Leopard the story of my horse

by Michael Ansell, Charles III (Foreword)

Leopard was a horse in the British cavalry and his owner describes the life of a highly trained cavalry horse between the World Wars.

125 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1980

Reviews

[Clare O'Beara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leopard was a fine horse in the British cavalry regiment and between the World Wars he was trained by Col. Ansell to a high standard.
With other officers and horses they formed a trick jumping team. They would do things like planting their swords point-down in the floor of the indoor arena and getting the horse to jump over this wall of ten swords. Then they'd take away a sword from the end of the line and jump it again. So on, until they could get a horse to jump over one sword. They performed for crowds in this way. Col. Ansell says that he thinks this could not be done again because the men had all the time and resources at their disposal.

Leopard also got the chance to go to a professional racing stable and be trained to race, on a completely different and much quieter schedule. The life of the cavalry regiment is well described and this is all part of history now. When Col. Ansell did have to go to war, it was in a tank, and he named the tank Leopard.

The distracting thing about the text is that horses' names are written in italics as though they were ships.
I enjoyed the story and any horse lover of any age could read it. There is a foreword by HRH Prince Charles.