One perfect moment.

Author’s note: I did of course have wonderful plans for the first post back. I’ve been out in the world, and I was going to tell you about that. I had stories to tell. I’d been thinking many, many thoughts on the long drive back. I was going to be like the Ferrero Rocher ambassador, and spoil you. Then the red mare did something so lovely that I could only write of that, because I could only think of that. (There really is not enough room in my mazy brain for more than one thing at a time.) So I’m afraid this is very, very horsey, even more horsey than usual. I’ve put in some extra Scotland photographs at the end, in a tragic attempt to make up for it.

 

Back after a very busy, very wonderful and very emotional week at Aintree. I was at full stretch, doing all my HorseBack work, and now have hit the wall and need to sit quietly in my room for a while.

As I drove home through the snowy mountains, I thought of my dear red mare. She is the thing that pulls me home. I may have been seeing some of my most beloved racing stars, some of the most elegant, beautiful and elite athletes on the planet, but the face I miss is that of a muddy, woolly duchess, who never won a prize in her life.

I got on her back this morning after not having sat on her for six days. The popular wisdom is that in springtime, with the new grass and the twinkles in the toes, thoroughbreds should not really be leapt on like that. I did about ten minutes of groundwork first, just to check her state of mind and remind her that her good leader had returned, and then, off we went.

Because I’ve been learning a completely new way of working with horses, we haven’t done any advanced or technical riding. I’m still trying to figure out how to do everything correctly on the ground, to get her and me to the place we both need to be. My version of schooling in the saddle consists of two daily exercises, both unbelievably basic.

The first is called Where do you want to go? I get on the mare, let out the reins, and allow her to go where she will. If she gets stuck anywhere, like the gate or the feed shed, I work her there, and then let her go again. It’s a fabulous exercise and it fixes about eight different things and I love it and it makes me laugh. But it’s not exactly technical. It mostly consists of me waving my arms in the air or scratching her withers whilst asking: where do you want to go? I’m always curious to see where she chooses, and wonder what is going on in her dear head whilst she makes those navigational decisions.

Then we move on to the Left Right exercise, which is about balance and straightness and light steering. If the horse goes left, you steer it right, and vice verse. It’s really that simple. So you see, we are not exactly doing collection or flying changes.

We were working on these today, doing our ABCs, and she was a little tense and tentative and I was bringing her down until she relaxed. We were looking for softness, which is our holy grail. And then, suddenly, in a ravishing collected trot, she started going in perfect circles, with the most beautiful bend in her body, using every inch of that duchessy thoroughbred self. She used to be quite stiff, and she would drop her shoulder, and she would lean on me, and her body would go out of alignment. I have not worked on any of that specifically. I’ve just done this wonderfully basic work on the ground and under the saddle, trying to teach myself as much as her, concentrating on getting each small step right, sometimes feeling like a fool because I am still muddling about in the foothills when everyone else is galloping over the mountain peaks.

But there, out of the blue, she described a balletic, poised, perfect circle, with everything in the right place. When that happens, you can feel it, like someone has thrown a switch and the whole world has changed. And the really lovely thing is that I was not doing anything. She was doing it by herself. That’s the point of all this work, to give her the confidence to carry herself. I simply point the way, ask the question, and then let her alone. There is no nagging or correction.

I was so amazed that I dropped the reins and let her go, simply moving my body with hers. And she kept right on going, in her delirious dressage diva circuit, everything in harmony. Every inch of her body, every muscle and every sinew, was working in time, each moving part going smoothly with the other. I’m not sure I ever felt anything like it.

In a daze of delight, I said whoa, and she stopped on a sixpence and I leapt off and covered her in strokes and rubs and kisses, wishing I could express to her the brilliance of what she had just done. She stood like a statue, with her head low, her ears in their dozy donkey position, her lower lip wibbling in the suspicion of an equine smile.

Did she know? I hope she knew.

