Life lessons, from humans and equines.

I wake up thinking: bugger, bugger, bugger.

I have decided that I have got into bad habits with my horse and must go back to square one and start from the beginning. I have grown cocky, and lax. I have let things slide.

I am stern with myself. As if to set the thing in stone, I make this confession on a forum which practises this kind of horsemanship. I say that I understand that going back to Square One does not mean I have to wear the red badge of shame. All the same, secretly, I feel a tiny scarlet pin of mortification on my lapel.

I march down to the field this morning, fired with good resolutions. I shall take myself and the mare back to the start, and be strict and proper, and not allow those pesky bad habits to creep in. The horse looks slightly surprised, but goes with it. She is sound again after her horrid abscess and full of spring beans. I have a lovely free-school and do a delightful hooking on. She follows me round the field like a dopy old hound.

The Horse Talker arrives, and I bring Red up to the shed, and start mixing up her breakfast. With enthusiasm, I explain to the HT my new plan. It’s going to be high-end, full steam ahead, no messing, serious work. I shall be ruthless with myself. There will be no more sloppiness.

The Horse Talker, who is practical and wise, looks at me quizzically, and says: ‘Why?’

I explain that I was concerned that Red had spent Sunday with a bit of separation anxiety, as the little Paint was taken away on a great adventure to Glen Tanar. There had been some shouting, some staring, some scanning of the woods, some beady examination of the cows. (The red mare was clearly convinced that her filly had run away to join the cow circus.) Then, when her friend finally returned, Red had bawled her head off and pranced about like a Lipizzaner stallion, with her tail stuck straight in the air.

‘If I’d done the groundwork right,’ I said, ‘she would not have paid any mind.’

‘She was just a bit excited,’ said the Horse Talker, in a forgiving tone. There was a pause. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘you’ve got a really good horse.’

She looked at the red mare. The two humans were in the shed, with the big doors wide open. Red was standing at the entrance, where I had left her, watching me mix up her feed. We had been talking for ten minutes, and the mare had not moved a muscle. She was not tethered in any way.

‘Damn it,’ I said. ‘She is a really good horse. Am I trying to live a life, or prove a point?’

I always come back to this. Some of the time, I am ashamed to say, I am trying to prove a point. Look at me, look at me, tell me I done good. Give me strokes and thumbs-ups and rosettes and gold stars. Give me compliments, which I can hoard up against a long, cold winter.

I think of my dad, who did nothing for public consumption. He loved winning races and singing songs and making people laugh, but he did those things for their own sake, I think, rather than for acclamation. He did not know what to do with a compliment if one were given to him. He would put it in his pocket and shuffle his feet and buy you a drink and change the subject.

I think of writing, and all I know about it. Much of it is still a mystery to me. But I do know that you should never sit down to write a book because you want money or love or awards or good reviews or your name in the papers. You must write it for its own true self. You must write because you love language, and you want to tell stories, and you are curious about the human condition.

Authenticity, I think. Along with kindness and stoicism, authenticity is the virtue I admire the most.

Whether I am working a horse or writing a sentence, I do think it is important to pay attention to the small things. I do think it is vital to be rigorous. I do think one must be honest and humble and sometimes go back to the beginning. I think one must try to be better.

But the Horse Talker is right. The good question is why. Pointless lashing for lack of idiot perfection is tiring and useless. Context is queen. It’s not just what you do, but why you do it.

I want to work carefully and correctly with my mare, because this will give her a foundation of security. If she can trust her human, she will be happy. I want a happy horse. I want to write a good sentence because of the sheer, visceral joy of the dancing language on the page.

The rest is just jam.

