In which I attempt to teach myself an important life lesson. And slightly fail. Or, a story I want you to know.

I’m not blogging this week, because my deadline has overwhelmed me. But I’ve written something on the HorseBack UK Facebook page today about which I am quite proud, and I wanted to tell you of it.

One of the most interesting things about the writing I do for HorseBack is that it is almost entirely ego-free. The grant proposals I write are not signed; the daily posts on the Facebook page are under the HorseBack name, not mine. The whole point is that it is not about me. Going there five days a week and meeting the men and women I meet is humbling enough. Some of the stories of survival are so extreme that I could not repeat them here. They are my daily perspective police, and my constant inspiration. Whenever I am tempted to feel sorry for myself, I think of those people, and what they have seen and experienced on the front line.

But, in some ways, even more an exercise in humility is doing this anonymous writing. Writers tend to have joke egos. I can’t quite speak for all my cohort, but I suspect I am not unusual in loving praise and good reviews and the very fact of my name in print. I am so tragic that I even get a thrill when someone says something nice about a tweet I wrote. I try to pretend that I am an island, entire unto myself, but it’s all buggery bollocks. I crave pats on the back.

For the HorseBack writing, it is the doing of the thing itself that is enough. I do not need five gold stars for prose, because the people the organisation helps are far, far bigger than my puny plan. I think this is a most excellent corrective. I feel it puts iron in my soul.

But today, I am cravenly giving into my baser instincts.

Yesterday, it was announced by Downing Street that several military charities have been awarded government grants. One of those grants went to HorseBack.

I wrote that grant proposal, and even though I know perfectly well that it was the cause which won the day, not my judicious choice of adjectives, I cannot help but feel a rather vulgar sense of gleeful delight. Even worse, I could not stop myself telling you of it.

This crazy deadline will be met. The book will, or will not, be published. I’m at the stage where I can’t tell any more if it is any good or not. The discerning agent may hurl it back at me and tell me to start again. If so, I’ll pick myself up and start all over again, dust off one of my idiot secret projects, get back in there and keep swinging.

Obviously, it’s important on a personal level, because I must earn enough money to keep my beautiful, clever, huge-hearted Red in the best hay cash can buy. But much more important than my absurd quest for literary glory is a document that does not have my name on it, that will never be reviewed in the broadsheets. It shall not win me plaudits or career advancement. It will already be gathering dust in some echoing vault in Whitehall. But it did something in the world.

I feel this is a good lesson for life.

I have a shocking tendency to put my tap shoes on and say, hey, hey, LOOK AT ME. Look at what I did with my dancing thoroughbred, look at how many words I wrote today, look at the handsomeness of Stanley the Dog, regard this picture I took of this hill.

As you can see from this post, I shall never quite be able to rid myself of this tendency. I’m not the Dalai Lama, after all. We must all work with our frailties. Maybe what I’m trying to tell myself is that it is sometimes the unsung things which are the important ones.

I expect I shall always have to sing a little song. The tap shoes will never quite be consigned to the back of the cupboard. There will, inevitably, be jazz hands. But, as I canter across the sometimes rocky terrain of middle age, I’m trying to teach myself what really matters and what does not, and hoping that I may be able to learn the difference.

 

Here is today’s Facebook story:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151966053130568&set=a.269393705567.184638.197483570567&type=1&theater

And here is one of my favourite HorseBack pictures. The very dear Mikey, who is one of the goofiest and sweetest and most affectionate of the herd, is on the left. And one of the remarkable veterans is on the right:

Oh, and there must also be a Red the Mare picture, because she exceeded all crests and peaks of loveliness today, cantering along under the lime trees on a loose rein, in her halter, when everyone says that thoroughbreds must be ridden in all kinds of hardware. But even though today was a triumph, I am keenly aware of those flapping wings of hubris. Funnily enough, I’d been thinking about humility a lot in the last few days, because I think it is the most important thing you can have when you work with a horse. You can never stop learning, never stop thinking, never stop questioning yourself. You can always, always, get better, try harder, stretch further, for your horse. Because the gifts they give are so generous, and so astonishing, and so essential for the human heart. For this human heart, anyway.

