Many books have been written and stories told about the brave New Zealand soldiers who fought and died in World War One.
But there is one story that is seldom told. It is the story of their brave horses.
At the outbreak of war in 1914, the New Zealand troops left for the battlefields with more than 3,700 horses.
The horses were the first of over 10,000 that New Zealand sent to war, serving mainly with the Mounted Rifles Brigade in the deserts of the Middle East.
They faced heat, stress, thirst, hunger, exhaustion, disease and injury.
Yet these noble creatures served our troopers with unquestioning courage and loyalty until the very end.
Of all the horses that departed at the start of the war, only one ever returned home.

Brave Bess and the ANZAC Horses is her story.
If you’d like to know more about Bess go to my publisher’s website at:
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz/fmi/xsl/nz/author_details.xsl?AuthorCode=0019283

An exhausted horse and trooper after battle. Courtesy of Matt Pomeroy

Bess, free of her saddle at last. Courtesy of Terry Kinloch