Beauty - my big sisters horse (5)

My big sister always rode a beautiful mare by the name of Beauty.  She belonged to my mother, and over the years produced a number of very handsome foals.  Unfortunetely her good looks belied her nature, which I would describe as the Cruella of the horsey world!  She bucked most of the time and would often run alongside barbed wire fences in an effort to dislodge her rider.  My big sister who was quite fearless and took great delight in breaking in horses, would have none of it though and allowed her to get away with nothing.

At this point, my middle sister having gone through the sad demise of her horse Lucky, found herself a small, feisty little horse whom she named Guy Fawkes and sometimes Crackers.  He went like the wind but had a mind of his own and would invarably charge down the hill and straight into the dam behind the cowshed and sit down in it, with my sister still on his back.  This caused us great amusement.  I can still see my middle sister jumping off and swimming her way out of the dam, while Guy Fawkes sat half submerged, with flattened ears and a smug look on his face.  That was obviously his secret weapon! 

We had a nice piece of flat, open ground where we used to race our horses.  In years gone by, this used to be a favourite spot for a New Years day event where we had our own "day at the races"  This all came to an abrupt end when I was four or five, and after my grandfather broke his hip and my grandmother packed up all her belongings and left the farm, never to return again in my grandfathers life time.  Still, it remained a wonderful race track which saw numerous races with various cousins and friends who came to stay during the holidays.  Wonderful memories!