A very long horse story. And a bit of a life lesson.

I write about the red mare a lot because I love her. I write about her because she gives me a daily parable. I write about her because horses fascinate me, and humans fascinate me, and horses and humans together fascinate me.

There is such a history between the two species. Although they see the world in radically different ways, there must be a coloured area in the middle of the Venn diagram, some meeting of senses or souls, or the two would not have stayed together for so long. Equines are, even now, stitched into the cultural consciousness. Only three or four generations ago, horses were a daily sight, even in cities. The shires pulling the drays from the breweries, the hansom cabs, the doctor in his trap, the milkman on his rounds; all were quotidian familiars. Even now, in the hedge-fund playground that Westbourne Grove has become (how I miss the junk shops with their dusty windows) you can see the beautiful stone water trough put up for the passing horses to slake their thirst.

I know that some people are bored witless by the horse stuff, and I used to be mortified by that. But now I think: it really does not matter. There are so many other places for those people to go. Besides, a lot of the horse stuff is not about horses at all. It reminds me of Mark Kermode, insisting, with the antic dogmatism I love so much, that Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was not about spying.

I don’t usually do a blog on a Sunday, so I feel I can really indulge myself. What happened this morning was so instructive and interesting that I must write it down. (Write it down, write it down, shout the voices in my head.) If someone should stumble upon it, as they think about getting lunch ready or come in from walking the dog, so be it. But this one is, ruthlessly, unapologetically, for me.

I woke thinking about death. It was galvanic thinking, not melancholic. I looked at the singing blue sky and wondered what I should do if this day were my last. Get to that red mare, I thought. It was a quiet Sunday; I had nothing to do and no human to see. I would spend all morning playing with my pony.

The wind was up and it was mild, and Red was quite twinkly and snorty. I let her out into the set-aside and she cantered about a bit with her tail up. I decided some serious groundwork was the answer, before I rode.

She didn’t especially want to do work. She wanted to eat the spring grass. The little Paint was eating, why could she not? As I sent her round in loping circles, a gust of wind came and she let out the most tremendous buck. She is not a bucker or a kicker. Her form of resistance comes usually from the front – she will leap and throw her head in the air and put in a rear, although she does not do this very often these days, on account of all the strict training. But if she wants to assert her will against mine, that is how it happens. This was quite unlike her, a serious rodeo bronc, and as she did it, she twisted her body in the air and let fly with her hind legs.

Her off hind hoof was about two feet away from my head.

It gave me a serious fright. Fear makes humans cross, and I was absolutely furious, with her, with myself, with the situation. Don’t get cross with a horse, said the stern voice in my head; never, ever take it out on the equine. She wasn’t directing anything at me, she was just being herself, with the wind in her tail.

I channelled the fury. I made her work and work. I sent her in fast circles, I made her change direction, I stopped her and started her.

She looked absolutely amazed.

I suddenly realised the mistake I make with this horse. It is that I am, deep down, slightly apologetic. I love her so much and am so grateful when she does lovely things that it is almost as if I am saying: so sorry that I am asking you to do anything. She is so relaxed and blissed out when she is roaming and grazing that it seems a pity to make her do human things, even though I am proud of the work I do with her and I know that most horses like a job.

Because of the fright and the rage, I was working her without apology. I was absolutely focused on getting her to do the things I asked. I was not rough or hard, but I was without doubt.

The result was astonishing. She was instantly responsive, concentrating entirely on me, with no resistance in her.

It made me think about leadership. The thing I search for every day is softness, and feel. I like to work gently and slowly, reading the mare all the time. Leadership has nothing to do with dominance; it is not about imposing the human will. It is about saying: I can give you good, secure direction. I am making the decisions, and you can trust those decisions. As long as I am in charge, the mountain lions will not get you. Softness and gentleness must be there, but they must not get muddled up with lack of conviction. Horses adore conviction. It makes them feel safe.

When I finally got on, it was as if I had a different horse underneath me. There was no hesitation in her, and no question either. She did as I asked almost before I thought it. I was doing nothing technically different, it was just that my mind had changed. She was relaxed but alert, full of energy but with no thought of buggering off. She went on a true line and gave me instant transitions. Even though she can do a canter as light as air, she can still get a bit excited when we step up the pace, the memory of her racing and polo days living in her. Today, she did a perfect, collected canter in circle after circle, describing glorious wide arcs in the open Scottish field.

The little Paint was grazing in the set-aside, and we played with her for a bit, rounding her up as if we were out on the range. Red changed direction with just a slight movement from my body or a turn of my head. We were a pair of crazy cowgirls, with Green Grass of Wyoming of our very own. I laughed and laughed and laughed, from sheer delight.

Then we did some jumping. I started teaching her to jump last summer. It turns out she has a mighty leap, even though she was bred for the flat. But over the winter, with the treacherous ground, we’d put it on hold. I have not jumped her for perhaps four months.

It was a bit rash, to give it a go all on my own, with no one there to pick up the pieces. But by this stage I was in a whole other zone. This mare and I could do anything.

It took her a couple of muddly attempts to find her stride. And then, on the third one, there it was – neat, flowing, easy. It felt like the most natural thing in the world. The fence I had made out of silver birches was about fourteen inches high, tragically small. But to me, it was as if we had just leapt a double oxer at Hickstead.

And then I walked her back and cooled her down and took her halter off and spent half an hour brushing her and trimming her mane. She was loose. She could have walked away. But she dropped her head and went into a happy doze, and blinked her eyes as I tended to her. We walked together back to the paddock, no rope between us, just companionship. She did her Minnie the Moocher walk, and I chatted to her and told her how clever she was.

I felt the usual gratitude, but it was of a different kidney. It did not have that tinge of apologetic astonishment. It is astonishing, everything that horses will do for humans. And it does deserve gratitude. But what we did today was an equal partnership. It came from my conviction as much as her willing heart. And all because she gave me a fright. My bronco girl finally pulled out of me the right stuff. Perhaps it was what she had been waiting for all along.

 

Coming up for breakfast:

This is her wind-in-the-tail racehorse face:

I have a theory about thoroughbreds, that they are aerial creatures, creatures of the sky. Cantering at liberty, Red holds her head high:

(You can see the tyres and silver birch trunks in the background, getting ready to be made into our tiny jump.)

Snorting:

Oh, how duchessy the duchess is:

The little Paint was rather magnificent today too. We did a join-up out in the open spaces, which was very, very clever of her indeed, and made me smile in amazement:

Stanley the Dog, leading his girls in:

I know there is a life lesson in all this, but I’m not quite sure what it is. Something about living each day to the full, and not giving up, and being bold, and never fearing to admit that one has been wrong, and striving to improve, and always learning, and keeping the human mind as open as the wide Scottish sky.

Something like that.

The last day. Or, different kinds of winning.

I wake up thinking: ‘Oh, Bob.’

Today is the Gold Cup, and little Bob’s Worth is taking his second go at it. My first morning thought is how lovely it would be to see a two-time winner of jumping’s greatest race who is known to everyone as Bob. Every time Nicky Henderson says the word Bob, his face lights up with fondness and hope. Sometimes, someone from Seven Barrows posts a picture on the internet, of Bob, dozily hanging out in his barn with Oscar Whisky. The two of them live together, like a pair of crusty old bachelors, in a rambling, rather scruffy old barn. I love that too.