 

Today’s pictures:

Are from the archive. I forgot to charge the camera battery:

As I finish this, I think of the craving for compliments that sometimes comes upon me. It is not a trait of which I am proud. I suppose it is fairly human, but when it roars in me, I generally think it a sign that something is not quite right. When one is easy in one’s own skin, one does not need outside validation. All the same, what is making me laugh now is that my best compliments are not always the obvious ones. Someone I admire said to me, not long ago, with a smile: ‘you are a slightly dotty lady who gets excited when she trots a horse round a field.’ For all that I occasionally think I want to model myself on AP McCoy or Mary King or William Fox-Pitt or Venetia Williams or the late, great Henry Cecil, those kind of people who have horses in their bones, who are at the absolute top of the tree, actually I’ll take that line and frame it in my heart. It makes me laugh. It is my best kind of compliment, mostly because it is true.

Not a blog.

I’m not really here. I’m supposed to be getting ready for my trip, and so this is not really a blog at all. But I had to tell you of my red duchess. So this one is really for the horse people. The rest of you, just carry on as you were.

Yesterday was one of our worst days. Everything was out of kilter. We were like a scratchy old married couple, sniping and misunderstanding and missing the point. I actually felt properly cross with her, which happens about once every six months, as well as livid with myself. All hopeless and feckless and pointless. Into the garden to eat worms.

I never quite know how these things happen, although they always occur when I am getting cocky. I wonder if the cockiness transmits itself to the mare, and she does not like it. She is a very sensitive person, and although she has grown mightily in confidence, she is not a swaggery, sanguine sort. She feels things keenly. Because of this, she craves steadiness and consistency and calm. I wonder if the cocksure alarms her in some profound way.

My rule is that I leave all the personal stuff at the gate, as if I am carting it about in a great suitcase. My frets and worries are not her business. My job is to make her feel safe. But sometimes one can be carrying a little attaché case that one is not even aware of. I thought I was pretty fine and getting on with it yesterday, but I see now that I had some fairly gnarly tensions and furies twisted up inside. It is perfectly possible that my clever girl felt those, and was responding to them.

Today, the sun shone, and my demons had gone back into their cave. I had stopped lashing myself about yesterday’s debacle and went out with the intention of doing some lovely, slow, basic groundwork. Everything would be the kindest and sweetest and smallest of steps. I would concentrate on softness and feel.

And there she was, my gentle, saintly girl, back again. The crosspatch of the day before had vanished. We did a lovely free-school of such elegance and grace that I tried to make snapshots of it with my mind, so I could remember it always. Her dear ear flicked towards me, waiting to see what I would ask of her next.

That was the plan: do the fundamentals on the ground, and re-establish the harmony between us, and finish. But my friend the Horse Talker was up on her sweet Paint, and I thought, well, perhaps just a little ride. Just a nice extended walk, nothing more. The most important thing after a bad day is not to ask too much.

Round the field the two companions went, their ears pricked in the balmy sunshine.

‘Shall we go round the block?’ said the Horse Talker.

Bugger it, I thought. Stupid to waste a glorious morning.

Off we went, into the wide open spaces. Everyone was happy. The mare was all ease and lightness.

Up at the road, the girls observed the traffic. The road is our traditional stopping point. We are incredibly lucky to have plenty of fields to play about in. There is no call to go out on the public highway, where crazy people in vans might drive up our arse. (I have no idea why I think they might do this. Despite my attempts to eschew irrational thinking, I sometimes have a tendency to catastrophise.)

‘Oh, come on,’ I said, on a wild whim. ‘Let’s go out.’

The ex-racehorse and the novice Paint, who was only backed last year, both in their rope halters, walked out as calmly and politely as if they had been riding the roads of Scotland since birth. Huge lorries did pass by, although the kind drivers slowed with great care and courtesy. No rogue vans appeared. The girls did not bat an eyelid. Into the back lanes of the village we went, past barking dogs, random humans, and excellent building men constructing a whole house. Not so much as a flinch or a twitch.

To get back into the woods, we had to slide through a narrow gap between an old iron gate and a stone wall. It was so narrow that I had to lift my legs out of the stirrups. The mare did not pause, but kept a true line.

At that point I was so delirious that I dropped the reins and steered her gently with my body, waving my arms in the air as I sketched for the Horse Talker the full magnificence of the red mare and the mysteries of the equine mind. Red stretched out her neck and lengthened her stride, her body athletic and rhythmic under me.

