Looking Back in Pictures: Favourite Horses of the Past

Penny Murray.

Penny Murray arrived from England in the 1960s and worked alongside members of the Canadian Equestrian Team for over 15 years, travelling worldwide and being a part of Olympic gold medal and many other international wins. Penny founded Country Mile Stables in 1988 (now located in Schomberg, ON), which quickly became one of the leading training facilities in southern Ontario and gave many successful young riders their start.

Prompted by a Facebook photo-a-day challenge from Evi Frisque, Penny delivered in spades with a plethora of fabulous old images. We chose a few of our favourite horses who crossed her path in the decades she worked for and rode with some of the top riders in the business, and present this blast from the past.

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Here are the great boys, Tom Gayford and Jim Elder at the RWF riding Pieces of Eight and Mapleleigh, about 1966.

In 1963, after leaving school I went to work for John Massarella. This is a ‘horse box’ and how our horses got to shows in the UK horse; standing in front, some of you will remember Mister Softee [ridden by David Broome].

The hunter Heirloom with Samantha Murray Nosworthy.

The stallions Lafite and War Doe. (ed note: Owned by Sam Stanley, who was noted for breeding good young horses. He was President of the Canadian Hunter Improvement Society in the early ’60s and stood approved stallions War Doe, Lafite, My Kingdom, Spun Gold, Bengal and Sailor’s Axe. He donated War Doe and Lafite to the Society to be available at a reasonable fee to breeders.)

Torchy Millar on Le Dauphin at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

The Immigrant with his owner, Bill McLaughlin, after winning the Grand Prix at Elderberry Farms, about 1969.

Jim Elder in 1960 with his late wife Marianne, and a horse named O’Malley, which was bought for $200. Jim won a lot with him and he was sold to Robert Hanson in the UK and ridden by well-known Harvey Smith. He continued his illustrious career winning all the puissances in Europe and came back for the fall circuit in USA and Canada and won every Grand Prix that year. Earned his keep as we say!

Barbara Simpson Kerr on Magnor in 1971.

1969: Moffat Dunlap winning the Puissance in Harrisburg at 7’1″ riding a huge TB called Grand Nouvelle. This horse had a bit of an unorthodox style but Moffat won lots of classes on him as he was fast, too. This same year Moffat had a great young Irish man working for him called Paul Delahunt; we were at the Detroit Horse Show where they always had a bareback grooms class jumping pretty big jumps and the prizes were great. I won it the previous year on Pieces of Eight, so Paul was up for the challenge and chose to ride Grand Nouvelle. We ended up in a tie but I don’t think Paul could walk properly for a week! Grand Nouvelle had huge withers and was not a flat jumper, as you can see. I should mention that in the USA rubs were still counted – 1 fault for front toe, 1/2 fault for hind. Canada got rid of this system mid ’50s.

1964 RAWF: getting Johnney Canuck ready for the evening International class which he won, beating Sinjon and the great Bill Steinkraus. He was mostly hackney and stood 15.2hh but a fast and clean jumper. He also won the puissance in New York at 6’6″ in 1965 when owned by Vern Mason and ridden by Jim Elder.