Yesterday, neither dream quite came true. Jonjo O’Neill and JP McManus, those canny old campaigners, snatched the prize with More of That, under a perfect ride from Barry Geraghty. Annie Power, a stern look on her chestnut face, chased him home, but could not get past. People will say she didn’t stay, or wasn’t as good as everyone thought, but it was her first go at three miles, her first time on the big stage, and it was clear the occasion got to her a little. She’ll be back, and she’ll be brilliant, and in some ways I love her even more, now that she has been roughed up a bit in battle, rather than strolling about having everything her own way.

Big Buck’s looked ravishing, the look of eagles still in his eye. For half the race, he travelled like the Titan of old. He jumps a hurdle like no other horse. The really brilliant ones, like Hurricane Fly, ping their hurdles; it’s not really a jump, it’s a kind of flip, bringing the obstacle under them whilst still running, as if the hurdle becomes part of their stride. It’s quite hard to describe. Big Buck’s does not ping, he flows and floats, as if he is in slow motion, but so fast that he loses not an inch of ground. It’s a glorious thing to watch.

He travelled, he flowed over his hurdles, he looked as mighty as ever. Sam Twiston-Davies gave him a lovely, quiet, intelligent ride. And then - after all the brilliance, after all the dominance, after all the years when nothing could get him off the bridle – he was asked the question, and there was no answer. Age and setbacks at last had him in their crocodile grip.

But he was not disgraced. He ran on to finish fifth. Fifth in a World Hurdle, after fourteen months off with a tendon, at the age of eleven, is pretty impressive in its own right. I’m glad they gave him one last go at it. And I’m glad that at once, after the race, Paul Nicholls said they would retire him.

The gracious, athletic racehorse, his head low, his ears pricked, walked round the paddock one last time, in the glancing afternoon sun. As the news came over the loudspeakers, the crowd stood and applauded.

It was a thank you. Thanks for the mighty days, the jubilee days, the hats in the air days.

You could set your watch by Big Buck’s. All horses have mysterious bad days, even the most brilliant. For eighteen runs, Big Buck’s never had a bad day. It’s hard enough to get an ordinary horse to win three races in a row, let alone eighteen. To do it at the highest level is a sort of joke brilliance.

That is why the crowd rose. It knew greatness when it saw it. It knew that ones like this don’t come around very often. Respect, and gratitude, was due.

Rose Loxton, who looks after Big Buck’s, was in floods of tears. Paul Nicholls, who is a professional to his bones, let the ordinary, vulnerable human shine through, patting his great hero on the shoulder, walking round with him, his eyes light with love and as much pride as if the old fella had won.

He did win, in the end. Winning is not just getting past the post with your head in front. There are other victories.

The most lovely thing of all is that Big Buck’s will retire to Ditcheat, and stay with his beloved Rose. I think of him teaching the young ones, who come over from France, raw and gangly and not knowing anything, how to go steadily up the hill. Every yard needs an old-timer who can show the young ones how to go up the hill. Perhaps every human does, too.

So, funnily enough, even though the impossible dream did not happen, it was a day with its own loveliness.

I had two thrilling winners, both with jockeys I particularly like. Dynaste came back to his best, under a smiling Tom Scudamore, much to my delight. And Fingal Bay, after time off with injury and a disastrous brush with chasing, was patiently nursed back by the Hobbs team, and fought all the way to the line, under the great Richard Johnson drive, winning by a nose. I have hardly any voice left at all.

But it really is not all about the winners. Perhaps the keenest pleasure I had all day was watching one of my most loved stalwarts, Double Ross, run a huge race to finish third in the novice chase. He jumped some of the fences as beautifully as anything I’ve ever seen, seeing a perfect stride, coming up out of Sam Twiston’s hands. And dear old Hunt Ball was back, in the Ryanair, rather thrown in the deep end at 25-1. But he got into a lovely rhythm and galloped strongly and jumped accurately, and he finished an honourable fourth. After all the noise and scandal and the mad trip to America, that bonny horse coming back where he belongs, showing that his talent is real, that he was no flash in the pan, was winning indeed.

Today, there is Bob.

Why does one love one horse and only admire another? I can’t tell you. I love Bob because he’s just a little unassuming fellow. He is tiny, by chasing standards. He’s got a short neck and a small, intelligent head. You’d walk straight past him, never thinking he was a champion. You might think: that looks like a bonny, bright fella. But you would not think a world-beater.

Sometimes, he doesn’t even jump that well. He can muddle over a few. He can hit a flat spot in his races and seem as if he is labouring. He does not do the huge leaps or the raking stride of some of my equine heroes.

Here is what Bobs Worth does. He fights. He puts that little head down and he battles and battles and battles. In that small, compact body, hides the heart of a lion. ‘He’ll never stop galloping for you,’ says Nicky Henderson.

You know how I feel about a trier. Bob tries, like nothing else.

I’m a great admirer of Silviniaco Conti, and I hope my big, bonny old favourite, Teaforthree, might run into a place. But I’m shouting for Bob, even though winning two Gold Cups is one of the most Herculean tasks in racing. If it could be done on heart alone, then Bob would be home and hosed.

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:

Dreaming the Dream.

The thing I forget about Cheltenham is the emotion. There is the love, there is the hope, there is the terror. Yesterday, one great dream came true, as the mighty Quevega put her honest, battling little head down, and galloped into the history books. She won the Mares’ Hurdle for the sixth year on the bounce, with a performance that was all guts, and I cried tears of joy. The tough mares move me like almost nothing else.

Earlier in the day, a cloud moved over the dazzling sun, as Our Conor, with his boldness, and his enthusiasm, and his bright white face, took a fatal fall.

No matter how much I tell myself that horses are as fragile as they are flinty, that they can die from getting cast in the box, or from a careless kick in the field, or from a sudden colic, I never get used to this. The lad who looked after the horse was led away in hopeless tears. I know that dark space of the empty box. My father’s great National hope, Earthstopper, ran an absolute blinder to finish fifth, and then dropped down dead from a heart attack. The fragile ticker, undetected, could have gone at any time. I remember Dad’s inconsolable weeping, on that bleak drive home from Liverpool to Lambourn.

My beautiful Red, so precious to me, shall not be here forever. I know, every day, that all it takes is one wrong step, an unseen rabbit hole, a freak field accident, a mystery infection, like the one that mastered the sweet little HorseBack filly. They gallop into the heart, and can gallop away at any moment.

I thought about Our Conor all night, and woke up remembering him this morning. I stopped thinking about the horses I loved, the ones I wanted to win so badly, the ones I yearned to have their moment in the sun, and only hoped that they would all come home safe.

And then, slowly, slowly, the dream started again. The engine began to rev up. The optimism grew; the hopes rose. There is a horse called Sire De Grugy, trained in a relatively small yard, owned by a group of people who include plumbers and hairdressers, who only have this one horse. Compared to the mighty guns who arrive for the festival, the millionaires and billionaires with their shining strings of stars, these were underdogs indeed. Sire De Grugy is a two-miler, and his class was overshadowed by the mighty black aeroplane that is Sprinter Sacre, who drove all before him at this distance. But suddenly, Sprinter was out for the year, and the rangy, athletic chestnut with the shining white blaze could step into the spotlight.

