Love, Sweat and Tears

by Zelie Bullen

  I was hurt, confused and angry. I had just spent fourteen months raising Arjuna, and I knew he needed consistency in his training; Brenton had previously told me he felt that there was no one who could work well with Arjuna in Sydney—so who was going to look after him? Now, Brenton flatly told me that he would.

  I couldn’t understand why Brenton had changed his mind. I was aware I didn’t own Arjuna, but Brenton had said that the two of us would raise the lion together, and I felt that he was reneging on that.

  With his characteristically impeccable timing, Sled called to tell me he was working in pre-production on a film called Scorpion King. He told me I should stop working for that circus fella, who was going to get me killed, and come over for a visit—he had a lot of stuff happening in LA. It was very tempting, but I was worried about Arjuna, and didn’t want to leave Australia.

  Eventually, Brenton called and said the day had come—Arjuna was no better and they were going to put him down. I said I would fly down and begged him not to do it before I got there. He said, ‘Zelie, I don’t want you here. I’m no good at this sort of thing anyway. If I need to grieve, I want to be alone—you being here will make it harder for me.’

  Selfishly, I told him that I didn’t care what he said—if he didn’t let me come down to Park Road, I would never speak to him again. ‘I know about death, Brenton, and I want to be there when he goes.’

  Credit where credit is due—Brenton did wait for me to come down. When I arrived in Sydney, Arjuna was far worse than I had seen him before. He was in the back of the Nissan utility, about to go to the vet’s. I crawled in there with him. It suddenly seemed small with both me and this large fourteen-month-old lion in there.

  I lay next to him, and hugged him and cried. Both Craig and Brenton were there, and both were very upset. Arjuna knew we were there. He was yowling to me, and he gently grabbed my hand in his mouth and held it, but he seemed very disorientated.

  Brenton didn’t make it to the vet’s. It was Craig who drove us there in silence, to have Arjuna put down. I held that beautiful lion in my arms as he slipped away.

  I stayed on at the Bullens’ for a couple of days. I didn’t really want to be anywhere else; I wanted to sit outside and just be near the big cats in their enclosures, and watch them play and interact with each other. I asked Brenton if that was OK and he said, ‘Absolutely, you do what you need to do.’

  In the afternoon, I was sitting down the back, near the mountain lion enclosure. No one else was around. Suddenly I heard this high-pitched eeeep-eeep and I realised it was a cub all on its own in the grass in the enclosure. One of the female mountain lions was anxiously pacing up and down quite some distance away. She was a first-time mother and it was clear she had abandoned her newborn cub.

  I ran up to the main house and grabbed Brenton and Craig. We went back to the enclosure and watched from a distance for hours, waiting to see if the mother would go back to the cub or not.

  When the mother finally went back she picked up the cub in her jaws, dragging it through the water trough and then dropping it onto the cold concrete beside the trough, which obviously wasn’t ideal for the tiny cub. Then she went back to pacing. By now Brenton and Craig, afraid for the cub’s life, had decided to get it out. They manoeuvred the mother out of the way and scooped the cub out of the enclosure. Immediately I began hand-raising the cub, whom we called Koda, on a bottle.

  Two tiger cubs, Shamarna and Indira, were born within a couple of days of Koda. I couldn’t believe it: I had just lost Arjuna, but now there were three more cubs to raise. After one death, there were three more beautiful beings who had come into our world.

  But then Brenton said something that just blew me away. He said, ‘OK, you’d better go home now. We’ll take them to the vet’s to be hand-raised by their staff.’

  I was stunned and asked him how he could say that when he knew my heart was broken over Arjuna and I wanted to put all of my love into these new babies. He simply said, ‘No, not this time.’

  So that is what we did—we dropped them at the vet’s. Unbelievably hurt, I went home.

  Freda, me, Mum and Julie, 1973.

  At the age of six, with my first dog Snoopy #1, 1976.

  At the age of ten, on my first pony Candy, 1980.

