‘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.
Horses are intelligent, emotionally. They have a sixth sense we have lost
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.
In they had clip-clopped, and instantly decided that the mares ought to be in there, because they had no way of thinking backwards to remember where the mares were. Seeing that the mares were not there, and having no way of thinking forwards to a sensible solution, they then stood at the gate neighing madly.
And in answer to the distant sound of the cobs neighing, the mares screamed and galloped around panicking.
To explain what horses are really like, I would translate the conversation between the two cobs from the start of this vignette to the finish, as follows:
‘Let’s go for a walk over here. Yes, let’s go all the way into the stable yard. I bet the mares are in here. Oh no! The mares aren’t here. Where are they? Quick, run to the gate and scream at the people going past! Where are our mares! Listen, I can hear the mares…Oh no! They’re screaming over there somewhere! What is someone doing to them? Help! HELP! Somebody help us! Somebody help our mares! Oh hang on a minute, she’s coming… She’s opening the gate. She’s putting on our head collars. She’s leading us back down the driveway to the… Oh, I see, this driveway leads to some fields. And the mares are in that field on the left… Did you know that? No, it’s a complete shock to me. So we’re going into this field on the right, are we? Hello mares! In we go. Mmmm, this grass by the gate is nice. This grass further in is nice too. I might try some of the grass over here. Me too. Why don’t we go over that hill? Yes, let’s go all the way into the stable yard. It’s shut but I bet we can see the mares in there… Oh no! Where are the mares! Somebody help us!’
Horses are intelligent, emotionally. They have a sixth sense we have lost. They are beautiful.
But they do not have the ability to think in any dimension other than the instant present, which means they are perpetually on the verge of panic. It doesn’t take much to freak them out, which is partly why I have never been a fan of dressage, which lefties seem to have liked disproportionately for years –more than, say, racing, on the basis that dressage is slow and looks pretty.
How do people think they make those horses bounce and pick their feet up high? It’s going to have to involve some form of aversion training. Even if the whip is a bit of string, effectively, it’s freaking them out to make them bounce, so their energy goes up, not out. Racing, and hunting for that matter, allows a horse to run straight and fast, head out, airways open, legs all over the place, as is natural.
If horses naturally cantered round precisely with their feet neatly in the air, then I would not have to keep so much gaffer tape and vet wrap in to bind up the thoroughbred’s bare hoof every time she loons around legs akimbo and pulls a shoe off, then refuses to put her bare foot to the ground: ‘My foot feels funny! Help! Oh, hang on, she’s coming… What’s she doing? No! I won’t let you put that stuff on my foot! Get off me! Get lost! Oh that’s nice. Oh that’s brilliant. I can walk now. I can run round…’
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