She made me cry actual tears of joy and gratitude.

There is something sometimes frustrating about putting myself back to school, about having to learn humility and patience and rigour, about having to go over and over and over and over the very, very small things, until I have them right. I’m quite a slow learner, and sometimes I think: oh, bugger it, let’s just gallop off into the middle distance and forget all this. But what it does mean is that I appreciate the smallest things as if they are dazzling diamonds. I shouldn’t think many other horsewomen burst into tears today because they did a slow sitting trot in a circle in a green field. They’d probably think: right, that’s done, let’s move on to transitions. But for me, it was like winning that damn Grand National.

The older I get, the more I believe in the small things, in all areas of life. The red mare teaches me so many life lessons, and returns me to earth when I become idiotic or hubristic, and shows me the value of the plain virtues. She is the Empress of Small Things, and I can never thank her enough.

 

Today’s pictures:

Are actually from yesterday. The road home:

And the faces that greeted me:

Quite often, when I get back, she’s not that bothered. There’s a bit of – yeah, right, whatever. But this time she came straight over for love, and then followed me round the field when I went to leave. I do fight anthropomorphism every single day, but I swear this face is saying: where have you been?:

Meanwhile, Stan the Man was very happy to be back in the feed shed, hunting for RATS:

The red mare takes a journey.

Today, I had the dazzling good fortune to take the red mare up to HorseBack to work with Robert Gonzales.

I knew that I was at the very beginning of my journey, and I understood, humbly, that I was in the foothills whilst he bestrode the mountain peaks. Even so, when he took the mare in hand and showed me all the things that I had been getting wrong, in the gentlest and politest way possible, I did feel a moment of chagrin. I’ve been learning this new kind of horsemanship with the dedication of someone taking a university course, and I had felt that I had made some strides forwards.

In fact, I saw at once that I had been mimsing about. One of the things my father disliked most was mimsiness, and he was a horseman to his bones, and I should have damn well learnt that lesson by now. I’d been staying in a safe comfort zone, and letting the mare get away with things that I should have corrected. I write a lot here about rigorousness, but I had sadly lacked rigour.

When I had got over the bruise to my amour-propre, I felt excited, because a new door had been opened, and I could step through it. We’ll go on learning and I’ll go on getting better, and when you start from such a low place, the only way is up.

The mare, once she dealt with the slight shock of having someone work her who really was not messing about, had a lovely time, and when her lesson was over, rested happily, ground-tied, whilst the ex-sprinter Brook went through his paces. When they were formally introduced, she took to him with a faint degree of shamelessness, breathing into his nose and batting her eyelids at him. Often, when two strange horses meet, there is a degree of squealing and tail-swishing and a little dance as they work out the hierarchy. There was none of that. Just a gentle, questing hello, as if he were an old friend she had been missing. It was very touching.

Apart from not being firm enough, I think I have let emotion get in the way. The thing I notice about Robert is that he brings a delightful, calm neutrality to each horse. He does not get frustrated when they do the wrong thing, just keeps on persisting until they give him the right answer. When that answer comes, he does not, as I am prone to do, shriek and whoop and fall on the horse’s neck. He merely exudes a quiet satisfaction and gives them a good rub.

The love I have for this mare gets in the way of working her well. She does not really need human love; my bursting heart is all to do with my delight, not hers. She wants a place of safety and a sense of ease. My new resolution is to leave not only my worries and tensions at the gate when I work her, but to leave the love there too. I may indulge that when we have finished. It’s one of the hardest lessons in the world to learn, but I must learn it – it’s not, not, not all about me. It’s about her. That is the very least she deserves.

Oh, and PS. I was so inspired by this revelatory lesson that I cast away any shyness about saying the thing. I looked the great horseman right in the eye, smiled my goofy smile and said: ‘Robert, you are a giant among men.’ And that is no more than the truth.