Really not quite sure which one of us is being more goofy in this picture. That is what love can do.

A good old shaggy horse story for the end of the week; or, Red the Mare teaches me yet another life lesson.

I learnt a big lesson this week. Life is always teaching me lessons, sometimes over and over again, because I am a bit of a goofball and I constantly forget things. Also, there is the gap between head and gut, so that one may know something intellectually, but it takes a little time for it to percolate right down into one’s viscera.

Red the Mare is my best teacher of all. On Monday, she had a little wig-out. Two strange horses were coming to work in our field, and I thought we’d go out to greet them. It was idiotic. I took her away from her herd, and Autumn was shouting for her, and in the wide open spaces two unknown equines abruptly appeared and went past her towards her field. Of course she wigged.

I’d made about sixteen different mistakes. I’d got caught in hubris for a start. Look at me, with my immaculate horse, with my whispering skills, with my All That. In my fever to refute all the mean stereotypes about thoroughbreds, I had convinced myself that I had transformed her into a dozy old donkey. Not only that, but I was showing off about it.

On top of that, I’d let things slide. I am so pressed with work, and my time management is so ropey, that I’d rather taken her for granted. She is amazingly relaxed and tractable, almost all the time. She does learn all the new things I teach her wonderfully quickly. But I’d stopped doing so much work with her, just thinking I had made this transformational mare, and I could take the foundations as read.

The wig-out also happened because I was not concentrating, and did not read the warning signs quickly enough. I could have headed it off at the pass, and I did not.

And then, the final sin: I took it personally. I’m always banging on about how silly people do this. They say things like: ‘my horse is taking the piss.’ No, it really isn’t. Horses have no concept of the piss. They are just being horses. Their behaviour is very rarely directed at their human. They are usually reacting in their own equine way, or they are trying to tell you something. (This is uncomfortable, this freaks me out, I do not know what you are asking me to do, etc, etc.)

But I’m ashamed to say, my immediate thought was: after everything I’ve done with you, you reward me with this? From donkey to bronco in under ten seconds: that’s what I get?

I felt the black bird of shame swoop, as if everything that had come before was wiped out, and all was disaster.

It took 24 hours for me to talk myself down off the ceiling. It turned out, she was telling me something. She was telling me that I had to sharpen up and concentrate and stop feeling so damn pleased with myself. So I squared my shoulders and back to the humble basics we went. Good, hard, determined work; confidence and clarity on my part, which is what she likes; and most of all, remembering that it is not all about me.

The hubris fell flaming to earth, and good thing too.

Since that moment, she has been as lovely and good and responsive as a horse can be. I’ve set her new challenges and she has met them. The black bird has flown off to bother someone else. There is a difference between shame, which means everything is disaster, and humility, which means I need to learn from this specific thing.

Shame is negative and insidious and destructive. It is the voice in my head that says: I am useless and feckless and pointless and good for nothing. It is mildly self-indulgent and teaches one nothing. Humility is a bracing, good, instructive thing. It says: come back down to earth and learn well from your mistakes.

It also says: everyone makes mistakes; you are not alone. Humility is rather tender. It tells me: never mind, you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.

This morning, in the blazing sun, we did some lovely groundwork. I went back to teaching her to jump, on the end of a long rope, and she suddenly found her leap. Often, when I point her at a little obstacle, she sort of ambles over it. Today, she really jumped, arching her strong back, picking up her dear feet.

She looked first amazed and then delighted. Her head went up with pride. It was enchanting to watch.

Then I got on and we rode through the wild grass, in nothing more than rope halter. Lovely trot, relaxed and long; some beautiful, soft transitions. I’m teaching her to move from trot to walk and back again using only my voice, like they do with Western horses. It’s very restful and she is learning it fast.

And there it was, at the end of a long week. The harmony was back. My good lessons have been learnt.

Perhaps the most important lesson is that I have to let my horse be my horse. I think I was trying to turn her into something she is not. She damn well is a thoroughbred; for all her sweetness and kindness and gentleness, all her ability to let herself down and be as relaxed as an old hound, she does have hot blood in her. Even though she was the slowest racehorse in England, she still did once run in a jostling field of professional equines at about thirty miles an hour.

