The secret language of horses

‘Horses – beautiful, noble, intelligent creatures,’ said the neighbour I was having tea with.

‘There speaks someone who has never had to deal with them,’ I said, for I had been run ragged by our four horses since the builder boyfriend had left me at the house in West Cork and had gone to London to do a job.

‘Oh, but they’re so wonderful. I just love to be near them,’ said the lady, who has a left-leaning world view and takes on a faraway look in her eyes whenever animals are mentioned.

We were sitting on the patio close to where the horses were grazing. At that moment, one of the builder boyfriend’s cobs neighed a loud desperate neigh to the right of us and the sound of thundering hooves shook the ground as my mares began galloping the field to the left of us.

The four horses had been turned out as usual that morning, two and two, the mares in one paddock, the geldings in the opposite field.

‘Oh for goodness sake,’ I said, ‘Excuse me,’ and I dumped my tea and ran down the driveway.

My bay thoroughbred Darcy was galloping the Derby from one end of her field to the other, screaming at the top of her voice, chased by her little Palomino companion pony Goldie, whose short legs were going like the clappers to keep up.

In the opposite field, the cobs were nowhere to be seen. I knew exactly what had happened, because it happens every day.

All was fine while the geldings were mooching about where the mares could see them. But after a while the cobs wandered further away, over a hill and across their five-acre field towards the stable yard next to the lane. I had left the gate from the field to the yard open so they could go in there for shade.