 

Today’s pictures:

Resting, after work:

Despite being in a new and antic environment, she settled very well, just casting the odd look out of the door, where she could hear the rest of the herd moving about in the fields:

It was quite tiring:

I love this picture for about eighty-seven reasons. First of all, you are popularly not supposed to be able to do any of the things that we are doing here with ex-racehorses. One is standing quite happily by herself, with no human constraint, whilst another horse and several humans are working away about her. The other is going easily on a loose rein in a rope halter, stretching down his neck to find the place of softness, whilst his human rides him bareback. He is also in the middle of doing an exercise which he would never have learnt in his racing days, of yielding the shoulder, so he is having to concentrate very hard. Despite that, the softness is there. I also love the  look on the mare’s face:, a little bit dozy but a little bit thoughtful, as she processes everything she has just learnt:

Oh, those hot-blooded thoroughbreds, those crazy ex-racehorses; can’t do a thing with them:

She worked so hard she actually got sweaty, which is not what normally happens, so on went her cooler, making her look like a proper show pony:

I didn’t take any pictures of Robert working the mare, because I was avidly absorbing everything with my human eyes. Here he is with Brook, waiting for softness. He’ll wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. As long as it takes. That patience is one of the great lessons I take from all this. You can’t rush this, or skip parts, or think that half a loaf is a good enough. You’ve got to wait for the golden moment:

I try not to fall into anthropomorphism, but my idiot brain says the mare is flirting. I don’t blame her. Brook is a very handsome fella, as well as a very nice one. Actually, she is not really flirting, she’s just saying hello. But there did seem to be some sweet sense of recognition in her. They are related, after all. You have to go back four generations on his side, and three on hers, but there it is – Northern Dancer, in black and white, the grandaddy of them all. Maybe that good Canadian blood really is thicker than water:

Thank you to HorseBack, and thank you to Robert. It was a huge day.

Could one more dream come true?

Today traditionally is the day I would always call Big Buck’s day. I would wake up like a child at Christmas, my heart beating at the thought of the magnificence to come.

Now, as the new pretenders start to rear their glorious heads, it may be Annie Power day.

Annie Power is the queen in waiting. She may be one of the great race mares, spoken of in the same breath as Dawn Run. She is tough, strong, and enthusiastic, with a dash of stardust about her. She has found everything she has done so far ridiculously easy.

The received wisdom is that she is a glittering star, and that Big Buck’s is a waning moon. He’s eleven, which would make this task tough for him even in the best year. But he has not had the best year. He’s been off with a tendon; his last run was a losing battle. The Irish, whose eyes are indeed smiling, think that Annie will scoot up the hill, leaving the old champion trailing in her wake.

I love her. She thrills me. I hope she stays around for years. I think she might one day take her place in the Gold Cup. If she can win today, which is in itself a tremendous ask, I shall throw my hat in the air.

My absurd old heart still belongs to Big Buck’s. He has delighted everyone who loves racing for so long. He is in a class of his own.

He should not win. All the odds are stacked against him. But he is Big Buck’s. He is, as the old racing hands say, different gravy. If anyone can pull it out of the fire, he can.

Anything could happen. The old warrior could pull up, or he could battle up the hill to regain his crown. The young queen could find the big stage too much, and go out like a light. She has never run at this level, and she has never gone this far. Or she could rise to the occasion, and soar to new heights. The anticipated duel may not materialise at all. At Fishers Cross could refind his brilliance and beat the both of them.

It’s not a betting day for me. I’m up on the meeting; my punting race is run. It really is a love day. Big Buck’s owes his adoring fans not one thing. He has given so much. If he can make the improbable come true, it will be the story of the festival, and it will truly be a dream to dream. It would also be the training performance of the year from Paul Nicholls, who keeps the faith with his mighty campaigner. He has said that he tips his hat to the brilliance of the great mare, but ‘mine won’t go down without a fight.’ It would also be the ride of his life for young Sam Twiston-Davies, one of the brightest lights in the National Hunt game.