  Me, Julie and Freda. Freda’s hens night, 1988.

  Julie, me, Kate, Cloud, Freda. Freda and Bert’s wedding, 1988.

  The last time I saw my dad. Hayley, Freda, Dad, me, Cloud and Kate, 1991.

  With Graham, 1993.

  Graham teaching me about fire stunts, 1994.

  With Mazena Godecki on the set of Ocean Girl, 1993.

  Learning to work with young big cats at Sled’s, 1995.

  With Snoopy and Angel when life was going to plan, 1994.

  Stunt-doubling for Kate Winslet on Holy Smoke, 1998.

  With Arjuna, 2000.

  Performing a ‘Hippodrome’ on Bullet at Equitanna, 2002.

  Stunt-doubling for Terri Irwin on The Crocodile Hunter, with Sui (Steve Irwin’s faithful dog), 2002.

  With Craig, Austin Powers the pony and Lucy the zebra on the set of Racing Stripes, 2003.

  With Mum in Africa, 2003.

  With Mum, having cuddles with Kota (the puma I found just after Arjuna died), 2003.

  With Mum and Cleo the lion cub, 2003.

  With Zoey the zebra foal and Ben Hur the pony while working on Racing Stripes, 2003.

  Trick riding on Lobo during pre-production of The Legend of Zorro, 2004.

  On Lobo in Mexico working on The Legend of Zorro, 2004.

  With Antonio Banderas, 2004.

  I get a kiss from Wonkey with Chakeeta standing by in Mexico, 2004.

  Working on interspecies bonding with Billy the chimp and Wallace the lion, 2005.

  With Craig, Jamie and Jim Stockley working Sasha and Azarro the cheetahs on the set of Elephant Tales, 2005.

  With Craig and Jerry the giraffe during pre-production on Elephant Tales, 2005.

  Working with Billy the chimp, 2005.

  Working Percy with Craig on the set of Charlotte’s Web, 2005.

  With Craig on J’adore on our wedding day, 2005.

  The horse girls at our wedding. Lydia, Heidi, Tamzin, me, Freda, Melody, Brit—The Magnificent Seven, 2005.

  With Craig and Colt, helping him down from Tai the elephant, 2009.

  Colt having cat cuddles, 2009.

  Trick riding on Mozart, pictured here in a full fender layout (a trick-riding position I was in when Mozart’s front hooves slipped in the damp clay and he fell on me, breaking my left ankle and leg), 2009.

  With Nelson, Craig, Colt and Columbia and Princess the leopard in 2009.

  Cueing Abraham to rear when he is cornered by the tank on the set of War Horse, 2010.

  Cueing Abraham to rear when he is captured by the German soldiers on the set of War Horse, 2010.

  Working Abraham from within the chalked circle (to stay out of the shots of three cameras) on the set of War Horse, 2010.

  Waiting with Abraham for the cameras to roll, with Steven Spielberg on War Horse, 2010.

  With Freda, Kate and Cloud, Christmas 2011.

  With Colt on Traveller, 2012 (El Hogan Photography).

  CHAPTER 23

  Running away

  When I arrived back at Maudsland Road, Sled called again and asked if I could help him at Gentle Jungle while things were so busy. This time I dropped everything and flew to the US.

  Before Arjuna had died, Brenton and I had talked every day on the phone. Even if it was my day off or I’d gone to a stunt job, we still spoke—mostly to liaise about Arjuna. But after I went home from Park Road, I didn’t call Brenton and I didn’t have any calls from him either. I was angry and hurt.

  Sled was surprised by my abrupt change of plans, because he knew that I was a ferociously loyal employee and didn’t just ‘drop’ jobs. In LA, he picked me up from the airport in his Chevy, as he always did. As soon as I climbed in he said, ‘So, what the h
ell is going on?’ and I told him the whole story.

  I told him that Craig had shown an interest in me and I had said, ‘No way.’ Since then Brenton was acting irrationally, and I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him. I was just pissed off with everyone.

