Riding In The Sky

AUTHOR’S NOTEI had never heard of the Pretty Horse-Breakers until I did the research for my novel of this name. They were a phenomenon of the 1860s and the fairest of them was Catherine Walters, known as ‘Skittles’. Very talented and a fantastic rider with a natural gaiety she was born in humble circumstances in Liverpool. On coming to London she worked for a fashionable livery stable in Bruton Mews adjoining Berkeley Square. A year later she became the mistress of the Marquis of Hartington, heir to the seventh Duke of Devonshire, who gave her a house in Mayfair and two thousand pounds a year for life. She eclipsed even the Achilles statue in Hyde Park as the centre of attention – she halted the traffic in Hyde Park and her clothes and hats were copied even by Society women. Like all the Pretty Horse-Breakers, she could sail over a high jump as if she had wings. For a one hundred pound bet she jumped a high railing in Hyde Park and also an eighteen foot water jump at the National Hunt Steeplechase at Market Harborough, when she was larking about on the course after the racing had finished and three other riders had failed.