{"id":1642,"date":"2026-08-24T07:57:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T07:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/horsebacksapper.co.uk\/?p=1642"},"modified":"2026-08-24T07:57:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T07:57:31","slug":"horse-to-horse-power-weekend-at-the-rlc-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/horsebacksapper.co.uk\/?p=1642","title":{"rendered":"Horse to Horse Power Weekend at the RLC Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A couple of weeks ago I spent 3 days down at the Royal Logistics Corps Museum helping out at their annual event “Horses to Horse power”. Having been asked by Tony Bysouth of 508 Company, Army Service Corps (Horse Transport) to help with the displays and work with the horses.<\/p>\n\n\n

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So with a change of badges I was badged up as a Staff Sergeant with the Army Service Corps of a 1915\/16 period. Now this isn’t too much of an issue for me as one of my Great Grandfathers served with the Army Service Corps from 1914 through to 1919. With the knowledge of what the weather was going to be for the weekend (hot) I took the precaution of packing some Khaki Dress (KDs) uniform and also my Wolseley Pith Helmet. As it turned out it was apparent really quickly that we would need to go to the hot weather plan! So the view was that we would go for the Middle East look for the displays, with the Pith Helmet loaned to Tony, and a KD cap cover with neck flap for me. We also stripped down to the Grey Back Shirts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event is a joint event between the RLC Museum and the RLC Horse Drawn Heritage group and it allows them to get a large selection of their vehicles and wagons out and displayed. The vast majority of the display is focused on the Great War period with a small amount of more modern vehicles. For those interested in horse drawn vehicles there is a lot to see with 2 GS Wagons, a water cart, Officers Mess Cart, Horse Ambulance and a number of artillery limbers as well as an 18 pounder Field Gun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Friday saw us with 2 horses, Romeo kitted out as a Driving Horse and Disco kitted out as an Officers Charger. We set up a picket line in the tree line on the edge of the Museum site which was perfect for the horse with shade and a lovely breeze. it also allowed the public to come and meet the horses and look at the tack and equipment up close. We also carried out a number of arena displays where there were more formal talks and displays. There was a good number of visitors and it was great to get back into the swing of talking about military saddles, tack and the way that it was used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Saturday had the arrival of Phil Pembridge with his 2 horses, Blackie and Queenie. Phil would be doing a display of Tent Pegging and talk about the evolution of the Sword and lance on horse back. I had to point out that I had never done tent-pegging before. The reasons for this is that it wasn’t a usual sapper sport and also that I’m not the best with hand-eye coordination sports\/ activities. However Phil gave me Blackie to ride and stated that he was an would look after me as he’d done tent pegging plenty of times previously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So with the horses tacked up, I was given a few lessons on the techniques needed and also to get used to Blackie before the public arrived. Phil hadn’t lied Blackie was an absolute star to ride and considering it was my first go he allowed me to focus on learning the techniques and the routine. He was also quite forgiving when I didn’t have him lined up quite right and with an application of a little bit of the appropriate leg he moved into position for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the weekend I had several goes at tent pegging getting better with each run. One of the issues was that I wasn’t getting quite low enough or my position wasn’t quite right enough, that would be because I’m a 55 year old retired squaddie that doesn’t have the level of flexibility that I used to have! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was also interesting on the Sunday that Tony filmed Phil, Dave Pucky and myself doing runs and when you compare the runs it does look that my speed is very pedestrian compared to the runs done by the others. What I can say is that when you are on the top of a horse it didn’t feel that ‘pedestrian’!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m really glad that I was given the opportunity to have a go, so thanks to Phil for his instruction and allowing me to ride blackie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When the displays and talks were not happening then we were all with the horses at the horse lines talking with the public and answering any questions that they had about the horses, and the equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things that always comes up when we get chatting with people that have their own horses or ride is that they become fascinated with the UP Head set\/Bridle and the way that it integrates all the aspects of head collar, bridle, bit and lead rope and is modular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The event wasn’t just focused on the horses, there was the displays on the work of farriers, saddlers, the need for and logistics of getting forage for the horses and mules to keep the army moving. There was also displays on weapons and cyclists. Another great thing about the event is the fact was that it allowed me to catch up with friends from the living history community that I hadn’t seen for a number of years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The RLC Horse Drawn Heritage team were great to work with and had arranged accommodation at the Messes for everyone but I made the decision to ‘bivi’ out the back of the truck, the weather was great and it allowed me to sit out in the evening and keep an eye on the horses over the night<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was a cracking event and it was great to be back working with the horses and to get some time back in the saddle. Learning Tentpegging was great and wasn’t on my planned list but great to have a go at it, there is a lot more needed to do on that. However there was casualties from the event and that is my B5 boots losing several studs and it looks like a visit to the cobblers is required, new studs have been ordered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hopefully they will only be off the road for a couple of weeks! The next event is back at the RE Museum in September and that will be a leap forward to WW2 and looking at the clearing of German mines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago I spent 3 days down at the Royal Logistics Corps…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3],"tags":[147,26,38,149,148,100],"class_list":["post-1642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-events","tag-asc","tag-cavalry","tag-great-war","tag-pith-helmet","tag-tent-pegging","tag-up-saddle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/horsebacksapper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/horsebacksapper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/horsebacksapper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horsebacksapper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horsebacksapper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1642"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/horsebacksapper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1668,"href":"https:\/\/horsebacksapper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642\/revisions\/1668"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horsebacksapper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/horsebacksapper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horsebacksapper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horsebacksapper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}