Theory and Practice.

A glorious, frigid morning dawns. The mercury hovers at minus three; the sunlight is the colour of honey. I run down to the horses filled with jubilee, because today is the day the Barefoot Trimmer comes.

I love the Barefoot Trimmer because she tells me reams of riveting facts about hooves and horse husbandry and the psychology of the equine. She knows everything, and she shares her knowledge with easy generosity.

I also love her visits because each time we see improvements in the ponies. Red, for instance, is cleverly growing herself a whole lot of new heel action, which has improved the very way she moves and holds herself. ‘You are so brilliant,’ I tell her. ‘You even know how to grow a perfect hoof.’ She nods her head as if to say: shucks, it’s nothing.

As I get down to the paddock, I see a very splendid yellow Labrador. We had caught a glimpse of him yesterday, and remarked on what a perfect specimen he was: fit and compact, with dream confirmation. This morning, he was followed by a very old friend of my sister’s, a woman I have known since I was a little girl.

‘Oh,’ I said in delight. ‘I did not know this was your fellow.’

‘I’ve brought him to see your horses,’ she said, smiling.

She reads the blog, it turns out. It is always a slight surprise when people I know in life come to these pages, and I always feel rather delighted and flattered that they should make the time.

She laughed. ‘I know everything about your life,’ she said.

I showed her the little herd. Luckily, Red was looking at her absolute prettiest, and was duly admired and lauded to the skies. I got my usual feeling of idiot pride.

The Sister’s Friend has not long ago lost her father. She had that translucent look that comes with grief. I remember it so well.

‘You are in the zone,’ I said, nodding, recalling.

So we talked a bit about horses and grief and love. She told me of an extraordinary woman she knew who works with horses and autistic children.

‘She is very, very still,’ she said, of this remarkable person.

‘Ah, yes,’ I said. ‘That is my great aim. That is what I try for every time I come down here.’

I am not generally still. My brain races and guns like a souped-up engine. Sometimes I wish I had a switch, so I could just turn it off.  But I try and be still with my horses, because they do not respond well to the monkey mind. It’s a good discipline.

For some reason, this meeting and this conversation made me think about theory and practice. I have a lot of very, very good theories. I also have some idiot theories and some undercooked theories and some completely wrong theories. But even when I come up with a dilly, and even when I manage to put it into some kind of practice (small things; love and trees), that’s not all. It’s not as if there is a box one can tick. I can’t say, much as I long to: oh yes, I’ve worked that one out. It’s as if every day one has to start again. I have to remind myself of things I thought I knew. Or, I can know a thing, but not do the thing.

As the two of us talked, I said something like: ‘All the things worth doing in life are hard.’

Sometimes, I long for things to be easy. I want to be able to be blithe and effortless. Ah, yes, I can do that one and that one and that one. I’ve got it all taped. Sometimes, I wish I could skip over the surface of life, accept the deaths and the sorrows and the whole damn condition. But it is not simple, and even something as expected and natural as mourning needs to be worked on, to be done well. (I think it is worth trying to do it well.)

I cannot expect my horses to perform simply because I wish it or imagine it. I have to do the work with them, each day. I cannot assume my dear little rescued fellow will just settle and be happy because he knows I love him. I have to train him and do exercises with him and not expect him to rely on some kind of mythical mind-reading. It is actions which are important, not mere thoughts.

I cannot expect to be able to do life just because I’ve been around for forty-five years, and I had a lot of education, and I ponder things. Every day, I have to remember to translate theory to practice.

As I was thinking some of these thoughts, Stanley the Dog decided to do some full-on man love with the handsome yellow Lab. I really can’t blame him.

‘That’s a bit Auden and Isherwood,’ I said.

After a bit of honest rogering, the dogs stood up on their hind legs, facing each other, and fell to embracing. I’ve never seen a canine do that before. It was very funny, and oddly touching.

‘I’ve always wondered if my chap was in the closet,’ said the lovely woman, drily.

It was a good antidote to all the thinking. Sometimes I can get caught up in the trails of my own theories. Life is earnest, life is real. But sometimes, it’s just two dogs flirting in the snow.

