I don't want to start on the wrong foot, so let's not talk about love at first sight, or any guff like that. Besides, it didn't happen at first sight, and anyway, it wasn't love. But in that first couple of hours of our lives together - and we have been together for all but twenty years - there was certainly something. There was a connection. Was it entirely one way?
Well, let's worry about that later. All I can say is that there was something. Her name was Dolly, and I thought it was a stupid name right from the first, and I've hardly ever used it since. It suited her not a bit. She was not a My Little Pony sort of a horse, not a dolly-girl, not winsome and winning, not even terribly pretty. A stubby little mare, bright bay with remarkably large ears. A white star on her forehead shaped like Madagascar. A huge arse; which is good, not bad, because that's where the power comes from. Not a horse that would turn heads, no, just a very horse-like horse. She stood, quiet, docile, as I approached her. To tell the truth, I was a bit disappointed not to be offered something more lively. Ha. I placed a foot in the iron and swung on board... and in that single instant the horse came alive. It was as if I had turned a key. All the lights came on, she started buzzing. Actually, I was a little alarmed: a little intimidated. She was rather more horse than I was expecting. When you first touch the reins of a horse, there is an instant exchange of information. It flows both ways: now I'm quite certain about that. It's probably true that in the first electric contact, the horse knows more about you than you know about the horse. The horse instantly learns something about your competence, balance, level of fear, whether you like to bully, whether you can be bullied, and perhaps, and most importantly, whether or not you are simpatico. But the rider certainly learns something, if not as much, about the horse, horses being more highly tuned than humans when it comes to picking up small nuances of mood. What I learned in that first moment of contact was that I had something ever so slightly special. Not necessarily special for everybody: but definitely something special for me.
I rode her out with two or three others. The usual thing: a little roadwork, some bridleways, a place or two where you could kick on a bit. And I have a vivid memory of this, a strong physical memory, what psychologists call a psychokinetic memory, of the way the little mare moved. It's a hard thing to explain, because the memory is all in my hands and my arse and my legs. She was so light, but with an altogether unexpected amount of power behind. I knew even then, before I even thought of trying her, that she could jump like a little stag. What I didn't know was that the way she carried herself - light before, weight all behind - would come close to breaking my heart.
She was a handful all right, on that first ride: but she was not wicked, she was fun. That was quite definitely, incontrovertibly a two-way thing: she loved to be out and active and given a licence to express herself. She hated to be fussed. She was looking to explode at any time: always eager to step up a pace, every walk edging towards a trot, every trot seeking to become a canter, every canter on the brink of a gallop. But she wasn't pulling and fighting and straining. And I never even started looking for a fight myself: I found that, almost in spite of myself, I was relaxing, giving her a little more leeway than she was perhaps used to, telling her there was nothing to get tense about, that we would have our fun in due course. I discovered that if I sat back and deep, she would listen, and canter short and neat and clever with quite miraculous balance. It was a bit like driving a fast boat with an outboard engine: all the power behind you, the front end light and sketchy, and the sense of control ditto. And that's the memory of that first encounter. Not eyes meeting across a crowded room; nothing soppy. Just that connection: the physical memory of it. The exuberance was a shared thing. I really can still feel it: the infinite number of tiny adjustments, a small correction here, a generous relaxation of the reins there, a pat to tell her I was cool and so was she. It was not that there was something between us: it was almost as if there was nothing between us. I was for the most part sitting as deep as I knew how, in close contact, trying to sit as if I had been glued on. And there was a fusion between our two minds: I was tuned into her, I understood something of her. And perhaps I was understood - who knows? So I got off her and resolved to have nothing more to do with her.
I remember standing beside the gallops at Arundel Castle, watching a string of racehorses going past. They travelled in groups of three or four, because a mad cavalry charge of all 50 at once would be rather too exciting for all concerned. This was the second lot at John Dunlop's yard, and the twoyear- olds were showing us their best stuff. Dunlop, a tall man with a farmer's cracked veins in his cheeks, a tendency to speak in a patrician drawl, in those days a fag permanently on the go, continued his usual recitation of pedigrees and occasional cryptic comments on the talent before him. ("That's a silly horse that tries to run away all the time. But when you let him he doesn't do it terribly fast.") I was a regular guest at Castle Stables in those days, researching a book about a year in Dunlop's yard. And in my presence, Dunlop occasionally let his mind run free, thinking out loud, perhaps from the novelty of having a Boswell beside him. "I don't think horses can be terribly clever, do you?" he said, eyes looking critically at the action of a particularly well-bred little colt. "You can't be terribly clever if you let people sit on you, can you?" Dunlop taught me many things about sport, racing, horses, life, style, manners, decency and horsemanship. But after long consideration, I have come to the conclusion that in this instance, he was wrong. The horse is a genius. Consider the facts. There are more than a million horses in Britain alone. Horses are thriving. They breed, they prosper, they increase. All over the world, there are horses. Wherever horses can be kept, people keep horses. It's as if we simply cannot help ourselves. Thanks to Homo sapiens, Equus caballus is the most fabulous success story. There are other species in the genus Equus, and all bar one is in some kind of trouble. This lone exception is Equus burchelli, the plains zebra, which is doing well in national parks across Africa: mainly because people pay good money to go and see them. There are two other zebra species, Grevy's and mountain, both classified as endangered, while the quagga, another zebra species (or subspecies, as some authorities prefer) is extinct. The wild horse, Przewalski's horse, is down to a few hundred, and its status as a true species is now contested, particularly as it has interbred with domestic horses. The African wild ass is critically endangered; the Asian wild ass is vulnerable. The kiang and the onager, regarded by some as separate species, and by others as subspecies of the Asian wild ass, are endangered; the Syrian subspecies is extinct.
