In the fall of 1972 a pair of very proper looking British men turned up at my stables in the city. Somebody at the CBC had directed them my way. They told me that they were bringing a musical production to Toronto that would be playing over the Christmas season. The show was called Cinderella and would be performed at Eaton Auditorium. They explained that they were bringing several well-known British singers and dancers over to headline the show and would be hiring all kinds of local talent to support them. When they said that the show was to be a traditional English pantomime. I was confused. What the hell did they need singers for if nobody was going to sing or say anything?
Anticipating my question they went on to explain that in Britain pantomime referred to a type of show, always performed around Christmas that took fairy tales as a theme, added music and dance and reversed the roles of the players so that men would be playing the women’s parts and vice versa. It sounded a little kinky but they were British so I thought, "what the hell, why not?".
They had come to see me because they’d heard that I supplied horses and equipment for TV movies and stage productions. They needed a pony to pull Cinderella’s carriage on to the stage during the scene when she arrives at the royal ball. The pony had to be a pretty silver dappled animal with white mane and tail and quiet enough to behave itself when onstage with the pit band blaring away and dancers cavorting around the stage. “Did I have such an animal? ” they asked.
When they told me what they were willing to pay for the use of the pony and it’s handler I immediately became interested so I lied and told them that I had just what they needed. I compounded the lie by telling them that I couldn’t show them the animal I had in mind because he was far away up at my other stable in the country at the moment but I assured them that it was just what they were looking for.
They were in a hurry to catch a plane back to England so we scribbled out an agreement, shook hands and they were off.
As their taxi disappeared in the distance I made a mental note to try and find a pony like they wanted before Christmas rolled around.
That fall was a particularly busy one for me. My riding school was going great guns with over a hundred people enrolled in regular lessons and TV, movie, and commercial producers calling constantly to rent animals and props from me. When, around December 15th, I got a call from the Brits telling me that they were starting rehearsals the following week I started to get nervous. Oh well, not to worry. In those days ponies were a dime a dozen and a good quiet one like I needed shouldn’t be too hard to find.
I immediately hit the phone checking with the local horse dealers I usually dealt with. I didn’t have any much luck. There were lots of quiet ponies to be had, pintos, bays, blacks, greys even appaloosas but no silver dapples with white mane and tale.
The panic was beginning to set in when I realized I had one last chance to find what I needed.
I was in the habit of attending the weekly horse auction at Kitchener Livestock Sales northwest of the city. There were always a hundred or so horses and ponies going under the hammer and if I was lucky I might find what I wanted.
There were lots of great looking mounts on offer as I made my way through the barns in Kitchener. There were several good big horses that I might have purchased if I hadn’t been so obsessed with my hunt for that special pony.
I had walked passed almost all of the critters and was losing hope when I noticed movement in a pen in a dark corner of one of the out buildings. I looked over the top rail and there in the gloom was the pony I was looking for. At least I thought he was until he suddenly bared his teeth, reared up and lunged at me. I shot back as his teeth snapped shut about an inch from my nose. “I guess I’ll pass on you pal", I thought to myself, moving away to check for more suitable candidates.
I checked every nook and cranny of the barn but none were to be found. When the horse dealers in attendance confirmed that there seemed to be an unusual dearth of silver dapple ponies in the region I went back to take a second look at my one and only option. I got back to the pen to find the pony’s owner standing in front of it cautioning and warding off some children who were trying to peek through the bars at my candidate. He confirmed to me that the little three year old stud was one nasty little son of a bitch and although he dearly wanted to sell him he wouldn’t want me to get hurt. I thanked him for the warning but what choice did I have?
When the pony came up for sale the ring crew refused to handle him and insisted he be left in his pen while the auctioneer chanted away trying to find somebody stupid enough to make an opening bid. I was hoping none of my associates would notice me when I raised my hand when the request for a bid got down to ten dollars. I didn’t have time to get my hand down before the gavel hit the desk and the auctioneer said sold.
