In which I learn a miraculous new way of working on the ground; or, more horse talk

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

After the pointless rage and grump of yesterday, I woke early and went up to the mare. The inexplicable bad mood had gone, faded away like smoke, but I was faintly wary. It was time to ride for the first time in her new home. She was just settling in the glen, and then had to be moved again. So that is two new places in as many weeks. It was strangeness on strangeness. And these are wide open spaces, where anything could happen.

I have been slightly surprised by how not scared I have been. Taking a new horse out alone into surroundings which are unknown to her and to me, as I have been doing for the last couple of weeks, could be quite a daunting prospect. I just did it, because if you think about things too much then you can get stalled.

Two things worked in my favour. One was that, because of being put into the saddle so young, I feel entirely at ease on a horse. It is like going home, for me. Even though it is reaching back over many, many years, that ingrained instinct survives, miraculously intact. There is no sense of anything alien or forgotten. It’s a bit like if you have been abroad, talking in a second language, and then you come back and may suddenly speak your native tongue.

The second great advantage is that there is nothing mean or nasty in Red. She has her little spooks and freaks, but that is all about acclimatising. She is not trying to get me off or thinking of wicked things to do. When she gets frightened, I can feel her heart beating in her chest. This makes me, oddly, more confident, because it is up to me to be the lead horse, to calm and comfort her. It gives me a good and important job to do. Therefore I have no time for nerves myself; I am entirely focused on the task in hand.

But too much time to think is fatal. Because of the move and the snow, I had not ridden her for four days. I was out of the rhythm. My imagination had space to kick in, worrying slightly about possible trouble. As I tacked her up, something startled her, and she got herself into a bit of a state. She started fussing with her head, and jumping about a bit.

Miraculously, I had, only yesterday, stumbled upon a brilliant article about working with your horse on the ground, by a woman called Ruth Mazet. Her idea is that, to get your horse to relax and trust you, you should tack it up and then walk it about the field for fifteen minutes. It sounds a bit hokey, and it is certainly not a technique I have ever used, or would have thought of myself. It turns out to be the single most helpful thing I have done with my mare.

It’s not just any old walking; you must make shapes, keep changing direction, do small circles this way and that. It’s a way of establishing yourself as the lead horse, and also maintaining your own space. (This is incredibly important when working with a horse; if they crowd or barge you, it means they are not giving you their respect, and think they can walk all over you, literally and metaphorically.)

Well, I thought, I don’t want to get on the mare in this state. I’ll do the creative walking. So, off we went. Fuss, fuss, startle startle, went Red. I let out the lead rope and did a little bit of lunging, first in one direction and then the other, keeping my body upright and open. I let her get all her fussing out, and did not take much notice of it. Come on, I said, firmly; trot on.

Then we did more of the special walking, this way and that, with me always slightly in front. After ten minutes, I did not even need the rope; she was anticipating each move, and following me like a puppy. I laughed out loud. It was absolutely bloody brilliant. I do not know very much about Ruth Mazet, but I think she may be a horse genius. It is such a profoundly simple technique, and such an amazingly effective one, and I bless her for it.

Then I got on and off we went. The mare was quite calm, but on alert, still very conscious that she had not been here before. She snorted out of her nostrils, as if to say: what the hell is this place?

And just as I was reassuring her that it was all fine, and here be no monsters, a huge fat pheasant whirred into life right under her feet. The noise of a pheasant taking off is alarming enough, that rolling, clucking rattle, but when it practically flies into your legs, it is enough to make anyone jump.

Red jumped, like a cartoon horse, straight up into the air, landing about three feet to the right of where she started. I blessed my old dad. I think I really did inherit his seat. Anyway, whatever it was, I was not at all dislodged. The funny thing about this is that it is the kind of incident that could disconcert, at the start of a ride, but it had the opposite effect. Oh, all right, I thought, if that’s the worst you’ve got, then there’s nothing to worry about. If I had been hanging half out of the saddle, I might have fretted, but I wasn’t. We’re going to be all right, I said, merrily, to my horse.