But Equus caballus prospers where the rest struggle: and the reason is blindingly obvious. It is because horses have adopted the strategy of domestication. They have thrown in their lot with humans; and as a result, they are the dominant equid on the planet. I am not, of course, attributing a conscious choice in all this, perish the thought. Evolution is a vast, complex and enthralling subject: and it is also, at least to a degree, a crap-shoot. The dinosaurs dominated the earth for 100 million years, and the mammals never had a chance. Then the earth bumped into a meteor and the dinosaurs couldn't hack it any more. But the scruffy, insignificant, uninspiring little mammals were able to cling on. And so, by means of dumb luck, the mammals inherited the earth. Humans went on to become the dominant large animals on the planet, with the result that any animal that has what it takes to live with humans has prospered. Rats profit from out rubbish, blue tits from our generosity, dogs from our gregariousness, pigeons from our agriculture, pheasants from our murderousness. And horses profit from - well, from our horsiness. There is a strange link between our two species: and it has worked greatly to the profit of both.
Horses domesticate. They respond well to life in artificial conditions. No doubt it began when humans discovered that having half a ton of meat on your doorstep made for an easier life than going out to hunt. In the millennia that followed, horses became used for burden, for transport, for war, for agriculture, and the horse prospered. But then they invented the internal combustion engine, and horses were no longer necessary. It was logical, then, that the domestic horse would veer towards extinction: perhaps to be kept alive by a few mad enthusiasts, of the kind that lovingly maintain vintage cars. But it didn't happen. There are as many horses as ever. And this is where the true genius of the horse comes in. Horses first made themselves essential in a wholly utilitarian way. But when their usefulness was over, they changed their strategy. They joined the leisure market. We no longer keep horses because we need to; but we still keep horses. And it can only be because we want to. The horse's evolutionary strategy is an extraordinary affinity for humankind. And here is the question that lies at the heart of it: who's exploiting whom?
I rode her again; we had a ball. It was better, if anything. I knew she was a wild little thing, but I also knew by then that she wasn't crazy. I also knew she was for sale. I had decided to buy a horse. But not that one. She was too good for me. Cindy, my wife, knows a few things about horses, and a few more things about me. "Do you mean you can't ride her? She's too much for you?" "No, not at all. I mean, I have to be at my best, but that's good. She's great." "You're not scared of her?"
A fair question. Anyone is entitled to be frightened of any horse: anyone can lose his nerve at any time. But I wasn't frightened. I was genuinely excited by the challenges she had for me. Already, she was bringing from me things I didn't know I possessed, and their discovery was enthralling. But I was still determined not to buy her.
"But why not?"
"She could compete at a much higher level than I could ever take her to. It would be a waste." It was a kind of guilt. It is obviously a horseman's duty to bring out the full competitive potential of a horse. Isn't it? I mean, if I only pottered about doing local shows, it would be unfair, wouldn't it? Unfair to the horse, that is. Cindy kindly made me understand that I was talking shite. "You like her, you can ride her, you can have fun competing with her, you can have fun riding out, you can give her a good life. What's wrong with that?" Not for the first, nor for the last time, Cindy had made me see sense. She started to refer to the horse as Dolly Dolores, one of those jokes that demonstrate the rule that in marriage, there is no such thing as a bad joke. I learned that Dolly was a mere stable name; her pedigree or formal name was even worse - Alive and Kicking. But never mind the names. I had recently received a royalty cheque for the book about Dunlop's yard. So the following day, I made out a cheque myself for £1,500. She was mine.
Or, if you like, I was hers.
saddleup said:
Mr. Barnes.
You made your account of a year at the bird reserve, Minsmere, a page turner; I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of this, take a deep breath and settle down with it uninterrupted.
gallante said:
I am in a hurry & making myself late for a meeting but I just had to read your article!How right you are in your comments about how horses are part of our lives , for me & probably most of us I dont go on holidays ( unless they include horses) I drive around in a beat up old car , I dont go or even like shopping for clothes , but my horses get the best & hang the expense.They are an essential part of my life, without a horse I am incomplete,I am at my happiest & most content when I am with my boys , I am so lucky that one of my boys happens to be my husband who loves our herd as much as I do.
blindhorsedancer said:
What a really GREAT piece of work. I think that horses allow us to think that we own them, but it is really the other way around. I am a blind horseman, 10% of sight, and the first horse that I owned knew this and it became my SEEING EYE HORSE. I learned very quickly to trust her completely. When I did not trust her a few times I got hurt. I think that horses have esp and can sometimes read the human mind. Think about it, there is no one telling them that they can not. I agree with everything that has ben written in this work. THANK YOU
BLINDHORSEDANCER
Gimme A Dream said:
A fascinating look at horse and man. Personally, I think, each and every time I lug a bale of hay out to the paddocks, "just who is the horsepower in this field, and who is it that has the brains, anyway?"
marymayhem said:
its very true us horse lovers go with out and the horses get the best of every thing my fridge is alwas empty and they have a full ladder with all the vitamins and herbs ,my coat is old and sun bleeched but they have coats for all tpys of weathet they get new shoe,s every six months im lucky to have a new pair every six years but would not change a thing its just like having children you put them first marymayhem