  He said, ‘Oooh! You got a mess goin’ on back there.’

  No sooner had I finished telling him my story than his cell-phone rang. He looked at its display screen and said, ‘Whaddaya know—it’s your boss.’ Then he gave it to me and told me to answer it.

  I said, ‘No, no,’ but Sled grabbed the phone, pushed ‘accept’ and handed it back to me.

  I said, ‘Hello. Gentle Jungle, Australian Division,’ as an awkward joke and there was a silence. I repeated, ‘Hello?’ and Brenton said, ‘Oh, hello—I’m looking for Sled Reynolds.’

  ‘Hi, Brenton—it’s Zelie.’

  Silence. And then he said, ‘Right, so that’s where you’ve got to then—thought you might have gone there. Is Sled there? I’d like to talk to him.’

  ‘Sure.’ I handed the phone over. They talked briefly, Sled in short, cryptic sentences and then hung up.

  I asked what he wanted and Sled said, ‘To find out where you were.’

  ‘He wouldn’t do that.’

  Sled replied, ‘Reeeally.’ Sled was always saying I was naive.

  ‘No, he wouldn’t do that,’ I repeated.

  Sled said slowly, like I was an imbecile, ‘Zelie, he just rang to tell me there is a big tiger movie going this year in Australia, and would I be interested in coming out. I told him, “Yes, Brenton, that would be great,” and we hung up. Do you think that’s a coincidence?’

  Anyway, it was awful. I felt confused and angry and just wanted to work, to forget about Arjuna, forget about Brenton, forget about Craig. I stayed with Sled for four weeks. As usual, I was well looked after and had a good time working with the animals. However, when pre-production had finished and filming was about to commence on Scorpion King, I received a phone call from Lawrence Woodward asking if I could come back to Australia to work on a new IMAX project called Horses: The Story of Equus. I decided to head home as I also wanted to see if Brenton had changed his mind and would let me raise those cubs.

  I arrived back from the US and called to ask Brenton how the cubs were going. He told me that they’d grown strong and he needed to collect them from the vet’s; yet he still wouldn’t let me go to Park Road to raise them. He told me to wait until BeastMaster started up again. But I didn’t wait, because in the meantime Lydia called from France. She’d now been there for two months, and she told me they needed an extra person for the season. I said, ‘Book me on the next plane.’

  CHAPTER 24

  Working for royalty

  I ran away to France—from Craig, from Brenton and from the memory of Arjuna—and went to work as a polo groom for Mark Boyden, husband of Princess Zahra Aga Khan. Zahra’s father, His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, is the forty-ninth and current Imam of Nizari Ismailism, a denomination within Shia Islam, and is thought by his followers to be a direct descendent of the Prophet Muhammad. Lydia met me at the airport and we went out to the car park, where a driver was waiting for us. We were driven to the Aga Khan’s estate, an hour outside of Paris, and I met Mark and Zahra in their beautiful home.

  ‘Mini Mont’, where Mark, Zahra and their baby Sara lived, was a warm and friendly home that they affectionately referred to as ‘The Cottage’, situated within the walled compound of the enormous Aiglemont estate. It was just amazing. At ‘Mini Mont’ there was a large lobby and entrance area, which was dominated by dog beds and bowls.

  A year earlier, Zahra had rescued two strays, a male and a female, who had since had four puppies, now almost grown. Zahra wanted to keep the family together so she’d kept all four puppies, and the six of them now lived in the house. She told us that before the puppies had been born the two adult dogs had obeyed commands, but now all six of them ran together as a pack and they could be hard to control. She asked if Lydia and I could help a bit with the dogs while we were there, and I suggested that we first needed to defuse their pack mentality.

  Lydia and I began by separating the dogs whenever we could; we would take them out and work with them individually. We taught them the basics—come, sit, stay and listen. Once they’d learnt to obey, we took them out two at a time and repeated the process; then again with three dogs, and finally with all six. I think we helped a little bit. But we said to Zahra that the training would have to be ongoing or they would probably slip back into their old habits, if they did not have time apart every now and then.