 

Today’s pictures:

View from the horses’ field, looking south west:

Red the Mare, in the astonishing Scottish light, which turns her coat gold:

I’m afraid there are a few of these, because she was so pretty and happy today. This was while I was making her stand, whilst I move away and do other things. It’s a really good exercise, and she is a quick study:

Standing still as a rock, even when something in the middle distance takes her interest:

BLINKY EYES:

With her faithful little friend:

M the P:

In the afternoon, we give them a good brush, and do a bit of work, and then offer them a haynet, for a winter treat. All the time Myfanwy and Red were posing for pictures, Autumn the Filly was just having a damn good eat:

Then they all had a bit of a go, in the dazzling sunshine:

As a hovering mist rolled in:

And, you may observe, bottom right, Mr Stanley doing some very good recall:

The old set aside opposite the paddock is ringed with woods and a burn and a fence, so it is a good place to let him run free and dash about off the lead:

And then we do some very serious sit and stay, as you can see from his earnest expression:

Hill:

As always, when I dash off at length about something, I finish by thinking: not sure that made much sense. Part of the thing of a blog like this is that it is ad hoc. But sometimes I think: shouldn’t I go back and polish it up and see if the thing could cohere, just a little more? But in a way, half the point is that these absurd musings go out into the ether as they are. Warts and all, my lovelies; warts and all.

The klaxon sounds:Absolutely massive life lesson alert.

Author’s note: This is an unadulterated, no holds barred horse story. Those with equine aversion move gently to the exits. There is, however, a real human lesson at the centre of it. So, if you are happy to take the horse as a metaphor, you may find something here.

 

Yesterday, in all that orneriness and grumpiness, an amazing thing happened. I asked for help, and the help, when it arrived, was of such a transformative nature that I laughed out loud at my luck.

One of the things I am very, very bad at is asking for help. It is a severe character flaw. I don’t know what cussed part of me is trying to prove what idiot thing, but my stupid default mode is: no, no, don’t worry about me, I shall do it on my own. This is also nuts because in wider life and political theory, I really believe in the collective. I’m always banging on about the social compact. (I even did it this morning at breakfast.) I don’t like the atomised view of society; I believe the individual is nothing without the wider group.

In a roundabout, scuffly boot, reluctant, sideways manner, I booked a riding lesson. The brilliant woman who does my barefoot trimming is experimenting with a new theory of riding, and luckily my fascination in her knowledge overcame my foolish stubbornness. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.

The riding has not been bad, or disastrous. But there is a gap between the arching harmony the mare and I have on the ground, where the trust is absolute and the learning willing and quick, and the slight stop-start we have under the saddle. We have our marvellous moments, but there is some resistance or reluctance there, and I have had the nagging feeling that she is trying to tell me something. So, the help.

The new theory is not really new, it is more a gathering of all the best of the old techniques and intuitive knowledge of the really great horse people, with a little lemon twist. There’s a lot of psychology in it, which of course delights my questing mind.

The lesson itself was, however, entirely novel to me. It was not heels down toes up sit up straight; it was more a question of – let’s try this. We did try this. Up went my leathers, forward shifted my seat, relaxed went my back. The mare thought about it for a bit. Toss toss toss went her head. Then, suddenly, like a miracle, I got all the small shifts to move at the same time and it was as if she sighed a great, relieved sigh. I am going to sound really dotty now, but it was a sigh that came from her soul. Yes, she was saying; that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Thank you.

‘That’s it,’ said the Barefoot Trimmer, happily. I was so delighted I yelled with pleasure. I can’t believe it, I said, over and over. I whooped and hollered and laughed out loud. The mare pricked her ears and lifted her back and lowered her neck so that she was in a perfect outline, all because I was sitting gently and firmly over her centre of balance.

I talked a lot, out of pure happiness. I said how stupid I was to think that because I once rode well, thirty years ago, I should be able to pick it up just like that.

‘I could play Mozart at grade seven when I was fifteen,’ I told the Barefoot Trimmer, ‘but now I can’t even play chopsticks. I don’t know why I thought that I could just get up on a Thoroughbred and do it all perfectly.’ She was very, very kind and understanding. She knows so much and is so generous with her knowledge, but never uses it as a stick of superiority to beat one with. She does not judge. She only encourages. It took all my self-restraint not to fling my arms around her neck.

