MG Wallaby Esq

"Well travelled, scopey and adaptable," this bold hunter accompanied his rider to Germany and Northern Ireland and hunted brilliantly wherever he went

- Octavia Pollock

THE delivery room is an unusual place to buy a horse.

“I had seen him, but never ridden him,” remembers Louly Thornycroft, joint-master of the South Dorset. “I booked the vetting as I went into labour. He failed it, but there was nothing serious, so I bought him anyway.”

The horse was MG Wallaby Esq, a 15.2hh Connemara/ thoroughbred, out of Kanga, hence the name.

“I think the ‘Esq’ came from being a boy – and noble!”

Louly’s husband was in the Army, so soon after his arrival in May 1984, MG accompanied the Thornycrofts to Germany.

“In the winter, we hunted with the Weser Vale and won a showjumping league the day before we left,” she says.