So I showed her the place. She was a bit surprised by the skittering newborn lambs, calling for their mothers, and faintly convinced that there might be mountain lions lurking somewhere on the horizon, so I let her pause a couple of times to take everything in. We walked and walked, and once she was stretching out her neck, we did a long slow trot, and then a collected canter. There was no zoominess, no shaking of the head, no veering about. She was listening to me, paying attention. The harmony I had glimpsed last week returned, in a great wave.

I smiled and laughed and patted her and stroked her withers and said oh, oh, oh, you are such a good girl. Any tiny fears I might have had were banished.

I tell you all this because it really does seem like a miracle to me. It is a huge thing to ask a new horse to come into an entirely foreign place and learn to trust a new rider. She is not an old hack; she is a thoroughbred who was bred for racing and trained for polo. The building of trust and respect is not a given; horses are not machines who just come out of the lorry and perform exactly as you may wish. We take all these new steps together, and each move forward feels like a vast victory, a much much better thing than I ever did before.

The other interesting thing is that she likes work. After the ride, she was much more settled, happier in herself. After I untacked her, she leant her head against my chest and let me scratch the special place behind her ears that she loves. She lipped gently at my hand. All thought of frets and alarms was forgotten. I felt my heart bloom in my chest.

There is a thing which the psychologists talk about called flow. It is a sort of zen state of mind when you are so absorbed in some demanding task that all extraneous worries and miseries are banished. The task, apparently, must be quite difficult; you can’t just do anything.

When I am with my mare, I get close to something like that. All my attention is demanded. I am constantly listening to what she is telling me; I am concentrating on beaming messages of confidence and reassurance back to her; I am remembering my body position and feeling my physical self tune into the movements of the horse.

I am learning, every day, to interpret the tiniest tremor in her, to tell whether it is genuine alarm, which must be soothed, or a hint of silliness or trying it on, with which I shall have no truck. I am learning how much leg she needs, how to get her smoothly into a lovely rolling trot or a gentle canter, how to turn her with my body, how to keep her balanced.

Back and forth we go, in the mind department, horse to human, human to horse. There is no room for anything else. The world shrinks, and there is just this one true thing.

 

No time for photographs today. (I am still working out how to balance morning stables and evening stables with writing an actual book; some things are getting lost in the mix.) So here are a few snaps from the last few days of snow:

Red's view:

Obligatory equine loveliness:

SNOW DOG:

And contemplative for her close-up:

Hill:

If any of you are riders, and are interested, the Mazet technique is here:

 http://www.yourhorse.co.uk/Improve-your-riding/Search-Results/Riding-advice/General/How-to-calm-your-horse---Groundwork/

I can't recommend it highly enough.

 

Ps. When I say morning and evening stables, I am reverting to the language of my childhood. It refers to the times of day when the horses were mucked out, watered, fed, groomed, worked, and generally checked over. Red, of course, is not in a stable, but I think of the routine like that. Up I go first thing, to brush her and pick out her hooves and take her out for a ride and then settle her back in her field. Up I go last thing, to feel her legs, make sure her water trough is clean and clear, check her rug is in position and not rubbing her, and generally have a bit of a chat. Morning and evening stables, just like my dad did his entire working life.

Grumpy

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Thump, thump, thump, goes the sound of me falling back down to earth. I suddenly realise I have been in a joy haze for the last three weeks. I suppose it had to wear off eventually. Even Red the Mare cannot entirely defeat the human condition.

I like to present a good front for the blog. Everyone has their griefs and grumps; I’m not sure they have time to indulge someone else’s wail.

Wailing is pretty dull. Witness the current outrage on Twitter over the fact that a faintly narcissistic woman called Samantha Brick is complaining that all women hate her because she is beautiful. (I am not over-simplifying for effect; she really did say that.)

Everyone got furious and some people were disproportionately horrible. Then Mrs Brick wrote a triumphant follow-up saying, See, See – this just proves my point.

