Bushranger Ben Hall and an 1870 advertisement for the thoroughbred Troubadour at Yamma Station on Yanko Creek. Images: Ben Hall Australian Bushranger website & Trove, National Library of Australia.
Bushranger Ben Hall stole money, firearms, saddles, clothes and more horses than anyone could sensibly count.
But one horse seems to have caught his eye more than most.
His name was Troubadour, a handsome chestnut thoroughbred bred by John Joseph Roberts, a prominent owner and racing man from Goulburn.
In the spring of 1858, Troubadour was still a foal at his mother’s side; by the following March, Roberts was exhibiting him at the Goulburn show, where he received a certificate from the judges.
Sired by Sir Hercules from the mare Emma, Troubadour carried imported English blood and was bred for the racecourse.
An advertisement published in 1870 described him as a rich chestnut standing 15 hands three inches, with, “a splendid temper”.
That last quality may have proved useful, because his life was about to take a sharp turn away from respectable race meetings.
By the early 1860s Troubadour belonged to pastoralist and racing enthusiast Frederick Chisholm of “Grogan Station”, on the Bland Plains around present-day Grogan and Morangarell, between Young and Temora.
Chisholm’s other valuable horses included Union Jack and Coronation.
Hall knew horses.
Before turning to bushranging, he had worked as a stockman and leased a pastoral run near Wheogo.
He understood speed, stamina and good breeding – and had few scruples about helping himself to all three.
Good mounts were essential to men whose freedom depended upon leaving police horses behind, but vanity may also have influenced Hall’s choices.
He and his companions did not always settle for the nearest station hack: they sometimes behaved like men browsing an expensive stable with somebody else paying the bill.
In early 1864 Hall reportedly had his sights on Union Jack.
The Burrangong Times later reported that Hall had watched from the ridges as Chisholm accompanied the police escort taking the racehorse to Wagga Wagga, but was unable to seize him.
The Young Daily Tribune reported that Union Jack subsequently ran third in the Champion Race.
Union Jack may have evaded the bushranger. Grogan Station did not.
On 1 April, Hall walked into the station stables, secured three men and a boy, and called for the owner.
“Good morning, Mr Chisholm,” he reportedly said, “I’ve come for Troubadour.”
“You’ve left him so long you might do without him now,” Chisholm replied.
Hall was unmoved and accused Chisholm of becoming, “too flash” through his association with the police, then took Troubadour, two other horses, saddles, bridles, clothing and Chisholm’s gold watch.
Troubadour did not remain with him for long.
Chisholm received word that the chestnut had been set adrift near Alexander Mackay’s “Memagong Station”, west of Young, allowing him to be recovered.
Less than two months later, Hall came for him again.
On 25 May, Hall, John Gilbert and a third man rode into the racing stables kept by the White family at “Burrangong Station”, just north of Young.
The gang took three horses: Troubadour, another belonging to Chisholm, and one belonging to the White family.
Respectable racing was again replaced by hard riding, stolen saddles and nights beneath the stars.
By June, Troubadour was reportedly travelling with Hall’s gang near Marengo and suffering the indignity of being used as a packhorse.
When Hall returned to Grogan Station in August, he told Chisholm where Troubadour and another stolen horse could be found.
In the exchange detailed in the Sydney Morning Herald, Hall said the chestnut had been “ridden to death” by police, had given him a sore back and that he’d ordered the horse to be given up to his owner.
Troubadour’s unlikely and repetitive association with Hall ended on 5 May 1865, when police shot the bushranger near Forbes.
The horse eventually passed to Irish-born pastoralist Charles “Charley” Madden Lloyd of “Yamma Station”, a sprawling cattle property in the Jerilderie district.
Remembered as one of the most honourable and popular figures on the Australian turf, Lloyd regarded the ungainly, “three-cornered-looking” chestnut as his first genuinely good horse.
Under his ownership, Troubadour returned to the purpose for which John Joseph Roberts had bred him: he raced, stood at stud and sired winners.
The 1870 advertisement praised not only the public performances of his offspring, but their quiet dispositions.
Two daughters, Grecian Bend and Melody, carried his blood into later generations, with the documented family eventually reaching the NSW-bred mares I’m A Gemini, foaled in 1982, and Barina Lass, foaled in 1986.
As the decades passed, the legend of Hall and his favourite horse endured, although the stories became increasingly extravagant.
Earlier recollections said Troubadour carried the scars of several bullet wounds, while a 1936 newspaper article claimed Hall had stolen him on at least three occasions and that 15 bullets were discovered in the sire’s body after his death.
Troubadour’s inclusion in Lloyd’s 1908 obituary shows that, more than 40 years later, the horse still occupied a memorable place in his owner’s story.
The obituary also followed Troubadour’s bloodline into another encounter with bushrangers. Fetherstonhaugh recalled keeping one of the stallion’s daughters, the racing mare Yamma, at Brookong Station when it was held up by Bluecap and his gang.
“You have a racing mare called Yamma?” Bluecap asked. “Yes, but I can’t let you have her,” Fetherstonhaugh replied.
When told the mare belonged to Lloyd, Bluecap answered: “If she belongs to Mr Lloyd we won’t touch her.”
Fetherstonhaugh later teased the Lloyds about their, “friends the bushrangers”, although he believed the mare was spared because of a kindness Lloyd had once shown one of the men.
Troubadour may have begun as a racehorse and become famous as Ben Hall’s favourite hack, but even his offspring could not quite escape the bushranging story.
- This story was researched using contemporary newspaper reports and later historical accounts available through the National Library of Australia’s Trove archive. The image of Ben Hall was sourced from Ben Hall Australian Bushranger website.
Original Article published by Edwina Mason on About Regional.
