Like all fictional versions of desperate journeys, the trek itself carries its own suspense, and, here, there are convincing, evocative views of old Russia and some solid horse-talk.

Before the happy/tragic close, Joseph is reunited with Katya and leaves behind chaos, death-and love. Clements will load the stallions on their train, and-although a gentle man who'll do all he can for suffering animals-he'll take up a gun with his countrymen. He's rescued at one point by officers of the English RAF. Clements begins his terrible journey with two stallions through brutal weather and the slaughter of people and animals. He is married to Phyllida Barstow and has one son and one daughter, the journalist Alice Hart-Davis. But in the family absence, the Bolshevik threat becomes a reality, and Clements knows that the farm and horses are doomed. Peter Duff Hart-Davis (born 3 June 1936), generally known as Duff Hart-Davis is a British biographer, naturalist and journalist, who writes for The Independent newspaper. There, he falls in love with the Prince's daughter Katya, who returns his love. There's a racing career, then finally the big prize-in 1912 he's hired, from another post in Russia, by a distant cousin of the Tsar, to oversee the construction of a large thoroughbred stud farm, a lovely place beyond St. Through flashbacks, the author reconstructs the early life of Englishman Joseph Clements: a runaway orphan who loves horses and is finally given stable work a happy roustabout with a kind family of circus people and at last an exerciser in a famous stud-farm, where occasionally royal horses are stabled. Synopsis: English-born jockey Joseph Clements takes a job as head of the Imperial stud farm in Russia at the dawn of the revolution, and there he falls in love with Katya, who is engaged to a noblemanĪ deft hand with adventures in exotic places (Katmandu in The Heights of Rimring, 1981 a flooded mountain mine in Level Five, 1982), Hart-Davis here follows the trek of an English horse-trainer as he leads two prize stallions 600 miles to safety through the carnage of the early days of the Russian Revolution.

The Horses of War by Duff Hart-Davis