Win or lose, I hope Big Buck’s runs his race, and comes home safe, with his head held high.

Even though he is the emperor of my heart, I do thrill to the good mare. You know how I feel about the mares. This morning, I gave Red a breeze. She was light as air, smooth as silk, so sweet and responsive that I really let her go. Out loud, in the cool Scottish air, I stood up in my stirrups, threw the reins at her, and cried: ‘Come on, Annie. Go, go.’ She went. As I slid off, and congratulated her, for her own private brilliance, I said, seriously: ‘You are my own little Annie Power.’ She blew through her nostrils. She nodded at me. She gave me her velvet nose to stroke. She knows. She ran round at the back on gaff tracks, but in her own mind, and in mine, she is the champion to end them all.

 

My own private Annie:

Derby Day; or, my racing heart

It is Derby Day.

This is the day that I go down to my quiet field, ringed by Scottish hills and deep woods, and tell my mare of the great moment in 1970 that her grandfather won the storied race.

This is, of course, absurd, and not just because she does not speak English and the name Nijinsky means nothing to her. He was a prolific sire; there are hundreds, possibly thousands of his descendants running round green fields and emerald racetracks.

And yet, it is a daily source of idiot pride to me. It is one of the things that makes me singingly happy. On dark evenings when my spirits fall, I lift them again by going back through her pedigree, finding the mighty names of Hyperion, Gainsborough, St Simon, Mahmoud, Eclipse, and all three of the foundation sires.

Pedigree is what everyone is talking about today. The breeding of racehorses is a science and an art. It is also a lottery. My darling Red was the slowest horse in England, despite her illustrious bloodlines.

The question now is how will that lottery shake out for Dawn Approach. His sire, New Approach, won the Derby himself. New Approach’s daughter, Talent, won The Oaks yesterday. There are no stamina worries there. But it is the bottom line that people often say counts for more, and although there are stayers further back in his dam’s pedigree, Dawn Approach’s mother never raced over further than a mile, and ran mostly at shorter distances.

This is what makes today most extraordinarily exciting. Dawn Approach is a beautiful, well-made, athletic horse with a thrilling degree of natural talent. He also has the advantage of a glorious temperament, taking all the hoopla and razzmatazz of big race days with a gentlemanly calm. Nijinsky, by contrast, used to get wired to the moon. My mother still remembers watching him getting hotter and hotter in the paddock, even after forty years. It was only the genius and patience of Vincent O’Brien that made him into the racehorse he was.

I think of Nijinsky today too because people forget that many serious pundits said he would not stay. He too had questions over his bloodlines, but Lester Piggott and Vincent O’Brien had faith, and he repaid it in spades. He not only won the Derby but completed the Triple Crown when he trounced them in the St Leger, winning on the bridle with Lester cheekily easing him up at the line.

If he stays, he wins, is the line on Dawn Approach. His good temperament will help to conserve energy; his soaring talent will see him through. I’d love to see him make monkeys of them all, with his good heart and his big white face, but there is a possibility he will just pack up two furlongs out, and the glittering dreams will smash to the ground.

The truth is, nobody knows. We shall not be certain of anything until about four minutes past four this afternoon, when the cards are played and the hand revealed. Because of this uncertainty, it is one of the most exciting Derby days I can remember. We have an unbeaten colt, of visceral speed, incredible ability, high class, in the hands of a master trainer. And we have the hovering question mark, dancing over his lovely head.

As I write this, my fingers are trembling faintly. My heart is beating in my chest. There are still three hours to go and I can hardly sit still. I always ask myself why, on these great days. It’s just a race, it’s just a horse; what can it matter?

It is love, for me. It is an antic, vivid, visceral love. I love these racing horses because they are so beautiful, and brave, and bold. So much is asked of them, and so much is given.