He’s been winning beautifully all season. On the book, he was the one to beat in the Champion Chase, the finest test of the two mile chaser. But the doubts started to swarm. He had been beaten twice at Cheltenham, and horses for courses is a cast-iron rule. Also, he had had a long season, running some races in heavy ground, which can take it out of even the finest athlete by the time spring comes around. And my own private worry was that he could be almost too bold over his fences, really attacking them, taking off a mile away, reaching over the birch with his raking front feet scything through the air. At Prestbury Park, at top speed, against the best, there is no room for error. I fretted that his very bravery might be his undoing.

Besides, as Dick Francis wrote, there are no fairy tales in racing. So I steadily and sternly tried to talk myself out of Sire De Grugy. I failed. The whole thing was too much. He’s such a bright, bonny horse. He’s such a trier. His trainer and jockey are father and son, so there was the whole family romance of the thing. His owners are the most enthusiastic, happy, sporting bunch you could imagine. They had said before the race that it was enough just to be here. There is no greed or grasp in them. I wanted this result more than diamonds. I threw my cash on out of loyalty and love more than flinty judgement, and hid behind the sofa.

The sun shone. The parade started. There they all were, the stars: the clever, bright, bold equines, with their ears pricked, ready for the test to come. They were all so beautiful, so fit, so gleaming with health.

Jamie Moore settled Sire De Grugy back in the pack, as they went off at a furious pelt. It was an intelligent, instinctive, brave ride. He’s only a young jockey, but he did not panic. He let his fella get into a lovely rhythm, and did not hassle him. You could see the trust between horse and rider. But as the pounding hooves ate up the green turf, and the sinews stretched, and the race started to take shape, I worried. There was a lot of ground to make up.

Sire De Grugy had his sensible hat on today. He did not take chances. He fiddled a couple, and then jumped neatly and economically, out of his stride. He seemed to know that this was not the time for showboating.

And suddenly, miraculously, against the odds, he was the only horse in the race, coming to the last with a ton in hand, romping away up the hill, as if it were his favourite place in the world. He won going away, like a really, really good horse.

The place erupted. My mother and I, who had been shouting our heads off, hugged each other and burst into synchronised tears. At the course, hats and newspapers were flying through the air. ‘I love him to pieces,’ Jamie Moore said, without let or hindrance, on national television, falling on his horse’s neck. Jockeys are hard men, in body and spirit. But they are not ashamed to use the word love, because that is what it is. The losing riders gathered round him, clapping him on the back, kissing him on the cheek. Love was everywhere. It was a win that was richly deserved and properly celebrated.

As the horse and rider walked back to the winning enclosure, all the jockeys came out of the weighing room and formed a guard of honour to greet them. Sam Twiston-Davies and Aidan Coleman were hoisted onto shoulders, waving and smiling and laughing their heads off. I’ve never seen that, ever, in racing. My mother, who remembers Arkle and Mill House, has never seen that. There was something about this, perhaps because it was the underdog, perhaps because the Moores work so hard and really deserve it, perhaps because the horse himself has never quite had his due, that brought out an unprecedented reaction. All etiquette was flung aside, as the Duchess of Cornwall, presenting the cup, had a scarf in the owners’ colours draped round her neck. She too was laughing fit to bust. Everything was in chaos, as joy overtook the day.

It was one of the best things I ever saw in my life.

And just as I thought there was no more emotion left in me, it was time for Balthazar King, in the cross-country. He is one of my favourite horses in training, because he is so genuine and he jumps so gloriously and he adores Cheltenham as if it is his spiritual home. But today, even this course specialist was up against it, as he shouldered top weight, on ground softer than he likes. The Irish raider was out to get him, and there were people who said Big Shu was nailed on.

In the glancing sun, my darling old Balthazar jumped and galloped and danced. His rider, Richard Johnson, one of the great gentlemen of the weighing room, and a horseman to his bones, cut corners and found a perfect stride and kept his bonny fella in a lovely rhythm.

Balthazar King hit the front, and they were coming for him, coming for him, up that treacherous hill. The weight would get him, the ground would get him, Any Currency was finishing like a freight train. The winning post would not, could not, come in time. I was bawling my head off. Stanley the Dog was barking fit to bust. My mother was roaring. And Balthazar King, one of the most honest, admirable, true horses you will ever see, back at his beloved Cheltenham, kept his dear nose in front, and flashed past the post by a short head, after almost four gruelling miles.

I run out of words for love.

The sun shone again, literally, metaphorically. The stars glittered in their orbits. The dreams came true.

 

I’m breaking all my copyright rules one more time. I had to show you this picture, because here is the joy. I hope the Press Association will forgive me:

The best week of the year. Or, love, not money.

The sun is shining. The red mare and I had a whooping, racing canter. I threw the reins at her and stood up in the stirrups and let her go, and she pricked her ears and bowled along as if she knew that this was the day her mighty cousins will be strutting their stuff on the most enchanted stage of all.

Because, my darlings, IT’S CHELTENHAM. It’s the elite. It’s the best, the brightest, the bravest. It’s humans of such flintiness and skill and courage and resolution that it takes my breath away. It’s horses of such bravery and beauty and willingness that I can sometimes hardly believe they exist in the world.

I’ve been doing my homework, almost literally. I’ve been sitting up with my notebook, watching recordings of old races, beadily checking the course form, watching for chinks in equine armour, looking for the ones that really, really want it. Because on this undulating course, with its huge obstacles and its stretching hill, they have to want it. You can see the alpha horses, the herd leaders, who rumble through a race, shouldering the lesser beasts aside.

And yet, the whole point of Cheltenham is that anything can happen. After all that study, I realise that I do not know what will win. I’ve been building up my betting bank, and now I’m hardly going to use it. It’s not about the money. It’s not about the brilliance of picking the right horse for the right day. It’s about the love.

I love Quevega, the toughest little mare since Dawn Run set the place on a roar. I love Hurricane Fly, with his warrior spirit. I love the novices – the classy Irving, the flying Vautour, the honest and strong Wicklow Brave, so very well named. I love the old campaigners – dear old Alfie Sherrin, enigmatic Restless Harry. I love the humans too – the genius wizard that is Willie Mullins, the mighty Champ that is AP, the smiling young pretender that is Sam Twiston-Davies. I love Paul Nicholls, with his bullish faith in his horses, and Ruby Walsh, with his canny grace on a horse, and Nicky Henderson, with his heart on his sleeve and his race glasses trembling so much he can hardly watch the race. I’d love to see the charming Tom Scu have a good meeting, and the proper gentleman that is Dickie Johnson get one on the board.

I don’t know what will happen. If Hurricane Fly and Quevega can win, I shall cry tears of pure joy. But I’d be equally delighted to see The New One storm up the hill, or My Tent or Yours show his class. I’ve had a whisper for Manyriverstocross, and I’m very sweet on Dodging Bullets, and I’ve got a tiny little feeling for Green Flag at a big price, who has travelled all the way from sunny Scotland.

It is my best week of the year. My heart is beating. Oh, oh, the love. What a great game it is. My darling old dad will be looking down from the great betting shop in the sky.

What joy these extraordinary horses do offer. I do not just love them, I admire them. In their honest and authenticity, they can teach humans a thing or two. Most of all, I hope they all give their running, and they all come home safe.

And now, I just wait for that great Cheltenham roar.

 

My own red champion, all happy and muddy and woolly, with her dear little Paint friend, in the morning sun:

Be lucky, wherever you are. May your Cheltenham dreams come true.