As we got back to the field, one final test awaited. A vast oil truck was delivering its load of heating fuel. To get to the gate, we had to pass right next to it, as it was virtually jammed up against a tree. The space was perhaps three feet wide. It was a huge article, humming and grinding and shuddering away as it pumped its oil out.

Again, neither horse looked twice.

You may imagine the festival of pride and congratulation. You may imagine the kisses and hugs and strokes. I thought my heart would burst.

How can it go from dislocation and despair to harmony and communion, in 24 short hours? A long field discussion ensued, as we tested out various theories, covering everything from the jagged human mind to a spring-fit horse to a bad sleep interrupted by screeching owls.

I quite favour the notion that the dressage squirrels came in the night, and that was what made the difference.

I said to someone today: ‘The red mare not only teaches me about horsing, she teaches me about life.’

Today she taught me never to give up, that things are never as bad as they seem, that tomorrow really is another day. She taught me to return always to fundamentals, to have faith, to be kind and patient.

She also offered me a great gift. She did not get my best self, yesterday. Mostly, she brings out my better angels, but yesterday I fear she saw a glimpse of my darker demons. What she did today was so generous and moving that I feel tearfully humble, even thinking of it. She forgave me. She did not hold it against me. She took all her trust, in her dear hooves, and presented it to me, believing that I would keep her safe from the great lorries and the construction men and the barking dogs and the honking oil truck. It was if she was saying: well, you may not be a perfect person, but you are still my person. I still believe in you.

It seems curious that a flight animal, who has no concept of abstract thought or philosophy or psychology, can give a flawed human back a sense of self. But that is what she did.

Well, her, and the dressage squirrels, of course.

 

The glorious pair, relaxing after their morning of triumph:

A mighty ride. Or, time and love.

I run down to the field. The sun is shining, but in my head, the woods are dark and deep and I have miles to go before I sleep. Or: there is still work to be done. Time is still racing past me. The precious hours tick away. My desk howls to me, in the harried spaces of my frontal cortex.

The Remarkable Trainer says: ‘Come on, let’s go out for a ride.’

I wiffle and waffle and scratch my foot on the ground. My time management, I think, hopelessly, helplessly.

I say, not altogether graciously, ‘Well, as long as I am back at work by four.’

At a quarter to five, I return to the field, on the back of my red mare. I don’t know if I have ever, ever been so proud of a horse in my life. I get off slowly and fall on her neck, wishing she could speak English so that I can express to her the depth and reach of my admiration and congratulations.

Out we had gone, in the sparkly October sunshine, the colours as vivid as if the whole world had just been washed and cleaned.

In that clean, bright world, the little American paint filly is by my side, her ears pricked, taking it all in, with the Remarkable Trainer up. We go over bridges, along the burn, into the woods, out into the wide south meadow, with its tempting new grass, which has not been shorn by sheep since the early summer.

Red has been off for two weeks, with a bit of a pulled muscle. This is our first time back together. The received wisdom about thoroughbreds is that the moment they feel a wide expanse of pasture under their feet everything in them goes zoom, zoom. The received wisdom says you can’t just pull an ex-racehorse out of the paddock after time off and take them out into the wild spaces.

Red looks at the hills, which open up in front of us like a book, so that we can almost see to Coull. She walks kindly in her rope halter, her friend by her side.

We pass the sheep, and random cyclists, and a group of unknown humans, who have a very small human with them, which is making a noise. Neither of the girls turns a hair; they merely observe the tiny human with benign interest.

We circle the wide pasture and come back to a rise. We break into a canter, going easy on a loose rein, as if we are in the great spaces of Wyoming. At the top, the mare comes back to me, dropping easily into a low walk without drama or fuss. Just one little excited shake of the head, as if to remind me that she does have the blood of champions in her, and she feels it, at a moment like that.

We amble back on the buckle. Sometimes I just drop the reins and let her mooch along, steering her with my legs.

