A Year of Horse Books: Chariot races in historical fiction by Katherine Roberts
While I was starting to approach publishers with my early work, I worked in National Hunt racing yards with thoroughbred horses helping to prepare them for racing over fences such as the famous Grand National. Flat racing is also a common sight here in the UK, but racehorses are not always ridden. Harness racing, where the jockey rides in a light buggy or 'sulky' pulled by the horse, bears more resemblance to the chariot races of Ancient Rome which were, by all accounts, far more dangerous an activity than our current racing under rules! Deaths on the track of both the drivers and their horses were common, and you only have to think of movies like Ben Hur to imagine how brutally competitive these races could be.
Although no horses died in the filming of the 1959 version starring Charlton Heston shown in this clip (where strict welfare standards were followed), it appears that over 100 horses were shot during the making of the original 1925 silent film, some of them unnecessarily for just going lame during filming.
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| Ben Hur (first edition) |
The original novel by Lew Wallace was published in 1880 as a religious epic, since it tells the story of Judean prince Ben Hur alongside the story of Jesus. The first edition is pictured above, but there are plenty of newer editions available. All this is rich ground for fiction combining two of my passions - horses and history - so I hope you'll forgive me for mentioning a couple of my own titles this month.
My latest book The Horse Who Would Be Emperor combines my experience as a racehorse groom with chariot racing to tell the story of Roman Emperor Caligula's favourite racehorse, Incitatus the Swift, who (according to sketchy historical accounts of the time) ate gold for breakfast and attended the Senate. It is rumoured that Caligula also wanted to make Incitatus a Consul, but did the horse ever rise any further in Roman society and become Emperor? And what happened to the eighteen slaves whose job it was to look after the pampered stallion? Can Marcus, his new young driver, avoid dying in a chariot race like his last unfortunate driver did? And how long will Livia, the horse's stylist, get away with stealing gold from his feeds to pay for her mother's medicine? With gladiatorial battles and a plot to assassinate the mad Emperor too, there's plenty here to keep a keen reader turning the pages! Suitable for readers aged 12+.
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| The Horse Who Would Be Emperor |
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| The Cleopatra Curse (Seven Fabulous Wonders #7) |
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| Circus Maximus: Rider of the Storm by Annelise Gray |
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