but the publishers said:
The book is not meant in any way to be the life story of the horse, as Mr. Ball claims no knowledge greater than that of most other visitors to the International Horse Show, and he has not founded any human character on a particular individual. The book is an imagined life-story such Broncho’s might well have been.
I don’t know whether you’d get away with it now, but the book did very well for Mr Ball (it is a jolly good read). If you missed the notices in the front, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were getting Broncho’s life story. Mr Ball’s story featured a horse who went to the front in WW1, came back, and had a career as a successful show jumper, just as the real-life Broncho did.
Broncho’s popularity
Basing a book on Broncho was a sound commercial decision. There are some horses who somehow capture the public’s imagination, and even though there were several other former war horses who had fine show jumping careers, there was something about Broncho that chimed with the public.
The Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail wrote about Broncho’s return to Olympia in 1929:
The crowd loves Broncho. Every time he trots through the great wooden doors into the arena he is given a special little cheer. When he is not jumping he is receiving visitors at his stable door, for many people never leave show without calling on him.
The Civil and Military Gazette (Friday July 19 1929) described Broncho’s reception before and after his appearance:
The applause which had greeted Broncho’s appearance – he is an institution at the show and extremely popular with Olympia crowds–was renewed with increased intensity after his performance, and he left the arena amid round after round of cheering.
Broncho’s early life
The real Broncho’s early years are a mystery. What we do know is that he was a 16.3 bay gelding foaled in c.1904, whose job was to train cavalry officers. He was bought for the Netheravon cavalry school, where he served for some years, and when war broke out in 1914, Broncho went out to France with the first Expeditionary Force. He experienced the horrors of the retreat from Mons in August–September 1914, which gave him the right to wear the Mons Star.
During the winter of 1914–15 he became Lord Allenby’s charger, but when Allenby went to Palestine, he left Broncho in France. Broncho then returned to his original job, and was sent to the cavalry school at Paris Plage to train officers. According to Pamela MacGregor Morris, a shell nearly did for him in 1918, but he survived the war, and I assume returned to Netheravon, as his earliest post-war jumping competitions were as part of the Netheravon team.
Post-war life
Broncho didn’t start off his show jumping career with his best-known rider, Col Malise Graham (1884–1929). His earliest competitions were with Sgt Major Bertie Stevens. Stevens had a robust attitude to getting round a course, which went down understandably badly with horse show spectators. Colonel J E Hance, a contemporary horseman who later became a Fellow of the BHS, wrote about those early days:
It was during the Tournament, and not the Horse Show, that the famous Broncho had his introduction to Olympia. We of Woolwich had a traditional date with the Instructional Staff of the Cavalry School, Netheravon, at the Tournament, and when Broncho made his debut he was ridden by Sgt. Major Bertie Stevens (7th Hussars, I think).
Broncho was difficult to ride, being bone-idle and Bertie Stevens told me he could jump a house, but had to be beaten into making any effort at all. The horse-show public do not like to see horses hit, and there was sometimes booing when Broncho was being urged to put a little more zest into his work. Stevens took no notice of that, and usually jumped a clear round. (Lt-Col Jack Hance, Riding Master (Robert Hale Limited, 1960))
Showjumping with Malise Graham
Fortunately for Broncho, Col Malise Graham was a completely different sort of rider. It’s not clear when Graham and Broncho first met each other, but they were part of the first British team to win the Prince Philip Cup at the International Horse Show in 1921. Broncho was seventeen.
Like Broncho, Graham had served throughout WW1, being awarded the DSO and being mentioned in dispatches five times. Graham was a gifted rider. Lieut-Col McTaggart, writing in County Life, described the riding he saw in a winning British team of which Broncho and Graham were part:
The riding of the British team was a beautiful example of the quiet handling and the careful schooling COUNTRY LIFE has urged upon the competitors for so many years, and in this respect they stand out far and ahead of any other school of training whose methods are, too often, hurried, rough or ungainly. (Country Life, 6 July 1929)
The horse amply repaid this ‘quiet handling.’
Broncho and Graham went on to be one of the most successful show jumping combinations of the 1920s. They won the King George V Gold Cup in 1925 when Broncho was twenty-one; were in the Prince of Wales Cup winning team six times, and won both the Canadian and Connaught cups.
He rarely touched a fence.
McTaggart described Broncho’s experiences in the International Horse Show of 1927, where he came second in the King George V Cup, and won the Duke of Connaught’s cup at the age of twenty-three.
… this wonderful old horse of twenty-three years of age had on this day jumped no fewer than forty fences with a full total of only 2 ½ faults. Later in the week he won the Duke of Connaught’s Cup and was in the prize list of every competition throughout the Show in which he had been entered. Nothing seems to come amiss to him, and the oftener he jumps the higher he seems to clear the obstacles. He is, in fact, as nearly unbeatable as any horse can well be. (Country Life, July 2nd 1927)
Why was he so good? Lieut-Col McTaggart, writing about the International Horse Show in Country Life in 1929, said:
Broncho’s ability lies in his wonderful scope. He never puts in a short stride, but, if necessary, will take off 14 ft or so away. His ‘approaches’ are always crescendo , so that he has plenty of momentum to land him comfortably the far side of any obstacle.
The video shows a little bit of the competition for the 1921 King George Cup – not Broncho, but it will at least give you an idea of what Olympia, and its show jumping courses, were like:
Malise Graham absolutely appreciated what a wonderful horse he had. After winning at Olympia in 1929, he said:
He is the finest horse I have ever had as a jumper. I shall be sorry indeed when he can no longer manage the course. Although afflicted with cataract in one eye, he is still fit and greatly enjoys the jumping. Whether he will be able to carry on again next year it is difficult to say, but I hope so. (Leeds Mercury, 15 August 1929)
The end
Graham was not to find out. He was fatally injured at the 1929 Dublin Horse show. One of his horses, Second String, fell with him, kicking Graham in the head. He died from septic meningitis on 14 August.
Broncho did not move to another rider. The horse pined, and a plan was hatched to send him to the remount depot at Melton Mowbray where he would be surrounded with the sort of bustle and activity he’d known for much of his life. He would, it was said, then be retired to Coney Hall in Norwich, Norfolk. Whether any of this happened I have not yet been able to find out.
Broncho’s sad plight became known to journalists, some of whom extended themselves luxuriantly: One of Graham’s local papers (he lived at Somerby in Leicestershire) wrote:
Broncho, the veteran Leicestershire war horse, is pining for his dead master, Brigadier-General Malise Graham, who was fatally injured at Dublin Horse Show.
No more will the toot of the huntsman’s horn set his nostrils a-quiver with the blood-thrill of the chase. Never more will the calming hand of his beloved master still the tumult of his hunter’s heart when the “View Halloo” sets hoofs and pads and pink coats awhirl over the fox-scented meadows and vales.
“Broncho’s” hunting days are o’er. He has earned repose. In the calm of his stable in a picturesque nook of the Leicestershire hunting country, he pines for the caress of his dead master. To him the beauties of Rose Cottage, the Somerby home of the General, bring no consolation.
He watches and he waits in vain.
“Broncho” will soon leave Rose Cottage for ever. He is not to be sold. The General would never have wished that. (Leicester Evening Mail, 24 August 1929)
I hope Broncho did have his honourable retirement at Melton Mowbray and Norfolk. He certainly deserved it.
Note: my apologies that this piece is illustrated by pictures that have only a tangential connection to Broncho. There are many pictures of Broncho in the online newspaper archives, but I can’t use them for copyright reasons. Neither can I find any pictures of him in any picture archive.
Links and sources
Cecil Aldin, Time I Was Dead (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1934)
Richard Ball: Broncho (Country Life, 1930)
Lt-Col Jack Hance, Riding Master (Robert Hale Limited, 1960)
Pamela MacGregor Morris, Show Jumping – Officers’ Hobby into International Sport (David & Charles, 1975)
Newspapers
Civil and Military Gazette (19 July, 1929)
Country Life (2 July, 1927)
Country Life (6 July, 1929)
Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail (19 June, 1929)
Horse and Hound (19, July, 1921)
Horse and Hound, ‘Observer’, Town and Country Gossip (18 October, 1958)
Leeds Mercury (15 August 1929)
Leicester Evening Mail (24 August 1929)
Other interesting things
Broncho remained a Government charger during his competitive life, attached to the 10th Hussars.
The Pullein-Thompson sisters knew all about Broncho. In their first novel, It Began with Picotee (1946) they mention both Broncho and Seacraft (who I think should actually be Sea Count, another former charger).
Cecil Aldin, the great illustrator, knew the pair, and had invited Malise Graham to be a judge at a children’s show he was organising in Le Touquet in 1929. The delivery of this invitation caused some alarm:
I had invited him at Olympia one evening as he was coming out of the ring after finishing one of Broncho’s brilliant rounds. Whether it was the sight of me, or the applause that upset Broncho I do not know, but as Malise Graham leant over his withers to speak to me the old horse suddenly gave a most unexpected buck and his rider, naturally not expecting such a thing when coming out of the ring, nearly landed on his neck.
A few days afterwards he wrote to me agreeing to come to France, telling me that he was then just off to Dublin to judge and ride some young horses, and apropos of our Olympica incident, added “would probably fall off.”
Graham’s words were tragically prophetic – that Dublin show was the one where he was fatally injured.
Broncho’s competition record: Broncho and Malise Graham won the first Prince of Wales Cup with the British team in 1921. By the end of his career, Broncho had won over 400 prizes. Some of his wins included the King George V Cup (1925), coming second in 1928; the Prince of Wales Cup (1921, 1922, 1926, 1927, 1928 and 1929); the Canadian Cup (1927), and the Connaught Cup (1923).
Malise Graham was born in 1884. He joined the 7th Rifle Brigade in 1901, moving to the 16th Lancers in 1903. He fought with them during WW1, was awarded the DSO and was mentioned in dispatches five times. In 1923, he moved to the 10th Hussars as commanding officer. He ended his career as Assistant Director of Remounts at the War Office.
Show jumping faults: reckoning show jumping faults was a complicated business in the 1920s. Different faults were awarded depending on whether the horse knocked the fence with its front or back legs.
Refusing or bolting at any one fence
1st fence 2 faults
2nd fence 3 faults
3rd fence eliminated
Fall of horse and/or rider 4 faults
Horse touches fence (no knockdown) ½ fault
Horse knocks down fence with fore limbs 4 faults
Horse knocks down fence with hind limbs 2 faults
Water jump, fore leg in 2 faults
Water jump, hind leg in 1 fault
Upsetting or removing water fence ½ fault
Lieut-Col Maxwell Fielding McTaggart was a huge fan of Broncho. He served in the 5th Battalion, Gordon Highlanders during WWI and received the DSO. McTaggart wrote Mount & Man (illus Lionel Edwards) and several others. He was keen on a quieter, more effective style of riding, which he promoted through his books and the articles he wrote in Country Life. There’s a link here to a picture of him at the Imperial War Museum:
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