Women’s History Month: The Pretty Horsebreakers

The pretty horsebreakers of Victorian London mastered both horses and men, during a time when women’s role in society was extremely limited.

In 19th-century London, Hyde Park’s Rotten Row was the place to see and be seen. Noblemen, women, and wealthy heirs and heiresses promenaded up and down the street negotiating business, marriages, and everything in between. Among the crowd were a few women who broke the mold.

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The first woman ever recorded as having ridden at Rotten Row was Mary Stuart-Wortley in the early 1800s, according to Historic UK. Her outspoken views and independent behavior earned her the nickname “Jack” Wortley before she married William Dundas, a member of Parliament. Mary Stuart-Wortley is credited with trendsetting the practice of riding side-saddle versus being pulled in a carriage.

In the 1860s, an entirely new breed of female equestrian appeared on the row — the pretty horsebreaker.

Partnering with local livery yards, these impeccably fashionable women — wearing riding habits so tight it was reported they wore no underwear — paraded up and down Hyde Park. The livery yards provided the horses and the outfits in return for horse sales. They were “living advertisements” for the stables, one source notes.

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But the young women attracted attention in more ways than one. Women wanted to be them, and men just plain wanted them. Most of the pretty horsebreakers achieved infamous notoriety as courtesans. One of the most notable was a woman named Catherine Walters.

Newspapers of the time referred to her as “Anonyma” or “Incognita,” but to most of London, she was simply known as “Skittles”— a reference to the bowling alley where she worked as a child. She was born in 1839, the third of five children. Her mother died during childbirth, and her father worked as a customs official in Liverpool. At 16,  she negotiated a living arrangement with a Lord Fitzwilliam, who set her up in a house in London and paid her £2,000 a year. Not satisfied, Skittles found a job with a local stable and began riding the row.

She was an overnight sensation, literally, stopping traffic.

A poet, Alfred Austin, had this to say in his poem “The Season”:

“…more defiant, spurning frown and foe,
With slackened rein swift Skittles rules the Row.
Though frowning matrons champing steeds restrain,
She flaunts propriety with flapping mane.

James Mathew Higgins wrote in The Times,

“Meanwhile, thousands returning from the Exhibition are intolerably delayed by…this pretty creature and her pretty ponies.

Her name also became associated with Edwin Landseer’s painting The Shrew Tamed.

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Her love life was the stuff of Bridgerton. After her relationships in London ended, she briefly followed a man to America. When that ended, she relocated to Paris. She never married, but by the 1900s, she had accumulated vast amounts of independent wealth and owned several businesses. Through all of it, she maintained her love for horses. She continued to ride her entire life, returning to England for every fox hunting season.

Go riding.

Amanda Uechi Ronan is an author, equestrian and wannabe race car driver. Follow her on Instagram @amanda_uechi_ronan.