But thinking now, I wonder if it is something even more profound than that. Despite Dawn Approach’s lovely, easy temperament, there is something of the wild still in these fast thoroughbreds. They are different from other horses in their pure breeding for the perfect combination of strength and velocity. Any of them, running from the gaff tracks to the famous courses, must go back through eight straight generations even to take part.

I think there is something in that purity, which produces the brilliance and the will to win, which touches an untamed part of the human self. Racehorses are not quite domesticated in the way that riding horses are. It is fanciful, but I think they still hear their ancestral voices, calling down the generations. There is something untrammelled and uncontained about them, which touches the depths of my own human heart.

In life, especially in middle age, I must learn to be sensible and practical and reasonable. (I do not always succeed.) I must live in the civilised world and play by the good rules of civilised society. Watching a great thoroughbred, at full stretch, with all that mighty, wild brilliance, that soaring spirit, that fierce determination, that gleaming loveliness, I feel released from my ordinary, workaday self. I too am untrammelled, taken back to the elemental, wild parts of my sometimes confined spirit. In some odd way, these brilliant creatures set me free.

I love them because they are beautiful, and I love them because they are true. They are truth and beauty; that is all I know and all I need to know.

And I hope that Dawn Approach does defy the doubters. I hope he does stay. I hope he swoops round the impossible camber of Tattenham Corner and sets the crowd on a roar. I hope his sun also rises.

 

Only time for two pictures today. I wanted to show you Red at her most thoroughbred and aristocratic. You can see her here after a damn good gallop round the field, her veins up, her grand blood coursing through her. I had to go back to last year for these, because now she is so relaxed that she rarely breaks out of an amble, and spends most of her time looking more like a dozy old donkey than a descendant of Derby winners:

Have a great day, my darlings. Win or lose, I think it will truly be a race to remember.

Blog post the second. Or, a really glorious day.

Today was a glorious day. The sun shone, I woke galvanised, I got things done. After yesterday’s slightly dulled acceptance of some really pretty good news, I felt suddenly fired with purpose. Not just that work, but all the work could be done.

A pitch for another project, a salvage mission after the Great Set-Back of late last year, had been weighing on my mind. The set-back had left me bruised and bashed, and a horrid, tense procrastination had set in. Finally, the thing fell into my mind as if someone had sent it through the post. I wrote 1706 words in two hours, which is almost physically impossible. It sometimes happens like that. When an idea has been cooking long enough, and the sun comes out, literally and metaphorically, you can write as if someone is dictating the thing in your ear. This was one of those very rare moments.

The galvanic momentum even led me to get dull, logistical tasks done. I dyed my hair dark auburn and cleaned out two cupboards, and threw away things which were two years past their sell-by date. (They hide in the back of the kitchen cabinets, and occasionally reappear to mock me.)

I even worked out my Cheltenham outfits, because that is where I am going, on my trip south. I am going to see the mighty Sprinter Sacre in the flesh for the very first time, and you can’t just wear anything for a titan like that.

I spoke to the Beloved Cousin, I discussed politics and disgrace with my mother (her mind runs much on the matter of Lord Rennard), I did my HorseBack work.

Then, with an astonishing and most uncharacteristic jump on the day, I allowed myself two whole hours in the sunny paddock with the herd. Lately, time has been so pressing that I run down, at top speed, work, feed, groom, walk Stanley the Dog, and then hare back to my desk. Today, I could let my shoulders drop and enjoy the horses.

There was the great moment of the first time The Horse Talker sat on her beautiful filly. That is recorded for posterity, as such a moment must be, on the previous post. It was filled with great joy and serious achievement, and I could not have been prouder of the filly if she were mine.

Then I worked with my own good girl. We had a little moment in the woods yesterday. There is a particular combination of stimuli which sends her into orbit. It happens very rarely, but when it does, it is quite spectacular. It seems to be to do with being on her own, in a new place, with any sense of confinement. I sometimes think she is perhaps having acid flashbacks to her racing career; maybe she is remembering the tight rattle of the starting stalls.