Happy Day

I’ve been doing a little Facebook experiment. It is called 100 Happy Days, and the idea is that every day you post something that makes you happy. It sounds very hello clouds, hello sky, but I think it is in fact quite an interesting psychological test.

I am capable of grumpiness and crankiness; I grow fretful over trifles; I am sometimes assailed by fears of the unknown future. I wrestle with mortality and the growing numbers of the Dear Departeds. (I am missing my dear old godfather a lot at the moment, and, as Cheltenham approaches, holding my late father very close to my heart.)

The lovely thing is that this idea makes me realise that even on the darkest day there is at least one happy thing, even if it is only a snowdrop or a pied wagtail or the soft eye of the red mare.

Today, there were not single spies of joy, but battalions.

The sun shone, for a starter. It really shone, with conviction and promise. The birds were singing, the woodpeckers were hammering away in the woods, the new grass was growing, to the mare’s delight.

In the morning, I found my one happy thing. It was a dilly. One of the great old cowboys, I can’t remember whether it was Tom Dorrance or Ray Hunt, said that the thing you are always looking for with your horse is that place deep inside where everything is possible, where there is only willingness. This is quite a profound thought, and sometimes feels almost metaphysical to me. It is nothing to do with technique and everything to do with heart and feel.

I thought about it with the mare this morning. I was doing some circles with her. She tends to lean in and drop her shoulder and sometimes a simple circle can be hard work. Today, though, something blossomed and spread. She started going easily within herself, in the most ravishing, smooth, floating sitting trot, describing a perfect line, so light that I was riding her with one finger. ‘There’s that place,’ I thought. I felt it in myself, deep in my gut. I felt my place of willingness and her place of willingness speak to each other, so that we found a harmony that was like flying. Hold on, I thought: THERE IT IS. There it is.

It was a feeling like no other. It transcended the actual and the physical and soared up into a realm of its own.

I was so ecstatic that I raced her out of the circle into a straight canter, as if we ourselves were roaring up the Cheltenham hill. I whooped out loud. ‘Woo, woo,’ I shouted. ‘You absolutely brilliant girl.’

You should not really be letting a thoroughbred canter about on a loose rein whilst whooping in their ear. The red mare kept her composure. She put on her sprinting shoes for a moment, and then came back under me, and gentled to a steady halt. She lifted her pretty face to the sky, and blew through her nostrils. I must not get fanciful, but I think she was as happy as I was.

That moment would have been enough. But then I went up to HorseBack for the first course of the year. The place was transformed. All the horses were in, the sun was still going like gangbusters, a wonderful group of Personnel Recovery Officers were gathered, Brook the ex-sprinter was doing a hoof-perfect demonstration, and, best of all, some of the regular veterans were back for a three-week stint.

My admiration for the veterans knows no bounds. It’s not just that they have done sterling service in places and situations I cannot even imagine, or that they face startling mental and physical challenges with stoicism and good humour, it is that they are so funny and generous, and very nice to me. I’ve got over my initial shyness, that sense of distance between the experience of a civilian and the experience of those who have served. They mob me up now, and make me shout with laughter. They think I am a bit crackers, as one of them said today, I suspect because of my ridiculous passion for horses, and my betting habit, and my Cheltenham obsession, and my tendency to open my mouth and let streams of nonsense issue forth. I take this as a big compliment. Coming from fighting men, crackers is good.

It was so lovely to see real work starting again, and all the people gathered, new faces and familiar faces, and the dear equines getting ready to do their important jobs. It reminded me of what all the effort is for, and made the hard, long winter worth it.

And then, as if all that were not enough, I backed two winners at Stratford, so that my Cheltenham bank is bulging.

I’m trying to resist the urge to put it all on Hurricane Fly. I love that horse like a brother. He is not a soft, kind horse like my mare. He is tough as teak, a dauntless warrior, a fighter and a biter. I’ve seen him almost shoulder other horses out of the way, with a bugger off look out of the corner of his canny old eye, and a surge of power that says: Champion coming through. I love him for his raw talent, his splendid athleticism, his refusal to give up. He has a wildness in him, as if he can still hear his ancestral voices, an elemental aspect, that sets him apart.

I reminded myself today that Cheltenham is not about the punting or the winning or the cash or the cleverness of picking out that one banker of the meeting. It’s about these mighty thoroughbreds I love so much. It’s about their beauty and their grace, their courage and their willingness and their power, their dancing stride and their mighty leaps. I cannot count the ways in which they make my heart sing.

I’ll have a little bet on the Fly, for loyalty, for love, for the memory of old times, but if he can reverse all the stats and see off the young shavers as he storms up the hill, it will be a sight worth more than emeralds. Even typing his name makes me smile.

So, it turned out that this was a day of manifold happinesses. I do not take that for granted for a single solitary minute.

 

Just time for a couple of  pictures, as it’s late now, and I’m tired, and I’m going to have a glass of wine and watch a replay of Quevega picking herself up off her nose at the top of the hill and surging to festival glory last year. That little battling mare makes me cry.

View from HorseBack:

The dear HorseBack horses:

My astonishing mare, taken a few days ago. A lot of happiness in that picture:

This is very naughty, because I respect copyright, but I had to show you this ravishing picture of Hurricane Fly, safely arrived at Cheltenham, blowing away the cobwebs from his journey across the sea. I hope that the very talented Alan Crowhurst will forgive me, just this once:

Absolutely no idea what I am talking about.

Author’s note – warning for incoherence.

Sometimes I sit down and let my fingers run over the keyboard and something comes out and I’m not at all sure what it is or whether it makes any sense. I’d love to posh it up and call it stream of consciousness, but I can’t. Never mind. It’s Friday. You can always scroll down and find a nice picture of an eternal hill.

Here it is, the absurd old bulletin, for better or worse:

 

I know it may seem that my head is almost exclusively full of horses, but I do think a lot about humans too.

I like humans. It might seem an odd thing to say, but not everyone does. Some people have little faith in human nature and are always braced for the worst. I am not saying they are wrong. They may be empirically correct. I may be naive. I choose to expect the best. I must admit, I do always get a little shock when I find someone is charmless or dull or narcissistic or venal. I mostly expect humans to be kind and interesting. A distant voice from my childhood calls: it’s so much nicer to be nice. This sounds fabulously platitudinous, but is in fact true. If you are smiling and polite, people will generally smile back. Courtesy is the sister of empathy. Any moral considerations aside, niceness, such a humble, overlooked virtue, has the wonderful advantage of utility: it eases one’s passage through life.

I admit to some wish thinking in all this. But I do maintain that most people are mostly good, otherwise the whole world would exist in a state of feral lawlessness. No police on earth could contain a raging humanity.

I was contemplating all this because, for some reason, a list of attributes was running through my head. I was thinking of complexity and contradiction. Someone who can, in one moment, be bold and strong and fine, can, the very next, crack into hopelessness. Brilliantly clever people may have moments of profound stupidity. The cheerful can tumble into elephant traps of melancholy.

This week, I was thinking, people have been: funny, good, courageous, intensely irritating, self-effacing, thoughtful, generous, overbearing, wise, pompous, self-regarding, interesting, kind, and selfish.

There they all are, the human adjectives, jostling up against each other, changing like the weather. How lovely it would be to behave well all the time, and listen to the voices of one’s better angels, and be rational and reasonable and sane. I think it’s important to try. (You know I love a trier.) But everyone will sometimes stumble and fall. Part of the reason that I do think about horses so much, and write about them, and love them, and feel grateful for them, is that they have so much authenticity. It is contagious. When I am with Red, I glimpse my best self. You have to rise to a horse. It does not understand justifications and excuses. It takes you as you are, in that moment, and reflects that back to you. Equines are like looking glasses of the soul.