The man who had owned the pony was standing right beside me and I was feeling a little sheepish and cheap about stealing his pony but when I apologized he assured me that he would have gladly paid me fifty dollars to take him off his hands.
Buoyed with that information I enlisted the help of two of the stable hands and between the three of us we were able to load him into the box on the back of my pickup truck. All the boys around the stockyards stood watching and scratching their heads as I drove off with the pony screeching defiance, rearing and almost kicking the tailgate off.
When I got home with the little demon I knew it wouldn’t be safe to put him in the main stable with the other horses as there were too many kids coming and going and he was bound to eat one of them. Besides there were lots of mares in there and my little friend had been working as a stud on a pony farm before his bad behavior prompted his last owner to sell him. He would just get all hot and bothered in there and would be even harder to handle.
I had a special stall secreted away in the garage on the back of my house and that was the place for him.
With the help of my dad and two stable bums we got him safely off my truck and incarcerated in the box stall in the garage.
I knew I had to get the little bugger broke and quieted right away so I discussed a plan of attack with my father.
He didn’t seem all that confident that I would have much luck with the animal but offered what help he could. “There’s a couple of things,”,he said, “He’s a vicious little bastard and he’s a little thin. The first thing I would do is castrate him. You would be killing two birds with one stone. He’d leave the mares alone and he’d gain weight. You know the old saying- it’ll change his thinking from ass to grass.“
The next morning, taking my dad’s advice, we threw the pony and relieved him of his testicals. There was an immediate improvement in him but I knew it would quickly wear off when the pain and embarrassment wore off. I had to strike while the iron was hot and start training him.
My first project was to stop his nasty habit of biting. I rigged up a pole similar to the ones that dairy herdsmen use to lead their bulls around. Instead of it being attached to a ring in his nose I hooked it into the ring of the pony's halter. This allowed me to keep him at a safe distance while I worked with him. Periodically when he bared his teeth and lunged at me I would allow the pole to slip through my hands so he could come at me. When he did I would give him a sound thump on his muzzle and he would back off.
Early one morning I was busy working with the pony in my riding ring when my psychiatrist friend Graham showed up to watch. My dad had told him about the terrible pony and he was anxious to see how I was getting on. I had had the animal prancing quietly around in circle at the end of my long pole for a while when he asked me how I was going to go about breaking the animal. I told him I was going to use kindness but the words had just gotten out of my mouth when the pony took a bad spell and made a lunge for me. I loosened my grip on my pole and when the pony got close enough I gave him a whack on the nose that almost dropped him. “My God, Graham exclaimed, "I thought you said you were going to use kindness.” “I am", I replied, "but first I have to get his attention.” I hadn’t had the opportunity to use that old line for some time.
To everyone’s surprise, including mine, after a few intense days my improvised techniques began to work and the pony began to settle down. With any luck I would have him harness broken and ready to go to work when the rehearsals for the pantomime started.
Since he now looked like he might be a keeper I thought I’d better give him a name. I had been addressing him as “you dirty little bastard” every time he tried to attack me but somehow that seemed inappropriate. When I asked my dad for suggestions he thought for a while and then said, "Now let me see. You took him away from his herd of mares- trucked him kicking and screaming into the city- chased him around on the end of a long pole for week punching him on the muzzle periodically- threw him down and cut off his nuts", then after a pause, "I know. Lets call him Lucky.” "Works for me,” I said, turning and walking away. The sarcastic old bugger wasn’t going to get a rise out of me.
Two weeks later Lucky was a changed beast and I had him pulling a cart around the park roads. He wasn’t perfect, I knew he would still need a firm hand to control him when he made his début at the theater, but he had come a long way.
It was almost time to move him down to the city when I decided to turn him over to my most competent handler. I didn’t want anything to do with looking after the pony during the show because I knew it involved being dressed up as a pageboy while leading him on stage. I was reluctant when it came to wearing tights. When I surrendered the reins to my assistant a complete change came over the pony and he reverted to his evil former self.