Instead, I flung my arms around my horse, and told her over and over what a brilliant, lovely, good person she was, and how much I appreciated her. She looked bloody pleased with herself.

The interesting thing is that this new position we are experimenting with often feels very strange to people when they first try it. It is a long way from the classical, riding long, sitting tall, dressage sort of position which I was taught when I was young, and to which I automatically reverted. The new way did not feel strange to me because it was exactly like the last serious bit of riding I did in my late teens.

In those days, my mother lived in Newmarket, and a kind trainer used to let me ride out for him. Admittedly, he chose the quietest four-year-old colt in his stable, but it was still a great vote of confidence to put me up on one of his valuable horses, and I think of it now with acute gratitude. The memories flooded back. I recalled chatting happily to a jockey I had ridden with in pony competitions, and who had gone on to a serious racing career, before we set off on a five furlong half-speed canter up the Heath. These shorter irons and relaxed back were precisely what I had done then. Perhaps it reminded Red of her own racing days, and made her feel at home.

So now, instead of a fret and a bit of a wrangle, instead of worrying about show pony perfection, I simply pretend I am riding Frankel. I bloody well am Tom Queally, king of the world. Red may be a million times slower than her illustrious relation, but she floats over the ground, just like he does.

For extra ease and relaxation, I am riding her simply in a rope halter. That in itself is a bit of a miracle. People have a lot of angry opinions about ex-racehorses. Too difficult, too complicated, too temperamental, too damn Thoroughbred, they say, furiously. Oh, and she is a chestnut mare; well, good luck with that. I wish they could have seen this Thoroughbred loping round a five acre field with nothing but a thin bit of rope on her face, coming to a perfect halt with no more than a small signal from my ischium.

When we started, the Barefoot Trimmer asked me what I wanted to achieve. It’s very simple and I had no trouble in answering. I don’t want to win competitions or show off; I don’t want to turn Red into a prize horse, covered in rosettes. I don’t want to be the best rider the world has ever seen.

‘I want her to feel happy and safe,’ I said.

The lurking fear, the sense of failure I had been having in the saddle, is that I was letting her down. She is so good and true, and I was not up to snuff.

Now, that marvellous, shining goal is within reach. It will take a bit of work and practice and time. My thigh muscles are going to scream and shriek before they get as strong as I need them. I have to put my humble hat on, and admit that I have a lot to learn, all over again.

But the horse and I shall achieve that glorious partnership of which I dreamed. And all because I asked for help, and the kind universe sent me the exact person I needed to give it.

 

Today’s pictures:

I had to run some errands this morning, including going to pay the vet. To get to the vet, I drive past all this:

There are still people who think it very peculiar that I moved from London, with all its theatres and shops and restaurants and cosmopolitan population, five hundred miles north to Scotland, or, as it is known in some heads, The Middle of Nowhere. It is Somewhere to me. I bless that whimsical decision every day, because those mountains and rivers are what I see when I do something as mundane as go and pay the vet.

The chicken, for the Dear Reader who loves the chickens:

Red’s View:

The Good Companions:

The newest member of the herd has been given a blog name. All animals and humans must have one. I gave this serious task to my very young friend, the Pony Whisperer, who comes to see Myfanwy each day. She gave it a lot of thought, and came up with Autumn, because the American Paint filly came to join her new companions in the autumn, and her coat is the colour of autumn leaves. I was incredibly impressed that such a young person should have thought of such a perfect name, and for such lovely reasons. So, meet Autumn the Filly:

Meanwhile, the Grand Duchess of the field was, after our first morning ride in the new style, more like a dopey old donkey than the granddaughter of a Derby winner:

(If I did not know better, I would swear that is the equine version of a smile.)

How long do I have to stand posing whilst you click away with that ridiculous black machine?:

At least there is a good view to look at:

And now, may I please have some love and attention:

Answer, of course, categorical YES.

All the animals find the whole being photographed thing quite dull. The Pigeon is hoping I shall get on with her walk, quite soon:

But submits, with resigned grace, to her close-up:

The hill:

That really was a very long blog. Thank you for your patience. It is not something I ever take for granted.