What horses crave are the quiet virtues: patience, thought, care, slowness, gentleness, steadiness, reliability. They do not require brilliance or wit or a Nobel Prize-winning cerebral cortex. They disdain flash. They want to know, most of all, that they can trust you, and that you will keep them safe. Red needs to be sure that I shall keep her from mountain lions. It has become one of the most important things in my life that I can be that person. It’s a lovely, daily challenge.

Today’s pictures:

My favourite hill, Morven:

The mighty man that is Stan:

The brave daffodils, buggering on even though today we are having sudden blizzards:

About four miles north-west from my house, the colours are singing:

The little Paint and the red mare, having a pick out in the set-aside. They are convinced that they are finding spring grass:

Herself. Can you not sense the goodness and trueness shining out of her like starlight? Sometimes it is so powerful I can feel it like a moving thing, as if it is an actual force, out there in the world:

The oddness of good news.

Here is a very strange thing. It is the good news that undoes me.

There was no blog yesterday since I was rendered incapable of any meaningful activity. I mostly stared out of the window, incapable of coherent thought. It was as if I had run into a brick wall, and been felled.

I think it was a release of tension that I had not even known was there.

I battled so hard to get my book into shape that I had gone snow-blind. I had no idea if it was any good or not. Then, the agent got side-tracked and could not read it when she had hoped, so I had to wait and wait and wait.

She loathes it, I thought; she does not know how to break the news to me.

When the news came, late on Tuesday, it said, quite simply: ‘I love it’. That is when I collapsed in a heap. All the horrid imaginings must have built up and built up, the frets and self-reproaches piling on one another, until my existential cupboard of doom was full. Then the one line arrived, and the door opened and everything tumbled out. And I could only stare vacantly, thinking: that was in there all the time?

There is an awful long way to go yet. There shall be notes, and third drafts, and fourth and fifth and sixth. The state of publishing is parlous. It is a very eccentric book. If you were pitching it, you could not really say: it is like... It is not like. I just saddled up and thought what the hell and galloped off across the plains. It may never see a bookshop.

But this green light is a success of sorts. My agent has no sentiment in her; she has a steely sense of what works and what does not. I live to fight another day.

What it made me ponder is how oddly badly I deal with success. I remember a part of me getting absolutely furious when Backwards was doing well, and all sorts of people wanted to talk to me about it. I had to have meetings and things. I was livid. I thought, cantankerously: can’t they all bugger off and leave me alone? In my wilderness years, however, when I was sacked by everyone and the publishing world had decided I could not write fuck on a dusty blind, I was stalwart and stoical and strangely calm.

I keep thinking of that paradoxical idea of Jung’s. He said that in the shadow lay the gold. His notion was that it is the dark side of the human being that the brilliance lies. You have to walk through the dark wood to find the light.

There has been quite a lot of bad news in the last few months. There have been too many Dear Departeds, human and equine. Out in the world, the news is tragic and shattering. I think that seeps into the psyche. I think the sorrow and the pity wear on the spirit. But it brings out a sort of dogged sense of getting on with it. Life is earnest, life is real, and one must put one’s head down and crack on. I concentrate hard on the small, sweet things. Each morning, the authenticity and dearness and beauty of the red mare anchors me to the earth, and to the true.

When the thing I most hoped for happened, it left me unmoored for 24 hours. I still feel quite peculiar.

Ah well, I think, as I write this, I suppose if things were straightforward, I would expire from the dullness.

 

Today’s pictures:

DAFFS:

They get capital letters because, along with the oystercatchers, they are the gold-plated heralds of spring:

It’s a bit blurry, because he was doing his lurcher velocity, but this Stan the Man action picture had to be included:

More very touching loveliness from the Dear Readers. The thing perhaps I love the most is the thought of people ALL OVER THE WORLD admiring Red the Mare and Stanley the Dog. There have been quite a few comments lately from thousands of miles away, and this makes me smile and smile.

There is a very odd thing about the animals and the internet. A dog show has never crossed my mind, and although I have contemplated competing Red, I know in my heart that we are far too moochy and scruffy for that. But I want them to have their virtual rosettes, their metaphorical silver cups. They are so beautiful and enchanting that I feel this must be marked. And here comes the internet to the rescue – the international panel of judges who are discerning enough to give top marks to the tremendous Stanley ears, and the sweet Red face. It’s unbelievably idiotic of me, but I find that this gives me the keenest pleasure of all.

Stern critical voice is shouting now: stop, stop. You don’t have to tell them everything.

Bizarrely, though, I do.

A moment.

The older I get, the more I think that life is made of moments. Of course there are great life arcs and plans and goals and sweeps. Humans may lift their eyes to the peaks, and not just stare doggedly at the foothills. But perhaps the paradox is that it is in the foothills where one may find the peaks.

Today, there was a moment.

It sleeted in the early morning, and I woke to a sky the colour of doleful rhinos. It will be a practical day, I thought: get the mare fed and check the rugs and carry the hay. Too horrid for anything else.

Then, little by little the sky began to clear.

Perhaps I’ll just take her round the block, in hand, I thought. I’ve been riding a lot lately, and she adores going for a mooch on the end of her rope, and it is one of the things that we do together that I love the most.

Then the sky cleared a little more.

Perhaps I can even take off the rug, I thought.

I wondered if I should ride, after all. The weather was turning fast. But I had this gentle idea of a walk in my head, and I honoured it.

As we walked away from the field, my sister appeared. The sun, as if from nowhere, shone down on us with vivid conviction.

I knew the sister was busy. I looked at her. ‘Just round the block?’ I said.

So we walked and talked. We talked about everything: life, death, family, love, fear, regret. I had the lovely sister on one side and the lovely mare on the other, and the Scottish hills and the blue sky beyond.

My sister has just lost a friend. She was a friend of all of ours. I remember her from my childhood. She was Italian and she was the most cosmopolitan, glamorous creature I had ever seen. She was always laughing and saying outrageous things. She became my sister’s bosom companion and they spoke of everything. We watched her bring up three impossibly tall, gentle, clever boys. And then she died. The funeral was last week.

That is why we spoke of life and death.

I said: ‘I think that when you get to our age, one death is all deaths. I think it makes us grieve Dad all over again.’

We contemplated this.

I said: ‘We will get through the sadness together.’

I meant all the sadness. The middle of life is when you know that sadnesses will come, not in single spies but in battalions. The only thing you can do is work out some kind of way of dealing with them, so that you are not drowning but waving. At the moment, my main plan is: love, and sticking together. My sister and I shall stick together. The whole family will stick together. I love my family very much today.

The moment came at the end of this long walk and this long conversation.

The three of us were standing, in the sunshine, getting ready to part. The sister and I were finishing our talking. She is leaving tomorrow, so we did a farewell hug. The mare, her sweet head low and relaxed, her eyes soft, her big body gentle and at home in the world, turned to the sister. She gave her velvet muzzle, and the sister stroked it. The mare was very, very still. She was offering something.

I have a secret theory that the kind ones, with the big hearts, can sense human sorrow. A simple moment of sympathy ran between the human and the horse. I watched it, and I felt more touched and proud of my thoroughbred girl than if we had done twenty flying changes. There was something so authentic and generous in that moment that it brought tears to my eyes.