I think I sometimes do this with humans. I may even do it with myself. I believe through sheer cussed will I may convert someone’s ideas or transform my own self. It never works. Everyone must be who they are; there are no magic wands, not in this lifetime.

So that’s my rather rambly end of the week muse and ponder.

Dear old Red. I don’t think she knew when she arrived in the wilds of Scotland that she was setting up a little University of Life, but it turns out that is exactly what she has done. I smile as I write the words. I feel, as I so often do, passionately grateful to her.

 

Today’s pictures:

The lambs are growing up and look very beautiful in the dancing sun. They always make me think of Jane Austen, for some reason. There is something wonderfully unchanging about sheep:

The little HorseBack foal:

My lovely wise girl:

With Autumn the Filly, who has begun sporting a very chic fly mask, to guard against the horrid horseflies:

Can you see the wisdom of the ages in those eyes? I so can:

Working with The Remarkable Trainer, earlier in the week:

And having a lovely pick at liberty in the wild grass:

Stan the Man:

That is his highly concentrated Where is that Damn FLY face:

The hill, shimmering in the heat haze:

Thank you for all the Stanley love from yesterday. You are very, very dear Dear Readers when you do that. It’s one of the lovelinesses and absurdities and sweetnesses of the internet, when fondness for a canine can come winging through the ether, from thousands of miles away. More touching than you know.

And now I am naughtily taking the rest of the day off to listen to the Ashes and watch the July Meeting at Newmarket. It’s the heavenly Sky Lantern today, another great female thoroughbred, although of a slightly different stamp than my own dear girl. People are talking of a tactical race defeating her, and the Gosden filly gaining the upper hand, but I stick with the glorious flying grey, and hope she will assert her starry class and prove the doubters wrong.

A lesson in humility

After having had a spasm of egocentric madness, where I decided I needed NO HELP with my horse and must do everything myself, I now appear to have two riding teachers. They are both brilliant, and I love working with them in very different ways.

I had a lesson this morning, and the improvement was dramatic. The teaching is a stunning combination of the very gentle with the very sophisticated. ‘I am a scientist,’ says my teacher, truthfully. (She has studied all aspects of human and equine psychology and nutrition and about ten other things. She has something I love, which is empirical evidence, but she also believes in and encourages instinct.)

What all this made me think of, as Red relaxed in the sun, responding delightfully to my cues, not an atom of resistance in her, was humility.

Humility is not a sexy virtue; it is not sung from the rooftops or given parades. There are no books written about it. The Daily Mail does not put someone on its front page for being wonderfully humble. It even carries a whiff of greasy hypocrisy about it; an echo of the phoney Uriah Heep crouch.

And yet, I suddenly see, without humility everything gets wrecked. The people who are not humble are those who shout on the internet or impose their ideas on others. They barge in. They respect no boundaries. They lack nuance and empathy. They are always right, and must be right, so the citadel which is their ego may be constantly burnished.

I had to be humble because I wanted to get better. I had to say: I’m not good enough and I need instruction. I did not enjoy this much at all. I hate not being good at things, and I hate any hint of dependence. I prefer to get on with things by myself. (These are not charming character traits and I’m working on them.)

Once I’d got over my own absurd amour-propre, the gate creaked open on a garden of delights. Both the women who help me have such stores of knowledge and such interesting minds and share their learning so generously.

And what was it all about, after all, that initial instinct to do it on my own? It was an ancient, ingrained form of showing off, so I might have the shallow and fleeting pleasure of someone, somewhere, saying: look what she did. Except of course they probably would not say that at all.

Humility is a good thing in life, I think, and it’s a vital thing with horses. I am humble with my mare because a finely-bred, half ton creature, with the wild ancestral voices calling to her from the plains where her species evolved, consents to trust me and follow me and kindly do the things I ask. I find that very fact profoundly humbling.

It’s also that however much I watch her and study her and listen to her and learn from here, there will always be a sliver of mystery. I don’t think a good horsewoman is ever complete. There are no discrete boxes that may be ticked; no listed virtues or achievements that may be crossed off. Every day, there is a little more learning, that is all.