I think the reason people got so furious was not because of the rather odd lack of self-awareness or empathy displayed in the piece, but that a woman was moaning about something which many people crave. I think also it was such a silly moan. I think of moaning as a waiting till you see the whites of their eyes kind of thing; don’t waste your emotional capital on small, insignificant things, because you are going to need it when the big battalions roll into town.

This is why I hate moods so much. Most of the time my emotions are explicable, and rather straightforward. As someone in Nancy Mitford once said, I think it might have been Linda in The Pursuit of Love: I’m simple soul; I laugh when I’m happy and cry when I’m sad.

Sometimes I get ambushed by emotion: I’ll think I’m having a perfectly fine day and then suddenly find I am sobbing for my dead dog. But at least that makes sense: there was a creature I adored, and I miss her, and sometimes that makes water come out of my eyes. I’m not frightened of sorrow, perhaps because I listened to so many Leonard Cohen albums at a young age. It hurts but it is a pointful cathartic hurt. It means something profound; that there was someone you loved well, who is no longer there. This sounds quite strange, but it pleases the rationalist in me. Imagine if you lost someone and felt nothing. That would be truly terrifying.

What I don’t like are the uncomfortable, grating, scratching, pointless emotions. Every so often, I get the feeling of being stuck. I feel almost physically constrained. I don’t want to walk the dog, cook the lunch, tidy the office. (Who am I fooling? I never want to tidy the office.) Everything seems heavy and dull. I am grumpy and demoralised. That is how I feel today.

Don’t tell the Dear Readers that, yells the strict keep buggering on voice. Make something up. Say something funny. Be goofy and romantic about your horse. Don’t wimp and wail and whine. Stop sitting there gazing at your navel and do something useful.

Nothing horrible has happened; everything is as fine as it was yesterday. But for some reason the cloud of unreason has swooped (can clouds even swoop?) and I am in a rage. I wish this stupid flat cold weather would sod off. I don’t want any more stupid buggery snow on the ground. Yesterday it was pretty and scenic; today it is just dirty and irritating. I want to ride again. I don’t want to take the mare out for the first time in her new home in this weather; also, the snow tends to ball up in her hooves, so it’s not safe. I want the balmy sun on my back, and hers. I want to see the Pigeon sniffing about in the fecund, spring earth. I want to be able to go out in the garden and gaze happily on the green shoots of promise, instead of worrying about the cold crimping everything.

See? It's like being six years old. I want I want I want.  It really is not a world-shattering problem. I sit in a warm house in a democratic country where I have the vote and many, many human rights. I am not being oppressed. I can type. I am the lucky recipient of manifold blessings. I have a horse, for God’s sake. (In my crazed, irrational mind, this of course mean I am never allowed to be miserable again, even for a single second. Which may be the heart of the matter, since I have a tendency to think this anyway. It is as if I have a duty to be happy, because I am not living in the Congo.)

It’s just a grumpy day. This is the warp and weft of the human condition. Everyone has grumpy days.

Now I would like a nice final sentence to round everything off. Preferably something mordant and ironical and a bit funny in that cross, amusing way that the grumpy people on television manage. I rummage in my brain. Brain says: are you joking? Brain eyes me as if it would like to punch me in the nose. I back off.

No final sentence then. Just some stupid snow pictures:

Red, from yesterday, looking ravishing, as always:

But even the Pidge looks slightly fed up. Although she does sometimes affect this look as a joke when I point the camera at her, like a supermodel who has just been on one too many shoots:

Hill:

In which six inches of snow turns out not to be a disaster, after all

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Red is absolutely fine. I rush up first thing, over untreated roads and under trees shivering with snow, in a panic, convinced I shall find her huddling under the trees, looking miserable. Instead, I find her with her head up, gazing to the west. She appears fascinated by the west. The fantasist in me thinks, of course, because that is where Morven is, and Morven is my favourite mountain. The realist thinks it is because there is a wide plain there, and she is scanning it for friends or foes.