As I walked Red back to the field and gave her her breakfast, as I watched her go politely to her place and stand, waiting for me to put the bowl down in the yellow grass, whinnying a little in anticipation, I thought for the hundredth time what a miracle mare she is. A flinging pied wagtail, the first of the spring, suddenly flew in over our heads and settled on the ground, preening itself in the sun. There was another moment.

Write it down, write it down, shouted the voice in my head. The moments must be recorded. The small moments – of love, of joy, of reality, of honesty, of being alive – are what make me human and actual and true. If I can stack up enough of them, then perhaps there will always be a light, on the darkest day.

I think: I never really know what this blog is for. I think: perhaps it is for this. It is the place where the moments can be stored. It is the crock of gold. It is, as I so often say, because Yeats lives in my head like a singing thing, so that I can take down that book, and slowly read.

 

Today’s pictures:

There was no camera with us on our walk this morning, but this is what we look like – deep in conversation and thought, with the sympathetic wonder-mare by our side:

And from today:

And speaking of generosity and authenticity – oh, oh, the Dear Readers. What enchanting things you said yesterday. I smiled and smiled and smiled. Kindness of strangers; little arrows of sweetness from one unknown heart to another. That is what the internet is for. It never ceases to amaze me. Thank you.

An ordinary Monday.

I went off the blog partly because I was fraught and tired and I needed a small rest. But it was also because I found I was getting a bit needy. This is one of the dangers of the kindness of the internet. If the obliging comments do not come, I feel absurdly sad and deprived. This is a perfectly tragic thing to admit, but frankness is the only thing that obtains here. (Perhaps that is why sometimes I have to take a break; too much truth is sometimes exhausting. It might be less tiring to put on a lovely, shiny, impervioius front for you and do a tap dance, but that is not the point of the thing at all.)

The work is still demanding, and there is never enough time, although I have recalibrated a little. So the blog is going to stay minimal for a while. I am going to train myself not to mind if nobody even notices it is there, let alone writes anything at the bottom. Really, one must learn to be a little more of an island, although I believe that everyone does have a causeway. (Strained metaphor klaxon goes off in the background.)

For some reason, it is important to me that the thing is here, chugging along. I shall not have any deep thoughts or wade into the controversies of the day. It shall be a mere digest of an ordinary life.

Today:

Red mare at her sweetest, funniest and most dopey. One glorious canter. Good family breakfast. The daffodil shoots are really motoring now, poking up through the thin turf as if they mean it. The snowdrops are going like gangbusters, and the crocuses look more robust than usual. There is the daily sound of birdsong, and the oystercatchers have come in from the coast for their spring visit. I feel a sense of hope in the air.

882 words of secret project written. No way yet of telling if they are good words or bad words. But at least they are words.

I take a moment to watch a couple of races at Southwell, where the sun is shining. Today is a very lowly day’s racing. Compared to the glorious champions of Cheltenham to come, these are what might be called moderate horses. No crowd of fifty thousand will ever rise to them. They will go into no hall of fame. But they are still lovely in their own right: handsome, willing creatures, galloping along with their ears pricked, doing their best. Some of them put in mighty leaps, sure and soaring. I think of all the pleasure they will give their owners and trainers, and the people who look after them so well.

Everyone is now thinking of the Champion Hurdle and the Gold Cup, but someone today will still get enormous joy out of the Class 5 Novice Handicap Hurdle. I feel there is some sort of profound life lesson in this, but I can’t quite dig it out. I think it is something to do with victories not having to be big, flashy, headline-grabbing ones. They can be small and potent, sweetly private, unwitnessed by whooping crowds. It does not mean they are any the less real.

 

Today’s pictures:

Critical voice says: that was not a very well-written or inspiring blog. Do it again, says the critical voice, furiously. Ordinary, practical, everyday voice says: oh really, do bugger off. The Dear Readers will understand. A little ordinariness is not ever a bad thing.

Caesura.

Going off the blog for a bit. Have to get some serious work done. When I am not tied to my desk, wrangling prose, I shall be in the field, with the good Scottish air on my face, and Stanley the Dog dancing his lurcher dance, and this person, who was at her crest and peak of loveliness and glory and beauty today, and who opened up my bashed old heart and made it fly into the sky.

Every day I think I could not love her more, and every day I do.

No blog today.

Time defeated me. A lovely ride in the morning and then HorseBack work and outside work and book work and the hours roared away. I have made a ruthless choice. Either I could watch three races from Bangor, or I could do the blog. I CHOSE BANGOR. There is no health in me.

Back to normal tomorrow.

 

Some quick pictures for you:

Herself has been taking her mud bath. Very good for the complexion, don’t you know:

This made me laugh and laugh. Stanley the Dog diligently helping The Horse Talker with ground-tying training. He would not leave her side until the job was done:

Even though he still has pesky critters to track down in the feed shed.

In which the thoughts break for the border.

Oh, I had such a marvellous blog for you today. It wrote itself in my mind this morning, full of light and laughter, signifying everything. It was about life and death and the human heart and the whole damn thing.

And now it is gone.

I do not know where it is gone.

The day took it.

There was a canter this morning on the red mare which was so free and lovely that I leapt off and kissed her all over her sweet white face. She put up with it, although she knows that is not what professional horsewomen do. Then I just hung out with her for a while. We watched the buzzards in the woods.

Then I did 1292 words and HorseBack work and had no time to cook so ate a ham sandwich instead. I quite love a ham sandwich.

I did think about life and death and the whole damn thing and some of the thoughts were not bad. One of them, I seem to think, was even a bit of a Eureka moment. It’s just I can’t remember any of them now.

I’ll sharpen up tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here is my lovely love:

 

Oh, how I would love to tell you that she walks towards me like that because I have worked so well with her and understand the equine heart and have made myself mistress of that glorious thing the old horsemen call feel and that really I am another Ray Hunt, in a green Scottish field. I would love to say it is because she knows I am her human and I shall never let her down and that she is stitched into me so that I cannot tell where I end and she begins.

In fact, she is looking at me like that because I have her breakfast.

Remembering the great old gentleman. Or, the internet is surprising.

Crazy, long day, so packed with work that I thought my ears would fall off. My time management continued poor, especially as I thought that industrial amounts of caffeine might help. All that happened was that I grew slightly manic and my fingers were too trembly to type accurately.

I’m too tired to write of my day, which was interesting, and shall record it tomorrow. But one incredibly touching thing happened, and I want to tell you the story of that before I fall off my chair.

There is a tremendous organisation called The Amateur Jockeys’ Association. My father was its president for many, many years. It runs a very good Twitter feed, and I have become friendly with @amajox because they often say lovely things about my dad, and remember him well. It’s one of those interesting relationships that builds up through the ether, between people who have never clapped eyes on each other. We even make little jokes at each other, getting especially excited whenever a female jockey rides a great race, as rather a lot of them have lately. The hashtag #girlsontop gets deployed, with lots of exclamation marks and happy smiles.

Anyway, today, at dear old Plumpton racecourse, one of my father’s favourites, the 3.40 was for the Gay Kindersley Memorial Salver. To mark the occasion, The Amateur Jockeys’ Association tweeted a wonderful photograph of my dad jumping a fence, with a most characteristic gritted-teeth expression. I know that face so well that it made me laugh and it made me cry. It was the face he made when he knew he was getting away with it, because he had almost certainly been roistering about the night before. (As well as being very courageous, he was very, very naughty.)