I think this is a life lesson. I know I sometimes twang the elastic of extrapolation too far, so it snaps back and hits me on the nose, but I really think this small revelation is a good and true thing, not just for equines, but for the human condition too.

It’s not not not all about me, is the burden of my current song. I find it oddly liberating.

 

Today’s pictures:

What I love about this is that, after an hour of concentrated work, my lovely girl is so relaxed:

And off she goes in the field, with the happy spring sun on her back:

(Don’t you love little Myfanwy in the background?)

Well-deserved drink:

Obligatory sheep:

View from HorseBack UK this morning, looking due west:

Autumn the Filly:

Daffodils:

Two of my favourite little trees:

Looking south:

 

PS.

I think someone, somewhere, long ago, pointed out that I had talked about a life lesson more than once, without appearing to learn from it. How strict people are. I do write about these little revelations over and over, because I find that one can know something in one’s head without it quite percolating into one’s gut. I write about them more than once because I need to remind myself. Because this work is in progress. Because most of the time I don’t know what the buggery bollocks I am doing, and I would like to attempt to plot a course, and I need signposts, some of which are palimpsests.

Human frailty. Or, humility is hard.

I write quite a lot about humility, and hubris. There are times when, in a paradoxically arrogant way, I think I’ve got them licked. I think I have pride and vanity under control, and then something crashes in and shows me, in the most definitive way, that I have a long, long way to go.

I did something stupid and careless not long ago, and upset someone. I hate upsetting people. I think I am so damn thoughtful and sensitive, but in fact I can just run off at the mouth and say things that are not meant to wound, but do. I got incredibly bent out of shape about the whole thing, and despite issuing abject apologies for my crassness, I could not pull myself out of the spiral of self-recrimination.

I kept trying to call in the Perspective Police, but they were out on a mission. I listened to an interview with Salman Rushdie yesterday, and he was so measured and thoughtful and interesting, and I thought of him being under sentence of death for so many years, and yet carrying on, still writing, not complaining. People are often rather rude about him, for a reason I do not understand. I think he is not only a beautiful writer (Midnight’s Children is one of my favourite 20^th century novels) but a brave and stoic man. I thought of the people in Afghanistan and the Middle East, where bombs are going off and whole villages being razed, and that they really have something to worry about. Compared to that, my own small drama was, well, small.

At the same time, in this moment of fragility, someone was critical of my riding abilities. In the scheme of things, this is so small that it can hardly be seen by the naked eye. You would need an existential microscope. Yet I felt quite undone, smashed and bashed about the heart. I could not work out why such a minor thing could cause such a excessive over-reaction. It took a lot of thought and soul-searching, and then I finally worked it out.

It was because it was true.

Despite my banging on about understanding hubris, I had not yet quite got it. I was stupidly over-confident in my skills. The fact is, I was good at horses, but that was thirty years ago. If you could play Mozart when you were fifteen and then hardly saw a piano until you were forty-five, you could not just pick up where you left off. You would not go straight back to sonatas. You would have to do scales and arpeggios, resurrect the muscle memory, practise until your fingers ached. For some reason, my pride was so invested in being able to do this thing, I thought I could just leap onto a Thoroughbred and be exactly where I was when I was fit and schooled and riding every day, in several different disciplines.

In fact, I finally realise, with the proper humility, my legs are weak, my position is sometimes unbalanced, my seat can be loose. I have to send myself back to school, return to the arpeggios, take small, stern, daily steps to get better, to remember all the things forgotten, to do justice to my horse.

The mare, in her crazy life lesson way, rammed this point home this morning. After yesterday’s dream ride, today she reminded me that it is always one step forward two steps back. She was tense and nervy, for whatever reason. The wind was up and the cows were mustering (sometimes they alarm her) and when we went out into the stubble she was spooky as all get out. It was not just the crazy birds, she was seeing terrors everywhere. I keep having to remember that she has never gone out alone in her life before, and that this environment is still relatively new and strange to her. Oh, the jumps and starts and swerves and theatrical freak outs. I had to concentrate very hard to stay on, and, what with being recently reminded of my severe limitations, I almost gave up.