Whatever it is, I decided we needed to go right back to the beginning and work on trust. That way, when she has these little emotive floods, she will know that she can rely on me to deal with them.

Back to basics we went. She was dozy and compliant and willing. So I took it up a notch, and improvised with the desentising. Off came my cardigan, to be turned into a flappy, unpredictable object. This highly-bred thoroughbred mare stood, stock still, untethered, until she was literally wearing the woollen item as a fetching hat. It might have been a little beneath her dignity, but it showed me that the bond of trust was there. I even blindfolded her with it, and she allowed herself to walk behind me for a few steps without being able to see.

This was not complicated dressage. It was not competition work. The movements I did with her were small and simple. But they were profound for all that. I had held a tiny flutter of worry after our bronco episode in the woods. Was I doing something wrong? Did she not believe in me at all? Had I failed her as the Good Leader? Today, she was so kind and attentive and still and immaculate that she set every corner of my mind to rest.

She got a lot of love, as you may imagine. She gives me so much, it is the least she deserves.

 

Today’s pictures:

The Horse Talker:

The girls, watching the show, like two old ladies at a matinée. I swear they almost handed each other a nice box of Maltesers:

Myfanwy was not as impressed as she might have been:

Heroine of the day, the lovely Autumn:

My dozy old girl, pretending she has never had any bronco thought in her head, ever:

Stanley the Dog was a bit left out of all this. He is still uncertain about the horses, not being able to decide whether he wants to play with them, chase them, flirt with them, or live in fear of these huge red and white creatures, so for serious work, he has to stay away. He was rewarded with some serious stick action:

The hill. Even after two days of a balmy seven degrees, it still has snow on it:

HorseBack and horses and no words left.

Been working all day on stuff for HorseBack. It’s always the hardest kind of writing I ever have to do, because it’s for such a serious purpose. This is not just for me, for my own vanity or success or amour-propre. It’s for an organisation which really does transform people’s lives. It’s a keen responsibility.

They are all so no-nonsense and funny and matter-of-fact down there it’s sometimes easy to forget what an extraordinary thing it is that they have undertaken. Since I’ve been working with them, I’ve watched a man with no legs trot off into the wild Deeside hills, talked to a gentleman whose body is filled with bullet holes, observed a laughing fellow guide a horse round an arena using his last remaining digit. People come there for whom the simple act of sleeping is a rare luxury. So these words damn well matter.

My brain is now so stretched that it is about to crawl out of my ears and hide behind the sofa, so there is nothing left for the blog. You are good people; you understand about priorities. I know that I do not have to apologise for this.

 

There are, however, some pictures. Almost a little photo essay, you might say. Because today was the Red Letter Day when Autumn the Filly got her first saddle on her back.

We were expecting a bit of a buck or a jump or at the very least a tossed head. But her trainer has worked so well with her on the ground that she mostly just went to sleep as the big foreign object was placed on her. Yeah, yeah, whatever, one could almost hear her saying, her ears in firm donkey position.

Hmm, and you want me to react to this how?:

I suppose it is faintly interesting:

But NOT as scary as you thought:

Really nothing to see here. Move along:

I’ll just do a bit of collected circling:

At this point, the Horse Talker arrived, who is the owner of Autumn, and the filly pricked up her ears as if to say MUM:

Look what I DID:

It was actually quite hard work, I suppose:

Meanwhile, Red was off in a doze, eating her hay:

When the thrilling decision to do some free schooling was taken:

And it was - Come on everyone, LET’S GO:

They have been very still lately, with all the weather. They had so much fun cantering about that, afterwards, Myfanwy clearly thought she was Queen of the World:

Which she almost certainly is:

And then they just hung out for a bit, very pleased with themselves:

But of course the main thing was that Stanley the Dog HAD HIS BALL:

Oh, yes:

No hill today. I would love to say it is lost in music, but in fact it’s lost in the cloud.