I took the picture and put it up on Facebook, and people who knew and loved him left sweet comments.

This is what the internet can do. In between crazed sessions of work, I could take five minutes and look at the picture, and look at the remarks underneath, and think of my darling old dad, and smile. I liked thinking of those days when he rode with wild corinthians who threw their hearts over fences. I liked remembering his tremendous physical bravery. He never thought twice when he got on a horse: he just pointed it at the nearest fence and went hell for leather. I’m much more cautious. I’ve ridden work, but never faced five feet of birch at thirty miles an hour. He set a high bar.

He was loved in racing because he was bold and he was a true horseman and he did not swagger. The jokes he made were most often directed against himself. If you really, really wanted to make him laugh, so his shoulders would hop up and down and tears would fall down his cheeks, you only had to tease him about one of his own personal foibles. He did not judge. He took people exactly as they were. He asked merely that they not be dullards. (He had no time for the puffed-up or the pompous either.) He was an outstanding character in a world of characters. He was so completely and utterly himself, and that self was so idiosyncratic and without rules and generous of spirit that people used to smile involuntarily whenever he walked into a room. That is a lovely gift. I never met anyone quite like him.

I think the real reason that I got the red mare, and the real reason I write of her so often, is that she makes me feel close to the old gentleman. I miss him keenly. But today, it was the funny old internet which made me feel close to him, and lifted my heart. That is not necessarily what it was designed for. It is not what it is most used for. But alongside the rants and the trolls and the cute kittens and the inexplicable conspiracy theories, there exists, on the wide prairies of the web, something very human and very good and very true.

 

This was the picture:

Three things I especially love about it, apart from my fa’s expression – the magnificent britches, the kind, honest face of the horse, with ears pricked, and that wonderful old-school position. That’s what they used to do in the fifties, sit back and slip the reins.

The red champion.

A rather manic and quite difficult week. I run hopelessly behind, watching time scoot away from me into the middle distance. But words were written and work was done.

This morning, a small friend came to visit. I have known the small friend since she was born. She is now nine. I took her to see the horses. Could she get on? she asked.

I hesitated. The red mare was in her very best mood, sweet and still and dozy, but even so. She is a fifteen-two thoroughbred and I did not know if she had ever had anyone that young on her back before. Even though I do not believe the stupid stereotypes about ex-racehorses, they are still not children’s ponies. I did some groundwork to further check the mare’s mood, and got on myself for a minute or two. Everything in her world was lovely. The Zen calm ran deep.

The small eager face was turned to mine, all hope. All right, I thought. Why not?

Up she got. The leathers were up to their shortest but still rather long, but this did not seem to bother her. ‘Good GIRL,’ she said, to Red, who put her ears into their most dozy donkey position and walked kindly with her head low and her neck relaxed. Round we went in the field, very slowly, everyone happy as nuts. The small friend smiled and laughed and waved her arms in the air, entirely without fear. ‘Don’t forget to breathe,’ I said.

Red sighed, and went all soft and gentle. The kind ones do sense when they have very precious cargo on their backs, and get an almost protective look in their eyes.

‘Can we trot?’ said the small friend.

We trotted. Red did her smoothest, slowest sitting trot. ‘That is her Maggie Smith trot,’ I said, laughing, as she mooched round like a dowager duchess.

The whole thing was a mighty triumph. When we stopped to pose for photographs, the red mare dozed off. She has just carried a child on her back, I thought, and she did not put a hoof wrong. She was as tender and careful as if it were her own young.

I made the mistake last night of looking at some show horses on the internet. All that elegant collection, all that technical skill. I’m still doing cowboy lopes with my girl; we have not even thought yet about outlines and getting her on the bridle. I felt a bit inadequate. But then she rose to queenly heights this morning, with her small passenger. She did not blink an eyelash. Horses are never perfect, but she was perfect. Bugger collection; she was my champion riding horse, right there in a muddy field, with the sound of laughter ringing through the bright Scottish air.

 

Two pictures today, as gleaming as silver challenge cups:

We did try to get her to pose for the camera and prick her ears, but she was so relaxed that she just went to sleep:

Not her most beautiful look, but one of her sweetest:

Even though she is all muddy and woolly from the winter, she still is an aristocrat among horses. I said to the small friend: ‘Now you can go home and tell everyone that you have ridden the granddaughter of a Derby winner.’ I could not help it. She might have been the slowest flat horse in Britain, but she is bred from champions, and I never quite get over my absurd pleasure in that.

My day gallops off over the horizon. Or, not really a blog at all.

HorseBack ate my day.

There were so many interesting people at HorseBack today, and then so many words to write, and after that so many archive photographs to wade through as part of a tragic cataloguing effort, that my day disappeared in a puff of smoke. Oh, oh, my time management. It does not even deserve the name of time management. It is more time lost down the back of the sofa. And I was doing so well with my blithering twenty minute increments.

Also, I have to tidy up the house, as people are coming, and the state of artistic confusion is not quite as charming as it sounds.

So the day galloped off over the horizon, and I watched it go with regret.

Still, there have been 2992 words of secret project over the last two days, so all is not lost. Even though I did miss the 3.10 at Punchestown. (Luckily, Upsie won.)

 

The red mare does not care. She adores a day off:

A belated day.

My broadband has been off all day, but I wrote this earlier, and thought I would put it up, even though it is far, far too late for pictures. So sorry about that.

 

I meet a fascinating man up at HorseBack. He was a three-day eventer and rode later in points and hunter chases. He is a proper horseman. He knows and loves thoroughbreds.

I am so delighted to meet a kindred spirit that I have to contain myself. I am here for HorseBack work, after all, not to count the ways that the thoroughbred is one of the mightiest creatures ever invented. I do blurt out at one stage, ‘I have a little ex-flat mare.’ Then I remember myself and attempt to shut up. Not everyone necessarily needs to know that.

The ex-flat mare reverted this morning to cow pony, all dopey and relaxed, and then went back again to racehorse. (I definitely think that the deer are making terrible nocturnal noises and her sleep is being disturbed.) When I say racehorse, I mean that she remembers all her power and speed. Most of the time, I have persuaded her to forget those, and go along all gentle and relaxed, with her head down, as if we really are out on the Lonesome Pine.

The difference is palpable. I can feel her grow under me. The energy rises, and she wants to run. All her muscles grow taut and strong.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ I say, not quite sure what has brought this on. ‘We’re all right, old lady.’ I do some lateral flexion and turn her in small circles and figures of eight. This is the fascinating moment. It is when they decide whether they are going to listen to their ancestral voices, or to you. If you have worked them well enough, and built up the trust, and are doing some good deep breathing, they should listen to you. She could run. She is in nothing but a halter. Even if I had a Dutch gag in her mouth, she could run. My strength is nothing to hers.

She makes her choice. She is staying with me. That’s what all the work is for. I know some techniques to bring her down, and I use them, but the foundational thing is that I am her human, and she damn well knows that I will not let the mountain lions get her. That is why she has no need to run, in the end.

We walk back to the field, where we do some nice changes of gait and then have a lovely, loping canter and then stop.

She is back to cow pony again. We meet some architects and she wibbles her lower lip at them. HER GRANDSIRE WON THE DERBY YOU KNOW, I want to yell.