He started rearing, biting and kicking and wouldn’t stop until I took over again. Apparently his new good manners hinged on my presence and as my learned friend Graham explained to me later, it probably would take just as long for my handler to establish a similar rapport with the little horse. There wouldn’t be enough time. I would have to handle the pony myself during the run of the performance.
Eaton Auditorium was a large theatre on the top floor of a famous old multi-leveled department store located at the corner of Young and College streets in downtown Toronto. It was a most unusual location for a theatre of its caliber and was probably included in the store's plans so that Timothy Eaton, the company’s founder, could control the type of entertainment offered in that end of the city. It was a beautifully designed room with vaulted ceilings, crystal chandeliers and ornate art deco décor. Old Timothy had only failed to notice the absence of one important feature when he signed off on the architect’s plans. There was no freight elevator leading to that floor.
It was an oversight that I only became aware of when my pony and I arrived at the location for the first rehearsal of Cinderella.
The only way to get to the top floor was to use the bank of elevators that served to move the store’s regular clients from level to level.
There were several of these fancy lifts, each manned by a lady operator in a fancy uniform complete with white gloves. In his defense old Timothy Eaton in his wildest dreams could not have anticipated the necessity of hoisting a horse up to his beautiful theatre on the top floor.
After a hurried meeting with the shows producers and the store management, with the producers standing firm on their position that the pony was absolutely essential to the show, an agreement was reached.
I would be permitted to lead the pony across the main floor and use one of the elevators located on the back wall. “ But, the manager said in haughty tone, you must attempt to be as inconspicuous as possible.”
That seemed doable so I decided to reconnoiter my route through the store before I went for the pony. My most direct avenue to the elevators would see me beginning my passage in the ladies' lingerie department, passing through the area where jewelry was displayed, and ending at millinery just in front of the elevators. It would have been shorter to go past the perfume counter but I thought the smell of the pony might have an adverse effect on sales.
I had already spent some time constructing a portable box stall back stage; I needed someplace to keep Lucky while we waited for our turn to perform. The plan for this little enclosure was simple, four sheets of strong plywood attached end to end with a narrow entrance door. I also planned to include a two-foot high band of heavy gage chain link fencing above the plywood so that no one could get near Lucky.
When completed it would look more like a lion cage than a horse stall but knowing the kind of behavior the pony was capable of, I felt it was necessary. I got the wooden portion of the stall finished before rehearsals started but there was a delay on the metal fencing so I knew I was going to have to keep a close watch on Lucky till I had him more securely incarcerated.
I approached my first trip through the store with the pony with a certain amount of trepidation. I was about to try to lead the pony, that had terrorized the Kitchener Stockyards two short weeks earlier, through a crowd of women buying corsets and trying on hats.
The possibilities of what might happen were too horrible to contemplate so I just steeled myself and pressed on.
I brought the pony out of the little trailer I had built to transport him and approached the front of the store.
That’s when we encountered our first problem; the entrance was equipped with a revolving door. I was stymied for the moment so I just stood there eyeing the contraption for possibilities.
The pony was small enough to fit into one of the door’s segments but there wasn’t room for both of us. If he took a bad spell and decided to run amuck circling around in there I might not be able to get him stopped.
I don’t think I really would have attempted it but fortunately before the notion took hold of me I looked up to see the store manager staring through the window at me with an incredulous look on his face and pointing in the direction of a set of regular doors located further down the block.
We got into the store with very little trouble and as the pony and I wove our way through the aisles of glitzy merchandise I tried to appear nonchalant. Figured that if I looked like I didn’t notice the pony perhaps no one else would. Everything went much better than I expected no one screamed or ran for the exits and we reached the elevator banks without any further trouble.
I pressed the up button then Lucky and I stood a discrete distance back from the sliding door while we waited our turn. Moments later the doors of our lift swished open and a rather startled group of women emerged clutching their shopping bags and giving us wide berth.
As Lucky and I started forward a stern looking older lady elevator operator assumed a defensive position in the center of the door effectively blocking our entrance. Apparently she had not been briefed concerning the pony and, as she said a little later, was not about to be part of the most flagrant breach of store policy she had seen in her thirty years of service. However when she got the nod from the store manager who had been hovering nervously in the background she acquiesced and reluctantly let us aboard.
She was just about to close the doors when two women, about the same vintage as she was rushed forward and attempted to join us. She tried to deter them but they insisted that they had seen the cute pony and would be delighted to share the elevator with us.
These old birds were regulars at the store and at Eatons the customer was always right so we became a party of five and began our ascent.
The two women immediately began fawning over Lucky, talking baby talk to him and patting him with their white-gloved hands. I was worried that he might take a bad spell and attack them but surprisingly he didn’t seem to mind the attention.
Then something terrible happened. He suddenly dropped his head and coughed violently and in the same instant lifted his tail and let a thunderous fart. It was only a matter of seconds till we reached the next floor where the ladies, making a hasty unscheduled evacuation, burst through the elevator doors and disappeared gasping and gagging into forth floor china.
The old elevator operator wasn’t too excited about getting back into the car but after she waited awhile for the air to clear she climbed aboard and we resumed our trip to the top floor.
When we reached our destination and I got Lucky into his stall I breathed a sigh of relief that the easy part of the project was over.
I had been so preoccupied with getting Lucky ready for the show that I hadn’t thought much about the way things would be back stage with the full cast in attendance.
By the time we arrived the place was a hive of activity. The band was warming up in the orchestra pit and a dozen or so ballerinas were swirling around in tutus and toe shoes waiting their turn to perform while about seventy other actors, singers and musicians were milling about in full costume rehearsing their lines and warming up vocally. I reluctantly left Lucky in his stall guarded only with a beware of pony sign while I was ushered away to be fitted out in the dreaded leotards and other apparel I was compelled to wear.
The protective chain link fencing I had ordered for around his stall still hadn’t arrived and as I sat for what seemed like an eternity while a couple of makeup and costume people fussed over me.
I was worried about how Lucky might be reacting to all the chaos. When my ordeal in the dressing room was finally over and I got back to my improvised stable I panicked. The warning sign I had pinned to the stall was laying in shreds on the floor and all the kid dancers who were performing an excerpt from the Nutcracker Suite were clustered around Lucky. He was munching on something and I hoped it wasn’t a set of tiny fingers. As it turned out one of the kids was sharing her oatmeal cookies with him and he seemed disinclined to attack her.
I cleared the kids back a safe distance from the stall and gave them a stern warning but apparently it fell on deaf ears because during the run of the show every time I turned my back the little pixies and the other ballet dancers were back at it again feeding and pampering him.
After a while I stopped worrying about him - he was a changed little horse. When he wasn’t performing or being fussed over he stood quietly with eyes half closed serenely enjoying the backstage activity. He reminded me of Disney’s Ferdinand the bull sniffing his flowers.
When he was required to pull Cinderella’s carriage onto a stage full of flouncing dancers with the band blaring away and the audience applauding it was as if he had been doing it forever, he didn’t even flinch.
I don’t know what caused the incredible change in him, maybe it was all the perfume and estrogen floating around in the air. I know it was affecting me - I took the opportunity to party with half the ballerinas in the troupe.
When the show was over, with all the things we had seen, done and learned I knew that life would never be the same for Lucky and me.
Later, when I bragged about my several backstage romantic encounters to my dad and attempted to wax poetic about how Lucky’s and my life had been forever altered he said “Altered?" he exclaimed. "It sounds like we should’ve altered you along with Lucky.” “Whatever” I said, walking away.”