I bless the new rug technology. It really is extraordinary. The mare stood out all night in cold and snow, and when I put my hand on her neck, under its cover, it was warm as toast. Her ears were a little damp, that’s all. She looked pleased to have her alfalfa feed, but lost interest halfway through, which delighted me, as I feared she might have been hungry, what with the grass being under six whole inches of white stuff.

Instead, she decided she would have a huge old roll. I always think rolling is a good sign in horses; it means they are  relaxed and at ease. It’s also very good for their backs, as it stretches out all the muscles. Red had a tremendous go, over both sides, up again, down again, and then a little jaunty canter round, as if to say: look at me.

That, I thought, is not a miserable horse.

I went in to have a cup of coffee with the World Traveller.

‘That mare is so clever,’ I said. ‘She digs little hole in the snow with her nose and then eats the grass underneath.’

The World Traveller smiled and nodded.

‘The horses in Kazakhstan do that,’ she said.

I probably should explain about the World Traveller. She is my step-niece by marriage. To most people that would not mean much, but I am mad for extended family, so to me it means a lot. She is married to my landlord, and it is in their glorious field that the mare now makes her home.

I call her the World Traveller because everyone gets a name on this blog, to protect their privacy, and because she once rode across China on a horse.

You do see.

I think it is one of the most impressive things I ever heard. So she shall always be the Traveller to me.

The other amazing thing is that she never brags about it. Some people might say that thing about Kazakhstan in a swanky sort of way. Not the World Traveller. She says it in the most low-key, ordinary way, as if she had just told me she had been to the Co-op. I could not have a better person to watch over Red.

The Old Fella emails with more excellent advice and encouragement. He is a very busy man, out working with his horses all the hours of the day, so I am incredibly touched that he should take the time. (He is also my relation by marriage, so that is more of my adored extended family in action.)

I was fretful and a little spooked myself last night. I suddenly realised what a huge responsibility this is, and how much I had forgotten about the ways of equines. But today there was so much kindness and goodness from the family, and the mare seemed so calm and happy, that I was quite restored to happiness. For once, it seems, I do not have to do everything on my own. My stubborn refusal to ask for help is cast aside, as this turns into a lovely joint enterprise. It feels like a little bit of a life lesson. And there is almost nothing I love more than a life lesson.

 

Pictures of our snowy day.

Home:

 

SNOW DOG:

Blinky eyes and snow on the nose. Really is a bit too much:

This reminded me so much of my dear, departed Duchess, who adored the snow. I got a bit of a lump in my throat. I miss her still.

And, up at Red's place. This is her view:

Here she is, looking out over it, queen of all she surveys:

Having her supper:

Hoping I may have apples in my pockets:

Oh, that face.

And finally, the hill:

Oh, and may I say to the good people at Landa Rugs: you are very, very clever indeed.

Weather

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Can think of nothing but the weather. I am so delirious with excitement about getting Red away from her muddy, bare livery paddock and into her new lush surroundings that I rather ignore the snow warnings. Anyway, I always think people exaggerate these things.

Sure enough, snow starts to fall in the morning. In a panic, I drive halfway across the county to an excellent equestrian establishment to buy extra rugs and feed. Then the snow stops and the mercury rises and I feel like a bit of a fool.

A brilliant woman with a lorry arrives after lunch, and we take the mare up to her new quarters. I lead her out. Cue very, very surprised face, and most theatrical jump at the sight of an unexpected blue Landrover. She is back in unknown territory. Up goes the head, scanning the horizon for threats. I talk to her and gentle her and give her treats. The great nieces and nephew come out and stare at her in awe.

Into the new field, Red gets her head down, and within five minutes is relaxed as an old hound, pulling away in delight at the good grass. Every so often she puts her head up, and stares into the distance, as if searching for Morven, which is lost in the mist. As I leave her, I look back, and see her gazing out to the west.

At home, I think yearningly of her. I remind myself that horses are tough old things, and that they are much better and happier out in the field. But now the snow is falling, and my heart falls with it.