  Mark and Zahra were very nice to both of us. We had a room each in the quarters inside the main compound, where Zahra’s father, the Aga Khan, housed his jockeys and stablehands. Mark had thirteen polo ponies, which we had to prepare and get fit for the upcoming season which started in May. Zahra was warm and welcoming. At different times other horse professionals would move into the quarters as well. Because our quarters only consisted of a bathroom and bedrooms, we either ate with Zahra and Mark or meals were delivered to us from the main kitchen. We ate like kings, and we were spoilt rotten. Zahra had a lot of contacts and as a result we got to do lots of fun things, like going to shows or to the races; on one occasion we had a blast when she organised for us to go to a U2 concert (that particularly meant a lot to me, as U2 were one of my sister Julie’s favourite bands). We were very grateful.

  Meeting Zahra was inspirational for me. She was incredibly beautiful, with a fantastic figure—even though she’d just had a baby—and she was also one of the kindest people you could have the pleasure of meeting. She worked for her father in an office on the estate, overseeing the family’s support for a number of humanitarian and charitable causes, which was very fitting because she was such a compassionate person. With us, she was casual and friendly—there were no airs and graces—while in public, for example at the races, she was regal and dignified.

  On my first night there, we were asked up to The Cottage for dinner. Zahra asked about my family, and while I was telling her about them I mentioned that I had once heard that my father was born in England to a French mother during World War II. She told me that meant I could get an English passport and thus work anywhere in Europe.

  She asked someone in her office to get the application forms I needed and then organised an interview for me for British immigration; within a fortnight I had an English passport to add to my Australian one. I said a silent thank you to Dad. I could now open a bank account in France and I didn’t have the visa limitations that someone with only an Australian passport has.

  Lydia and I were given the use of a Range Rover to drive around in, and on our days off we had a whole lot of fun exploring the countryside. One day we went out to lunch and found a cute little restaurant. We couldn’t understand anything on the menu, and no one there spoke English. So we ordered what we thought was beef salad, because we thought we recognised two words, boeuf and salade. We were presented with what looked like raw beef brains on lettuce, and promptly laughed.

  We didn’t know what to think—surely they didn’t actually eat that stuff? Maybe it was a joke they played on unsuspecting Aussies. Needless to say, we went hungry that day!

  Another time we called into a pub. We attempted, with our few pathetic words of French, to order a sandwich. All we could come up with was fromage for cheese and pain for bread, and we performed an exaggerated charade of making a sandwich. The woman behind the bar did not look amused. She frowned and asked in rapid French, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure? Bread and cheese?’ Eventually out came a foot-and-a-half-long baguette, with chunks of camembert randomly poked into it and absolutely nothing else. We took one look, said a brief thanks, walked outside and burst out laughing. It was probably a good thing the Aga Khan was feeding us, or we would have starved in those early days.

  Within days of being there, I told Zahra and Mark how much I wanted to meet Mario Luraschi, an Italian-born, French-based, eq
uestrian whom Connie and Tad had worked with in Las Vegas. I knew he was very well known, not only in the film industry but also as an accomplished horseman and voltige rider (the European version of trick riding). He lived only about forty minutes from Aiglemont. I couldn’t believe it—France is a big place, and yet he was just down the road.

  Zahra found me his number and I spoke to him on the phone, which was difficult because, although he thinks he’s fantastic at all languages, he speaks English with a heavy accent. Eventually, though, we were able to understand each other, and I organised to go to meet him at his home.

  CHAPTER 25

  In the forests of Ermenonville

  Mario’s place is very impressive. Located in the middle of Ermenonville Forest, it has lovely open paddocks and numerous stables with cobbled floors and walkways. As well as an outside arena, he has a beautiful indoor arena (called a ménage), complete with mirrors and old-style equestrian murals lining the walls. On the floors above the ménage is Mario’s magnificent home.