She is so clever.

She looks, as I leave her eating her tea, very, very pleased with herself indeed. The love I feel rises up in my chest and spills out into the very air, as if it were a living thing, too big to be contained in one mortal body.

I wish, I wish she could speak English, so she could know all this.

I think: perhaps she has an inkling.

I think: the received wisdom can put that in its pipe and smoke it.

 

Today’s pictures:

Before the ride, I went for a quick drive around the autumn hills. These ones were the ones we saw from the ride, only from a different angle:

Rewind to this morning. Red leading her girls in for breakfast:

She takes her job as lead mare very, very seriously indeed:

Then the Horse Talker and I took our girls out for a morning walk in hand. And we walked past this:

And then I made everyone stop and pose for photographs. Herself, we have noticed, is always ready for her close-up:

The HT admiring the serious posing skills:

Still showing her best side:

Or perhaps this profile is better:

At which point I clearly decide that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, and turn into a bit of a Posy Posington myself. As you can see, Autumn the Filly HAS NO BRIEF FOR SUCH VANITIES:

My best beloved, back in her paddock this afternoon, shaking her head with pride and doing comical Didn’t I Do Well faces:

(Actually, she’s probably just got a fly, but I am projecting madly, such is my joy.)

Meanwhile, Mr Stanley the Dog is tracking bluebottles with his X-ray vision. Because that is what he is really good at:

Sometimes, when I tell these horse stories, I fear it sounds as if I am showing off. Oh, oh, look at me, with my perfect mare and her perfect skills and all our perfect harmony. What I really want to do is to say: if I can do it, anyone can.

It’s not as if I got a problem horse. She came out of a great yard, from one of the finest horseman I’ve ever seen. But she did race, and she did play polo, and she is a thoroughbred, and when she arrived the strangeness of being in a new place did make her reactive and spooky. The dial could shoot up to a Spinal Tap Eleven in a heartbeat. The flight of a young pheasant could make her leap vertically into the air, with all four feet off the ground, like a cartoon horse. I rode her in a martingale and feared I should never be good enough.

We had our moments, and we shall have moments again, because she is a horse, and there is no such thing as bombproof. But this new ease and confidence and happiness and trust, so profound that when I ride her I feel as if there could be no other equine in the world for me, as if she was made for me, bespoke, is from slow, steady, simple work. I have no special skills. I am a creaky forty-six year old female, catastrophically out of practice. But I opened my mind and learnt from brilliant people who have forgotten more than I shall ever know. And so we came to this glorious place, of unity, of sympathy, of absolute togetherness.

I want it to be a tale of hope and possibility and encouragement. So that any time someone says, oh but thoroughbreds are impossible, someone else might say, but no, look at the red mare.

All it takes is time and love. And all humans have those.

Day in pictures

In terms of quality, these are not the best photographs I have ever taken, but there is a sort of sweetness and joy in them which is perfect for the end of a long week.

Stanley the Dog with his small friend:

Morning sheep:

Mist over the hill:

I don’t know what this was, but I rather like it; a little bit of abstract for you:

This one is slightly out of focus, but I love the nobility:

The red mare is still a bit tender in her shoulder, so we are taking her for gentle morning walks. I completely love it, as you can see from my delirious expression. In fact, The Horse Talker leads her own filly, and I take Red and Stanley, but here I am managing all three in order for the photograph to be taken. Quite a lot of complicated rope action:

More happiness:

What we walked past:

At this stage, she was posing for the camera:

This one is completely blurry, but I wanted to include it because it expresses well the joy in this simple morning exercise:

Also, how amazingly good and clever is Red, just standing on command like that, with her rope over her shoulder? It’s the kind of thing which makes me hysterically proud. Stand, stand, I say seriously, and move off about ten feet, and she DOES NOT MOVE A HOOF.