I like it that all that spirit is still in her. Her blue blood will never be denied. I like it that sometimes she challenges me and makes me think. I like it that she never, ever lets me get cocky. The moment I think I’m all that, she throws down a marker, as if she senses I am getting above myself.

I think of all the stupid things that are said about thoroughbreds. I think: if only people knew what you can do with them. Which is anything. That nice horseman knows, I think. I think: it’s like having an Aston Martin. And why would you not want one of those?

An ordinary Monday.

 

A cool, still morning. I ride the mare. She is a little edgy and unsettled. The Horse Talker and I wonder if the foxes or deer have been doing unspeakable things in the woods at night and keeping her awake. (Seriously, this is the kind of thing you have to take into account with horses. Just like humans, they can become scratchy if sleep-deprived.) But even though she is a bit twitchy, she still gives me a flowing canter on a loose rein.

HorseBack. First time up there with Awesome back and her filly not. There is a palpable space in the field. I remember this from when little Myfanwy died. You can’t believe such a small person can leave such a big gap. The dear dam is rather shut down, as if someone has thrown a veil over her. For a moment, I think: is that really Awesome? She looks different: darker, diminished. I stand with her for a while and she rests her head against my shoulder.

Back at my desk, I write 1699 words, which is a lot. Inspired by my friend The Producer, I make a chicken soup. I forget the pearl barley and it scorches, rather. The soup has an interesting, nutty taste as a result. I sit with failure. Chicken soup is one of the things I am really, really good at and I buggered it up.

I think about failure quite a lot, big and small. I think learning to fail is a life skill which should be studied. Succeeding is easy. Failure is hard. Red had a little spook this morning, which she has not done for weeks. She spun round fast and I almost went flying out the side door. Even though you can’t completely bomb-proof a horse, I have been desensitising for months just to avoid this kind of event, and for a moment I felt the black bird of shame hovering. Then I thought, sod it, she’s a horse. I did not fall off. She did not gallop away. She just got a little fright. So we went into the scary woods. It was like a test, mostly of myself. There was a bit of snorting, but we trotted kindly up the sharp hill into the dark places, and then rode back on the buckle. All was not lost. Quite a lot, in fact, was found.

The Dear Readers have said some very nice things lately. I always find this both touching and slightly surprising. It never gets old. Sometimes I feel a bit bogus, because even though I admit to fears and frailties, life always sounds better when it is written in sentences. The reality scruffier and muddlier and more fraught than you see here. But there is a lot of love in it, and today I think: that’s all that damn well counts.

 

Rather dim and dreary today, so no pictures. Here are two from Friday, when the sun shone.

My favourite Minnie the Moocher. She comes to say hello, with head down, donkey ears, and delicate toe:

And later, eating her hay, with her questing face on:

My funny Valentine.

Everybody has their different talents. I am good at: horses, chicken soup, not dangling modifiers. I am bad at: tennis, filing, and beef stew. (I’ve never cracked the secret of beef stew. I’ve tried twenty different versions. It is never bad, but it is always very, very slightly disappointing.)

I am catastrophically bad at romantic love. I never got the hang of it. I always did it with completely unsuitable people, for a start. They were charming, funny, intelligent and fantastically unreliable. They always left. Then I would take to my room and listen to Leonard Cohen records and be unable to speak for quite a long time.

Even when it was going well, I wasn’t much good at it. I found the swinging from chandeliers stage exhausting. Even when I was very young, I longed for the violent emotion of the early stages of love to pass, and the nice steady part to arrive. Since my relationships were always dramatic, short and doomed, I never got to the nice steady part. I still imagine it must be quite soothing.

In the end, I gave it up as a bad job. Lucky for me, I never wanted to get married or have children. I think people thought this was a form of bolshiness, but it was merely something that did not call to me, just as some people do not wish to live in New York or play piano concertos.

I used to get perfectly furious about the horrid patronising view that single people were somehow less than. I would issue rolling rants about the miseries and compromises and lonelinesses that are hidden away in the dark corridors of a romantic relationship. I have seen the despair that can exist behind the facade of a publicly perfect marriage.

Now, I don’t care. I don’t rant. I grow old; I wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Everyone has their thing. Not all relationships, it turns out, hide secret misery. Some are perfectly lovely. My friend the World Traveller is brilliant at marriage and family. It really is her special skill. She and her husband like each other and want the same things and laugh at each other’s jokes. The great-nephew and nieces are some of the nicest and happiest children I know. When I see them all together, I want to hang out flags. They are a family at ease with themselves; they are a roaring success. The World Traveller did that, and I’m always rather in awe of the women who are good at making a family. I also feel very, very grateful to them, for doing it, so I do not have to.

But one strand quietly remains, of my early firebrand objections. It is that I still protest at the privileging of romantic love over all others. I think the other loves are possibly more important. I live easily and delightfully without romantic love, but I would be undone without friend love, family love, place love. The love I feel for Scotland endures like the blue hills that make my heart beat. The feeling of being stitched into a various and extended family is one of the high joys of my existence. The old friends, who have seen me straight and seen me curly, and know all my weaknesses, and love me anyway, are perhaps my greatest gift.

There is the dog love. You all know about that. I still miss my Duchess and my Pigeon. Their sleekness and kindness and funniness and beauty are still stitched into my heart. Now there is Stan the Man, the eccentric lurcher. (Actually, that is a bit of a tautology. All lurchers are eccentric.) He is lying beside me as I write this, his amber eyes regarding me quizzically. I love him because he is characterful and handsome and gentle. I love that he can run like a racehorse. I like his great athleticism. I admire the fact that he is going to catch that damn mouse in the feed shed, or die in the attempt.

There are other smaller loves which are important too, some of them so small they may hardly be seen by the naked eye. I love trees and politics and racing and books. I love lichen. I love the poems of TS Eliot and the songs of David Bowie and the paintings of Stubbs. I love talking about the big questions, which don’t have any definitive answers. What constitutes the good life? How did the Big Bang bang? What’s it all about, Alfie? How is it that the human heart may take so many blows and still endure?

And above all this soars the red mare.

It turned out that I got a love of my life after all. I never thought I would. I was so crashingly hopeless at gentlemen that I had thought I would have all the many other loves, but not a single, over-arching one. And then, by the merest sliver of chance, a horse appeared, who was useless at racing and useless at polo and should have gone to China, only the man with the lorry never pitched up. In that most random way, she came into my life.

At the beginning, I thought it would be a nice thing, to get me away from my desk, to remind me of my darling dad, to return me to something I was once good at. I did not know that it would turn out to be my one true love.

But that is what she is. I can’t even begin to count the ways. I love her kindness, her cleverness, her comedy skills, her courage, her authenticity. I love that she is a bit of a duchess and that her pedigree is crammed with Derby winners. I love that she goes back to the Byerley Turk, three times, on the bottom line. I love her power and her grace. I love her smell. I love that she does not give a bugger about the superficial things. She knows what is important. I love that sometimes, when she hits a perfect stride, it feels as if we are flying. I love that she knows I am her human and that she may rely on me. It feels like a gift.

And that is why, on this Valentine’s Day, I have no yearning for hearts and flowers. I don’t secretly long for dinners by candlelight or grand romantic gestures. Valentine’s Day is thought to be an excruciating thing for singles. But you see, I have my love. I hope you have yours. I hope it is not the kind that fits neatly onto a Hallmark card.