Then two emails arrive. One is from The Old Fella, who sold her to me. He is the best horseman I know. Don’t worry, he instructs; all his horses stay out all winter. He believes in the field. I calm down and little, and send him a long and grateful reply, with, as usual, far too much information in it. I don’t know if, when we shook on the deal, he knew that he was going to get endless long and winding emails about the mare’s progress. In the last one I sent I wrote a lyrical ballad about how much I love her.

Then, The World Traveller, who can see the mare from her window, sent a bulletin. Head down, happily munching away, she wrote. I shall keep an eye on her, she wrote. I feel passionately grateful.

The snow is slackening a bit now. At least there is no wind. We are going to build her a shelter in the next few days, and she has a good clump of trees to doze under. She will be fine. But all the same, I resolve to go up at seven tomorrow and take her a big bucket of alfalfa, to keep her insulated from the cold.

Bloody Scotland. The mildest winter in years, the hottest spring day on record, and now there is idiotic snow. I shake a fist at the weather gods.

 

No time for pictures today, I was too busy running around on horse business. (Just in case the agent is reading: did also do a huge amount of book.)

Here are a couple of quick girls for you:

In which a Dear Reader rashly asks a question

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I always like inventing new traditions on the blog. They almost never last, but I am marvellously excited about them at the moment of invention. Sunday is usually a day for pictures, because it is the day of rest after all, and I like rest. But with the horse, I am up every day by seven, so there is no more lounging about in bed like Lady Muck. This means I have more hours, and therefore time to type.

So, I thought, perhaps Sundays should become Answer Readers’ Questions day.

One of the things I find hard about blog etiquette is the comments. You leave such charming and funny and thought-provoking comments and I want to reply to each one. I do not always have the time, and then I worry that I shall have replied to some but not others and fear someone will be offended or feel that I have been discourteous. This grows particularly acute in the case of questions. It’s one thing when someone says something kind and I do not say thank you, it’s quite another order of magnitude when a polite inquiry is made and there is silence de glace.

Also, sometimes the question needs a long answer, too long for the confines of the comment box. I am fatally addicted to long answers. (I can’t remember if I told you one of the best pieces of advice I ever got, from my brilliant and wise friend The Playwright. It is, if in doubt, say 50% less than you normally would. It sounds a little odd, but it’s gloriously empowering. Also, if you are a chatterbox like I am, rather restful. And good for honing one’s listening skills. Sadly, as you see, I have not yet applied it to the blog, which continues rambly and tangential.)

So, this may be a new Sunday tradition. It’s this Sunday’s tradition, at least.

One of the Dear Readers asked about the horse being at livery. This, interestingly, links up with another Dear Reader’s query from a while ago, about why it took so long for me to get a horse.

This provokes, I am afraid, a very, very long answer indeed.

The not having a horse thing is quite odd, now I think of it. I love them, I know them, riding them is one thing I can do pretty well. I was trained in dressage and cross-country; I did a bit of show-jumping; I even learned side-saddle, although I never really got the trick of it. (The Sister was the side-saddle queen. You should have seen her. She looked like something out of a Sargent painting.)

It wasn’t just that, growing up in a racing yard, I was put on a pony before I was two, and never got off again, it was also that our mother believed that if we were going to ride, we should do it properly. So off I went to the legendary Mrs Payne, recently sadly departed, who made us go over cavalettis with no irons and no reins. You had to do it with your arms crossed. Looking back now, that amazes me. It was a brilliant learning technique though; it taught you balance and strength and how to ride with your body. It was also very good for inculcating the excellent habit of never getting on your pony’s mouth.

I loved it all. I was good at it and worked hard at it. It taught me many valuable life lessons, mostly about dedication and determination. It all stopped when I was fourteen, and we moved abroad. Then there was London, and boys, and later university and work and my giddy twenties.

