Page 134 - IT'S A RUM LIFE BOOK FOUR Volume 1 "Northcote 1984 to 1998"

Cracker and Ruth not long after he had arrived at Northcote.

Cracker (left) and Old Goliath performing in the Musical Drive together.
You can see clearly here that Cracker only had the three white legs!

The journey to collect Cracker was not exactly straight forward. We did mange to hire the
same big horse box that we had used for our journeys to Norfolk for the “Waterland”
filming. Again we split the journey at Devizes.

When transporting horses there are strict regulations about the journey hours and rest
hours. It would not have been possible to travel all the way from Chard to Lincolnshire
without an overnight stop…..even for us it would have been exhausting!

Coming back, we began to realise that Cracker had seldom if ever been in a horse box. He
was difficult to load at Chard but pleased to get out at Devizes where we had fixed up a
stable for him.
Mind you the stable was normal size and a bit on the small size for him!

Getting back in the lorry……..was a bit of a nightmare. Eventually after almost an hour of
gentle persuasion he leapt over me from the base of the ramp and landed inside the lorry.

All his life, he was very very difficult to load.