Then I thought: no, come along, you can do this. So on we persevered, and in the end, the harmony returned, there was calm, and instead of wild bronco tricks, there was a collected canter and a loose rein.

I wondered about all this, and why it matters so much, and why it cracks my heart. I think it is to do with my dad. I think a lot of this horse business is to do with keeping a pulling thread to him. He is not here any more, but the one great thing he did was ride a horse. Although, as I was contemplating this, I laughed quite a lot, because he was not a beautiful rider; he would never have won style points or been admired by dressage experts.

What he did have was outrageous courage. He broke everything, including his neck and his back, and he still got back on and rode in the Grand National, against doctors’ orders. I don't have to be the most perfect rider (what am I trying to prove, after all?); I have to work hard and humbly at getting better, so that Red has a good enough pilot.

But what I would like to do is remember my father’s bravery, and emulate that. In my mind, what this means is not hurling myself over steeplechase fences, but being brave enough to face my own failings, and not to give in to despair, but to go on, day by day, working hard. Not to prove a point, or show off, or congratulate myself, but so the horse has the rider she deserves.

*****************************************************************************

In other, happier news, friend of the blog Shirley Teasdale had a lovely winner yesterday at Musselburgh on the excellent Imperial Legend.

A few weeks ago, she was hauled up in front the stewards when the horse she was riding went off a true line and caused interference. I thought they were rather harsh, since the whole thing happened so quickly and there was little she could do. I wondered if she felt a bit like I had, knocked flat, back to the drawing board.

Being an apprentice is a tough road; race riding is an incredibly difficult discipline, and it is not only the stewards who are strict. Punters are ruthless in their judgement of jockeys; some of them are still screaming about Joseph O’Brien getting Camelot beat by coming too late in the St Leger, which I think is a harsh verdict. Even the masterful Richard Hughes and William Buick get screamed at on the internet if they are considered by armchair jockeys to have made an error.

One of the interesting things about Buick is that his boss, John Gosden, once admiringly said of him that he is always the first to admit he made a mistake. That’s the thing, I think, in riding, in life. Admit the mistake, learn from it, move on. Humility is so hard. Pride, preening, defensiveness are easier, in a way. But it must be done. Perhaps I have to go back to arpeggios with that, too.

Anyway, it was lovely to see Shirley back in the winner’s enclosure, and I had a little bet on her which I had rather forgotten, and when I opened my William Hill account this morning there was a nice plus sign.

So, I think, rueful and chastened, on we all bash, mistakes and frailties and freaks and all.

 

Today’s pictures:

Woods and grass and moss:

Red’s View:

Pretending she has never seen a scary bird in her life:

Nor done a four-legged cartoon sideways leap:

The Pigeon came with this morning, and despite everything, maintained her poise and serenity throughout:

Fail better. Or, I learn yet another damn life lesson

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Author’s note: this appears to be yet another horse story. In fact, the horse part is a metaphor, for life. Or something like that.

You know how I really, really love my horse? And how she brings out my better angels? And how I am a far, far better thing when I am with her? And how patient and good I have been in her new training?

Yeah, well: today, I SHOUTED AT MY HORSE.

I am officially a crap person. I am a should never be allowed out in public again person. I am a say one thing do another person. There is no health in me.

That is what I thought, the moment I did it.

Extrapolation is a fascinating thing. I think about it all the time. It is seen most clearly in the universalising of the particular. Because one person thinks one thing, they assume everyone does. Thus the ghastly Universal We is born. I notice this particularly in articles aimed at women. We all want to lose six pounds; we all dread cellulite; we all crave shoes. NO WE BLOODY DON’T, I shout, in the privacy of my own head. Stop damn well patronising me, I yell, into the void. I don’t give a toss about cellulite and shoes. I want to be able to write a decent paragraph, and get my mare to lengthen her back. That will do it for me, just at the moment.

Extrapolation happens also in heightened emotional situations. The dangerous tendency is, when one does something undesirable, to think I am a bad person, instead of I did a bad thing.

So, once I calmed down, and stopped telling myself I should report myself to the RSPCA, and stopped extrapolating wildly, I started speaking some sense to myself.

