Horses and People
Tattersalls. By Vincent Orchard. (Hutchinson. 30s.) STORIES about horses fall roughly into two categories; those which are read only by horse-lovers, and those, like the Surtees novels and Siegfried Sassoon's Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, which have enough literary merit to appeal more widely. Mr. Robert Alcorn's Riding High should not perhaps be compared with Sassoon's book— it may be too unashamedly "horsy" for that—but it is certainly worthy of mention in the same breath. The two stories are not dissimilar—the young man eager for equine expei ience, the gradual accumulation of a stable, the successes and the failures, the groom Who is a "character," the days in the hunting-field; and the departure to the War. The two authors also share the ability to make their experiences come alive for us.
Here, however, the likeness ends, for Mr..Alconr is an American, and the mellow, self-confident, hail-fellow-well-met atmosphere of his book is as unlike Sassoon's as it could be. In his own idiom, however, he has told his tale extremely well, and has produced a
lovable and thoroughly enjoyable book. His characters, particularly his Negro groom Benny, are beautifully and humorously observed, and when he crosses the Atlantic to hunt in Leicestershire, Ireland and France he manages to convey the authentic thrill of the pre-war hunting-field as well as any writer has ever done.
Those interested in the Turf will enjoy Mr. Vincent Orchard's story of the Tattersalls, the family which in 1776 founded, and until 1942 ran, the famous auctioneering business which still bears their name. So close, since its inception, has been the firm's con- nection with racing that it might be said that the Turf and Tattersalls grew up together, and thus the book is more than a story of a family— it is a history of the development of modern racing.
This is just as well, for the Tattersalls all seem to have conformed to the steady, honest, competent, but not over-exciting type, and it is a relief to be able to turn, for example, to the Prince Regent's little difficulties on Newmarket Heath, or to a contemporary account of the scenes at the auctioneering site at Hyde Park Corner in 1818— "that fashionable resort, with Peers, Baronets, Members of Parliament, Turf-gentlemen and Turf-servants, Jockies, Grooms, Horse-dealers, Gamblers and Spies." Mr. Orchard has done a great deal of detailed research, has unearthed material not previously published, and has illustrated his book with photographs of contemporary paintings and engravings., A great many parents who in their youth entertained no great equestrian ambitions, now have children who are passipnately anxious to ride. Since possession of a pony is recognised as being very good training for the child, this ambition is often gratified, somewhat to the subsequent discomfiture of the parent, who is then bombarded, with posers such as "What is a pelham?" or "Are my stirrups too long?" A parent thus beset should in the first place make the most of the local Pony Club, and in the second should buy Major-General Geoffrey Brooke's latest book, which is specially designed for such situations. The author really knows what he is talking about and has produced an admirable book, well-attuned
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