At this stage, there will be those of you who are saying enough with the red mare. I give you full permission to bash off and read something interesting about psephology or horticulture. It’s a Friday, and I can’t have enough of this beautiful face:

One final bit of sweetness. The Horse Talker is pointing to try and get Red to prick her ears and pose for the photograph. We have absolutely no idea what Autumn the Filly is doing, but it’s very funny:

Really am stopping now.

I’ve written THOUSANDS of words this week and my head is about to come off. I’m going to take the whole weekend for resting; no HorseBack, no blog, no book. I’m going to watch the racing at Newmarket and mooch about with my lovely girl and throw sticks for Stanley the Dog and let my mind go slack. At the moment, it is tight as a drum. I am going to take a big old breath and let everything settle.

Remembering to stop.

I’ve been thinking lately about beauty. I talk about it and contemplate it and count the blessings which brought me to this place where there is so much of it. I harp on about the trees and the lichen and the small, lovely things. But sometimes, for all that, I think I forget to look.

I’m so busy, rushing about, trying to fit everything in, that my glance has become cursory. Oh yes, there are the glorious blue hills as I drive on my daily way to HorseBack; there are the delightful HorseBack horses; there is the handsome face of Stanley the Dog; there is the gaudy loveliness of Red the Mare. There is my hill; here are the trees. Yet my eyes skate on, as I add, inevitably: I am half an hour late; I must write this; I must remember that. Even with my sweet mare, who brings stillness to a high art, I am often thinking of all the things I shall do with her: teach her to jump, improve her transitions, sharpen up my own riding skills.

This afternoon, I just went and hung out with her. The Horse Talker and I lined our girls up and gave them a bit of a brush and a bit of a chat. We did not really do anything. We just appreciated them, in all their delightfulness, and thought how lucky we were.

Instead of my usual dash at HorseBack, where I run in, take pictures, discuss things which need to be discussed, and then tear away straight back to my desk to do the Facebook page for them, and any other necessaries, I stayed for half an hour and watched two of my favourite horses being free-schooled.

It was a most beautiful sight: the aesthetics of the horses cantering at liberty with the indigo hills in the background were off the scale.

I went into the garden just now and instead of thinking of all the weeding and tidying and trimming I have not been doing (not enough time, not enough time) I gazed happily at my three favourite Scots pines. I can’t even remember the last time I did that.

I suppose it’s the old thing of pausing to smell the roses. I think I do all that, but in fact I don’t. Not enough. There is time to stop and stare. There must be time. I would do well to remember that.

 

Today’s pictures:

Are two little photo essays of the equine beauty I let myself see today. Even if you have no interest at all in horses, I think you might like these for the sheer aesthetic hit.

Free-schooling:

And in my own field:

When I say we did absolutely nothing, we did in fact have a little play about, and Stanley the Dog came too.

We haven’t done a join-up for ages. I’ve never taught Red to do it properly, in a round pen. I just extemporised in a four acre field. The very fact that she chooses not to wander off into the green spaces still amazes me every time. Even more amazing, this afternoon, she hooked on straight away, and we did a little dance:

CLEVER GIRL:

One more delicate Jane Austen turn:

Oddly, I think of working my mare like a gavotte in a Jane Austen novel. Everything very polite, everything a gracious invitation, everything with its own, 19th century rhythm. I don’t know why I think these sort of nutty thoughts, but I do.

And what is so very lovely is how pleased with herself she looks when she has mastered all the steps so perfectly:

At her most profoundly settled and calm, with floppy old donkey ears, dozy eyes, wibbly lower lip:

And then I just gaze at her in awe and wonder. How on earth did I get so lucky as to end up with such a person?:

And then it was time for tea:

Aside from playing with the horses, Stanley the Dog very much likes a hard game of stick wrestle with the Horse Talker, his new favourite person:

And here is double beauty, from a couple of days ago:

And afterwards I went and actually did look at the flowers:

And my beloved troika of trees, which remind me of great old elephants’ feet:

The hill:

Rather tired as it’s been a long and packed day. I’m certain that there shall be typos. Possibly even grammatical howlers. Forgive.