Red was being really annoying. She was not doing it on purpose; my great belief is that horses are always trying to tell you something. The problem was that I could not read it. She was doing her head fussing thing, and I tried everything, and nothing worked. That was when I shouted.

The problem with learning all this wonderful natural horsemanship stuff, is that I watch glorious videos of supreme horsemen, who have been working with equines for thirty years, on perfectly schooled horses, doing perfect things. That’s what I want, I think. (See, Daily Mail: not shoes, not freedom from cellulite.) Then, when I get on and it’s not like the perfect videos, I smash down the tidal wave of blame and shame on my own head. That was why I shouted. I wasn’t really cross with her, I was livid with myself, because I found myself clueless.

The amazing thing was, that after I calmed down, and read myself the riot act, and called in the perspective police, something switched. I went right back to basics, literally asking the horse to stop, to walk on, to stop, to turn, to stop, concentrating on being as light as I could. And suddenly, she went from a tense, fussy horse, to a sweetly going, relaxed horse. She even started bending her neck, as if she were doing dressage, although I had not specially asked her to. (One of the things about horses who have raced and played polo is that they have a tendency to carry their heads in the air, and this is something I thought it would take me months and months to work on. Today, after the disastrous start, she was offering me something I had assumed would take ages of graft and struggle.)

I learnt a lot of things this morning. Specifically, I learnt that my mare needs to work. Someone much cleverer than I said that if you want a happy horse, give them a purpose. You might think that wild riding across the hayfields might be much more fun for her than doing serpentines and working on transitions, but it turns out, she really likes a job. I love her for that.

I learnt that despite the fact I failed in one moment of lost temper, I did not have to extrapolate from that that I am revolting human who should never be allowed near a horse again.

I learnt that because we have established a solid relationship of trust, the mare did not hold one idiot moment against me.

I learnt the value of perseverance, not with gritted teeth, but with an open heart.

I learnt that if I aim too high, too fast, I set myself up for disaster. After thirty years away from serious riding, I can’t just morph myself into one of those brilliant horsemen through sheer wishing. It will take small steps, time, thought, attention. Every day I shall get a little better. I can’t go from nought to sixty in seven seconds. (This small truth actually really pisses me off, but I shall have to learn to control my vaunting ambition, and enter the real world.)

In some ways, it’s quite tiring, learning all these damn life lessons. Somewhere in me is the drive to be better: to be a better human, a better writer, a better rider, a better horsewoman. It would be quite restful just to mooch along in varying degrees of hopelessness. But I think striving probably is a good thing; not lashing oneself to be perfect, but hoping for better things, moving towards the sunlit uplands. Otherwise there is just atrophy. And I owe it to my mare to be the best I can be.

It turns out that I am not quite as Zennish as I had imagined. Today, frustration and impatience boiled over. Oddly, as I write that, I feel a sigh of relief escape from my stomach. I’m just a muddly old human after all, with all the frailties that flesh is heir to. I think I had been trying to turn myself into the Dalai Lama of the equine world, and that was too high a bar. So, I’m taking the little disaster as a salutary reminder of my own limitations, and there’s something peculiarly soothing in that.

But the really lovely thing is that, afterwards, we had the best twenty minutes of riding we have achieved so far. And I worked with the pony, and she was lovely too. I extrapolate from that the most basic life lesson of all: it’s all right to screw up occasionally. It does not mean that all is lost.

And, just as my fingers slow down over the keyboard and I smile a rueful smile at my own failings, I remember what Samuel Beckett said.

He said: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’

I think I may have mentioned that before. I expect I shall mention it again, because it is one of the truest and best things I know. It will do, for my thought of the day.
 
Today’s pictures:











The hayfields next to my house have this minute been cut, so this is the last I shall see of the waves of high grass:





Red’s View:



Actual sun today. Can you believe it?

Myfanwy the Pony, who got another gold star for her sterling join-up work this morning:



My very forgiving mare:



Oh, that lovely face:



I know I bang on about embracing flaws and not seeking perfection, but I’m afraid to have to tell you that Miss Pigeon just is perfect. She can’t help it:



The hill: