To Ride a Fine Horse (A&u House of Books) - Softcover

Patsy Durack was born a poor boy in Ireland, but migrated to Australia in the mid-nineteenth century to build up a pastoral empire in the outback. 'My life' Patsy Durack told his children, 'began like a fairy tale with a boy who made a wish. I wished that I might some day ride a fine horse of my very own' To Ride a Fine Horse is based on an Australian classic - Mary Durack's Kings in Grass Castles - adapted for young readers. It tells the story of Mary's grandfather, Patsy, a poor Irish boy who came to Australia at seventeen, made his fortune on the goldfields, and then founded a pastoral empire in the remote outback. Patsy's ambition had always been to 'ride a fine horse' but he would far exceed this dream, becoming one of the nation's top horse breeders, with his choice of the finest thoroughbred mounts in the land. This account of Patsy Durack's life is based on his letters, notebooks and documents, discovered by his granddaughter Mary in an old tin trunk more than fifty years after his death. The illustrations that appear throughout the text are the work of Mary's sister, Elizabeth, and are reproduced from the original 1963 edition.

Mary Durack was born in Adelaide in 1913 but grew up on the remote Argyle Downs and Ivanhoe cattle stations in the Kimberley in Western Australia. Her family were among the first Europeans in the area; in her best-known work, Kings in Grass Castles, Durack tells the story of their migration from Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century and their new life in the outback. She was the author of the classic Australian novel, Keep Him My Country, and also wrote children's books, often in collaboration with her sister, the illustrator and artist Elizabeth Durack. One of Australia's literary greats, Mary Durack was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to literature and a Companion of the Order of Australia.