When I came here, I did think about a horse, but where I live is not set up for equines. There is no stabling and the fields by me are full of sheep and cows and Virginia the pig. There is a livery down the road, but I had always associated riding with looking after your own horse in your own place. The idea of farming it out to a strange yard went against every grain.

Then my father died. He was an old horseman to his boots. One of the Dear Readers has suggested that I am channelling his spirit a bit now, with all this new equine life, and I think there is something in that. There is also the acute sense of mortality, which still runs strong in me. (I hope and think it will settle down a bit, as time passes and soothes, but just now it lives vividly in my mind.) I have one skill in which I was trained from very early childhood, and I am not using it. The more I thought of it, the more I was acutely aware of a sense of waste. I hate waste.

As the vague thought sharpened and deepened, I went south, and there was Red, in the Beloved Cousin’s field, waiting for me, like a sign. So I made the radical decision. Livery would be fine, I thought; lots of people do it.

Livery, it turns out, is not fine at all. If you have grown up in a yard, it’s a jarring shock going into someone else’s set-up. They have all their ideas and you have yours, and there are the wild spaces in between. The riding is magnificent, through a wild glen, but there was a profound sense of disconnection and not belonging from the first.

I am very bad at asking for help. I have a morbid fear of any kind of neediness; I hate the idea of being demanding or dependent. I am used to doing things for myself. In a stroke of luck, the Landlord caught me on a bad day, and saw that I was finding difficulty in the new place, and that it was making me sad. He is very protective of his family, and we are family; he took one look at my face and said, ‘I have a field’. He was so stirred by the situation that he said ‘Why don’t you just ride her up tomorrow?’

I did look at the ordnance survey map, but I think seven miles across country is too much for Red and me, so early in our relationship. Imagine the possibility for mountain lions. So a nice woman with a box is coming to collect the mare next week. The field for which Red is destined is enchanting, rich with grazing. (A problem with the livery is that there are many horses there, and the paddocks do not have much grass. Red prefers grass to hay, and roams rather dolefully over the slim pickings. I attempt to comfort her with apples, but she needs good growth, which she shall now have.)

Her new paddock sits under the blue gaze of my favourite mountain, a sleeping giant called Morven, which stands alone, with its flat top, like something rising out of an African plain. It is three minutes up the road. The mare shall be with my smallest relations, the great-nieces and nephew, who are yearning for her. It is the perfect solution. It’s the next best thing to having her outside my window.

So, that is the Dear Reader answer for the day. (It really was shockingly long; I do apologise.)

It has been a lovely animal day. I took the Pigeon to see the mare. Red, safe in her superior size, blinks at the dog, and then ignores her. The Pidge circles around, still getting used to the vast red creature, a mixture of interest and slight uncertainty.

There was one very funny moment when I was doing the horse love, scratching behind the ears, chatting, stroking, murmuring affection. The mare was doing her little head dance, where she presents her face to me for scratching, swings it away, swings it back again. I turned, to see the Pigeon gazing in silent reproach, with a what about me look on her face. When we got home, I took her up to see Virginia the Pig. I gave the old dear some pig nuts, and chatted to her for a bit. Turned round to see the Pigeon face, now completely fed up, clearly saying: oh, no, not the bloody pig.

So now I must do a great deal of Pigeon love to compensate. A throw of the stick, and handful of biscuits, a rub of the tummy, and the thing shall be accomplished. That is my task for the day.

Now for your pictures. This is the time of year I grow obsessed with blossom. Down on our village green, one set of cherry trees is not yet out:



Whilst opposite, these beauties are in full blaze:



There are daffs:



And some lovely tree trunks:






And here is my glorious girl:



I'm afraid you may be getting rather a lot of eye pictures. I adore her eye, with its elegant lashes, and the little white kiss mark above:



Oh, that face:



Sweet Virginia:



Pigeon doing pig-face:



And horse-face. You do see what I mean:



I took her on a tremendous rabbit hunt, to cheer her up:



Until the dear old tail was waving like a flag again:



The hill, under an uncertain sky: