Of horses...

For as long as I can remember, I have loved horses. Everything about them. The shape of them. Their expressive ears, their grace, their smell, their very souls. When I think of horses, I think of speed, and courage, and leaping. I think also, of their immense patience with us. Of the honour it is that they even tolerate us.

I never had the money to own one. I never settled anywhere it would be possible to keep one. So as a youngster, I would help out at a stables in Hyde Park in London, where I learned how to mix feeds, which brushes to use to groom them, how to ask for their feet to pick them out... and how to ride them. How to ride them, that is, by listening to them, asking, not demanding, and causing as little distress to them as possible.

The man who owned the stables was Australian. He had spent his early life as a ranch hand, going for days in the saddle, and camping with his horses in the outback. I watched how he rode, seemingly never lifting a finger of command, being one with his beloved bay, Bourbon. He rode one-handed, me on a leading rein in the other. I have never forgotten the day he handed the rein to me and said: "ok, you're ready. Ride him home."

Years later, tagging along for a lesson with a friend who was learning at a Riding School in Wimbledon, the pony I had been assigned never heard from my legs or my hands as we complied with the commands of the bossy woman shouting orders from the middle of the manége.

“How did you do that?” Asked my friend. “I didn’t see you even move.”

“I didn’t.” I said. “I asked him to do it.”

I had no interest in competition. I still have no interest in it. Riding to me was just that. Riding. Going along for the ride as your horse did what horses do: run, swerve, and jump. Making horses do just what you wanted to do was driving, not riding. I hated Gymkhanas especially. Hard-nosed kids treating their ponies like BMX bikes, playing ‘games’ and getting worked up if their stupid team didn’t win… because I was on it. As for show jumping and that ghastly bell ringing to tell you that you were due in the ring, the sound makes me feel ill to this day.

Fast forward to 2011, I’m 47 and living in a rental in the English countryside, owned by a woman who has been lucky enough to own horses all her life. At this point in time, she has three. Two thoroughbreds (a mother and son) and a cob mare. She asks if I ride. Not since I was about 23, I say. She persuades me that her “fat cob” needs exercise, and asks me to go out with her and a young friend for a hack. I had already met the cob in question. A 15.3hh piebald with dinner plate feet and a hanging lower lip. She had wedged herself halfway through my patio doors as I made a call to family abroad. Apparently having ‘broken out’ of her paddock, she had come curiously to see who the new person was.

“Um, I have to go…” I remember saying down the telephone. “There’s a horse in the conservatory…”

It was love at first sight. I adored her the minute I saw her.

Her name was Bonnie.

When I showed up for my ride, I was told I would need a whip. Or rather a stick.

“Take a stick. She needs a stick.”

The words of my old teacher rang in my ears: “If you need to use a stick, then you’re a lousy bloody rider”.

Not wishing to be rude, I took the stick - and stuck it down my boot where it stayed.

“She won’t keep up if you don’t use it.”

I knew she wouldn’t keep up. Her legs were shorter, and she was old. Her owner claimed she was 19, but when I brought in the equine dentist some months later for her to give her a check-up, he judged her nearer to 26.

As my new friend, Lisa, helped me get my stirrups even, it was clear that Bonnie was highly excited to be going out. She never went out. Only the two thoroughbreds ever went out. Her friend Garland, the elegant chestnut ex-racer, and her son, Pavlov, whom I was soundly rebuked for calling a ‘flea-bitten grey’ (because that’s what his coat looked like), the ex-Puissance, ex-dappled grey show jumper.

No. We didn’t keep up, and this set the tone for our subsequent outings. From time to time we made an attempt to catch up. I would lean over and whisper to her: “Wanna catch-up, Darling? Wanna go?” – and she would. There would be an eager, ears-pricked, burst of speed for a couple of hundred yards, before she would run out of steam, then we would go back to ambling at the back of the group, enjoying the surroundings. Enjoying being out.

As I had to work all hours to earn the money to pay my rent, Bonnie and I went out rarely, so when we did, I wanted to let her enjoy herself. To look at things. I pointed stuff out to her too. Ground nesting birds, donkeys, piglets. Whilst the others were pushing their horses through the marshes, I would let her pick her way over the boggy areas, knowing she would have a much better idea of how to get across them than I would.

It amused me when others who had ridden her would speak of her reputation for ‘bolting’. There were, indeed, certain stretches of country where Bonnie would suddenly break into a powerful gallop - even outrunning the younger, longer-legged Pavlov on occasion. But only in these places. Perversely, most were uphill stretches. She would take off and nothing could hold her. I would laugh and just hold on. It never lasted more than a few hundred yards before she ran out of puff. I enjoyed the ride.

“Honestly, you indulge that horse.” Observed her owner with some disdain.

Yes, I suppose I did. I put myself in her skin, and I thought about how she might be feeling, and I thought about how I would like to be treated if I were feeling the way she was feeling.

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happeeee… when skies are grey. You’ll never know, Bon, how much I love you…. Please don’t take… my Bon-Bon…. away.” I would sing to her as I groomed her and picked out her big smelly feet.

I would put my arms around her neck and breathe in her warm slightly whiffy smell. When the frosts came, I would sink my hand a full two inches into her woolly winter coat, marvelling at the thickness of it. I would visit her in the paddock, and she would come to me, and we would walk together for a while, and I would tell her about my day, talk to her about my problems, or just stand with her as she grazed. Sometimes she would rest her big whiskery head on my shoulder, and drop off into a doze.

It was she who indulged me.

All the while though, I was intensely and sadly aware that she was not my horse. This was most eloquently demonstrated by an incident in which I was tacking her up, and she was excitedly booting her box door. She was excited because she knew that she was going out. Yes, I did ask her not to boot the door. I reached out and stopped her leg a few times and asked her to be patient, saying soon, soon, soon, but it was all just too exciting. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, her owner appeared, brandishing a whip, and made to beat Bonnie about the head. I was reaching under her for the girth at the time.

“What the HELL do you think you’re doing?” I raged, standing up and placing myself between her and Bonnie, as the old horse jumped back, fearing the blow.

“Oh, I didn’t see you there.” She replied unconcerned. Then regaining her anger: “Why don’t you DISCIPLINE her?”

Discipline? DISCIPLINE? Simply because she is happy and excited?

“There is discipline and there is violence...” Was all I actually managed to say.

She flounced off to tack up Garland.

It was a horrible ride too. This ghastly woman sniping at me all the way. Bonnie and I were miserable.

A few days later, and I was standing outside Bonnie’s box, chatting with my landlady, feeling the need, as a tenant always does, to keep things ‘sweet’, when I realised Bonnie had swung her head around to look at me in astonishment. The image I got from her was of confusion. Why was I, who was ‘nice’, having anything at all to do with someone who was ‘nasty’?

It was a good question. One to which I did not feel I could give an answer that would have made any kind of sense to Bonnie.

Shortly after this, Pavlov’s old Puissance rider came back to open up a Livery business at the farm. She was going to manage it. My landlady was going to take a cut. They’d worked out a business plan on the back of an envelope or something. They were going to try again at some sort of collaboration. Olivia brought her adorable toddler daughter, and her divine black Labrador, and moved into another of my landlady’s rental units.

The horses started coming in for bed and board. My landlady came to see me. She ordered me to keep away from the barn from now on. I was not to talk to any of the clients. I was not to do or say anything that might make them remove their business. I met several on the drive, and said good morning or good afternoon. I was roundly rebuked.

“What were you doing talking to the clients?” She demanded.

“Exchanging pleasantries” I said.

“I told you not to talk to them” she roared. “This is a BUSINESS. Don’t talk to them, and don’t go into the barn. I don’t want you near their horses.”

It was fruitless to ask if she would prefer me to be rude to her customers and ignore them when they greeted me. I did tell Olivia however, and she told the people who had already said how much they liked “the lady on the end.” One apparently shouted: “I’ll talk to whoever I like! It’s HER (my landlady) I don’t want anywhere near my horses.”

They had good cause to fear.

Olivia told me that one of the liveries, a grey show-jumper, had been threatened with having her “fucking ears cut off” for kicking ten bells out of her loose box (the horse was claustrophobic). Several of the ‘clients’ were already having problems with my landlady, and asking Olivia to keep her away from their animals. She was being “rude and high-handed”. Telling them how to care for their own horses. How to train them. Olivia began to experience stress.

Then Moondance arrived.

I first met her in the dark. Olivia was leading her down the drive, saying “ooh, you are a naughty girl, aren’t you?”

Moondance was a 16hh 17-year-old dun mare who had been sold for £1000 without tack to kindly, but inexperienced owners. She could leap out of any enclosure of any kind. On this evening, she had managed to scramble over her box door. It was incredible. I held out my hand for her to get the smell of me. She seemed to say an interested ‘hello’ back. As it was dark, I went with Olivia and Moondance back to the barn, keeping a lookout for my landlady, but she was already inside the house, watching television.

So I met all the other new horses too. I got a couple of images through from some of them. At the time, I didn’t realise they were coming from the horses, I thought I was just having random thoughts. When I was exchanging breaths with the big grey, I saw a picture of a big barn with strip-lighting up in a sort of corrugated iron ceiling. I asked his young owner if that image meant anything.

“My God, yes.” She said. “That was his last place. The lights would flicker when they were switched on and it frightened him. He would flatten himself to the back of his box.”

“I think…” I said, uncertainly, “that he’s still thinking about it.”

Far from telling me to mind my own business, his owner gave him a hug and stroked him lovingly. “Are you? Are you my darling? I am so sorry. Over now… it’s over now…Never going back there…”

These owners were good people. Loving people. They spent their money and their time with their horses. Took their responsibility towards them seriously. I liked them all.

Still we all had to pretend we weren’t interacting when my landlady was about. We would arrange rendezvous on our mobile phones for lunch and a gossip in the pub next door. We were all mainly women. Of course. Women and horses… horses and women…

Around this time, a young girl showed up. She was supposed to help Olivia, but she decided to take on Bonnie as a project. She was 15. Full of youth and text book ideas about equine fitness. As I was tied to my desk earning the money to pay my rent, I started to see this kid taking Bonnie out every morning. They would go out for hours, but Bonnie wasn’t getting any fitter. Just more and more unhappy. One day this girl came in with a dropped noseband she’d bought for Bonnie. To her credit, my landlady did not believe in nosebands. She felt they restricted breathing, but she was too grateful to this girl for riding Bonnie to protest. I did though. I found the noseband and I bloody well hid it. When the kid asked where it was, I said that if Bonnie was opening her mouth at the bit too much, it was because she was yanking on her mouth too hard.

I got into dreadful trouble for that.

I was on the drive one day when I saw Olivia leading Bonnie in from the big field for this girl to ride her again. Bonnie stopped when she saw me and wouldn’t budge. Her ears swung forward and she looked at me. I went to her and put my arms around her. She dropped her nose onto my back.

“My God, you love this lady, don’t you?” Marvelled Olivia.

“Yes, I do.” I said.

Olivia smiled.

“I was talking to Bonnie.”

To make way for the new paying guests, my landlady’s three horses had been moved into a new building (erected of course without planning consent – like every other structure on the property apart from the house itself), and I was at least still permitted to help with them. I would show up to help with rugging them all around 6pm. I would normally just see to Bonnie, but one evening, my landlady asked me to rug Garland, as she had ricked her back and would not be able to reach.

I was terrified.

Garland was an unknown quantity. She was a damaged horse who had suffered great cruelty during her time as a racehorse, and an animal communicator friend of mine had said she suffered from an almost constant headache due to sinus issues. Unsurprisingly, she radiated pain and irritation. She had been condemned as a ‘dangerous animal’ in her time, too. I didn’t know what she would do with me attending to her instead of her owner.

I had seen how her owner rugged her up. Throwing the thing onto her back as she winced. Garland’s back was extremely sensitive, and she had nearly come to the end of her time for being ridden at all, as it was so painful for her.

Her owner felt the quicker the better. Like ripping off a plaster. I wanted to try something else.

I folded the rug in half, and showed it to Garland. She dropped her head to sniff it as I offered it.

“Hello Garland,” I said, nervously. “I have to put your rug on you to keep you warm, but I know it hurts, so I am going to place it on the base of your neck, then open it out along your back, ok?”

And so I did. She stood perfectly still for me to do this, and as I buckled the straps across her chest, she dropped her nose into my hands, and began to lick my palms.

She looked for me all the time after that. If I was grooming Bonnie, I would turn to see her looking at me through the bars of her box, and I would realise she wanted me to brush her too. So I would. Long, gentle strokes, with my hand hovering over the sensitive part of her back, imagining a healing white light coming from my palm to the ‘bad spot’. Once, I turned to see my darling friend Lisa standing behind me with tears in her eyes.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, concerned.

Lisa looked at Garland, and then to me.

“I think she sees you as her saviour.” She said.

I felt tremendous respect for Garland, and for Bonnie too. As old horses (Garland was around the same age as Bonnie), I saw them as my elders. I deferred to them.

Moondance was more of a buddy – but she was mad, bad and dangerous to know. She had been put into solitary confinement because she had been attacking the other horses in the big field. To all intents and purposes, she was behaving like a stallion. The vet was called. Tests were run. She had a hormone imbalance. Her uterus was off kilter – or something like that. I remember thinking that if she were a human, she would have been put on the pill or given the DEPO injection. The problem could be fixed, but the operation would cost £thousands.

Her owners were distraught. Moondance was a beautiful horse, but she was threatening the other horses and something would need to be done. She was breaking out daily, running riot in the yard, being found on the heath, brought back, breaking out again. One day, I heard a commotion, and found literally everyone out on the drive as she careered about with a car tyre around her neck. People were waving their arms, trying to catch her. I dived behind one of the cars, terrified. She was a big, powerful horse, and she was out of control. As I crouched down, she appeared by the bonnet of the car, just about to try to jump it when she saw me. She stopped dead in her tracks as her poor wild eyes focussed on me.

“Oh, it’s you.” She seemed to say, “I don’t want to hurt you…”

Then she wheeled away again.

The next day, I was working at my desk when I heard the shot in the paddock. It reverberated around the valley.

I went for a long walk on the heath. My non-horse owner impotence was overwhelming. I had not been able to help her. I was just the horseless tenant. I had to mind my business.

Two days later, I dreamed of her. I was standing in a vast field full of horses. One by one, they lined up for me. I didn’t recognise any of them. Finally, joining the line, at the end, Moondance appeared. She was calm, and she whickered to me. She was well, and happy. She thanked me for caring about her. Then I woke up.

Again, I reasoned this was just my subconscious being random, but I felt better nonetheless.

Still, at least I could continue to lavish my love on Bonnie, Pavvy and Garland. Poor infantilised Pavvy had never grown up. He was a big kid. I never seemed to get any sense from him. He couldn’t seem to engage the way his mother and Bonnie, who I called his auntie, could.

Garland’s specialness and wisdom was off the charts. I felt I didn’t want to bother her with trivia, so it was mainly poor Bonnie who had to listen to my problems.

“Shit happens” was what I seemed to get in response. 

I had to work one day a week at my company’s head office in Dorset. It was a long, stressful, wiggly drive down winding roads. As I set off one morning, I noticed Garland literally going mad in my rear view mirror. Running up and down the fence, whinnying to me. She seemed so agitated, I got out of my car, leaving the engine running by the gate, and went over to her.

“What is it darling?” I asked. She lipped and pulled at my jacket frantically. She was trembling. It was early, but I was late, so I resolved to head off and call my landlady as soon as I got to a place where I could get a signal on my ‘phone.  By that time, I reasoned, my landlady would have surfaced from bed.

I got to the village green, pulled over and made the call. I said I was worried there was something wrong with Garland, and explained how she had been behaving. My landlady thanked me, said she would check on her, and I set off again.

Five minutes later, joining the motorway to the West, I was hit side-on by a 40-tonne articulated lorry and sent spinning into mid-air. To this day, I can still see my wing-mirror flying off and the straps of the lorry’s awning ripping past my right-hand side. I remember being upside down, then the right way up again. I remember thinking “what a stupid way to die”, and then “no, you’re going to be ok” simultaneously. I remember thinking “relax – there is nothing you can do”.

My car was completely destroyed. In a trance, I mechanically pulled up the handbrake, then crawled across the passenger seat, pushed open the door, and staggered onto the verge. I sat down. Cars were stopping. A man was holding my hand. A lady was gathering up my belongings which were scattered over a hundred yards. An ambulance arrived. So did the Police. I was taken away and checked over.

One broken fingernail. A cut on my wrist, and a small, 20p piece shaped bruise on my leg. That was it.

I was taken home by the ambulance. I made it stop outside the gate as I didn’t want to give my landlady a heart-attack.

Garland was at the fence. She backed away from me. It was clear she hadn’t expected me to return. Finally, she came to me.

“I’m real.” I found myself saying to her. “I am still here.”

She licked my hands.

I realised later, she must have seen the whole thing. Before it happened.

Shortly after this, Bonnie’s weight problems seemed to alleviate overnight. Then we realised that all three of them had worms. The vet was called, and they were all given large doses of wormer, but Garland was hit hardest. Her infestation was so severe, we feared she wouldn’t make it through the night. She did, but she had sprayed the walls of her box with dreadful diarrhoea, and my animal communicator friend winced when he saw her again.

“Her guts are like lace” he said.

The vet told her owner she would need to be wormed every 2-3 weeks for the rest of her life. Olivia administered the doses - for as long as she was there. Soon however, there was another row, and Olivia left, taking all her clients with her.

I strongly doubted Garland’s medication was being continued, but whenever I mentioned it, I was shut up smartly, as if I had insulted not just my landlady, but her beautiful perfect horse (who would never have anything so vulgar as worms) and her “beautiful grazing”.

Around this time too, I sensed that Bonnie’s legs were becoming weaker. I said I didn’t want to ride her anymore. “She can’t take it” I said.

“Nonsense” I was told. I was also told that if I didn’t ride her, my landlady would call on one of her friends to ride her instead – a woman who was at least 15 stone in weight.

Following her illness, Garland had been retired from being ridden, and as Lisa had stopped coming around as well after yet another row, my elderly landlady had started riding Pavvy instead. She loved the kudos of being atop a 17hh grey thoroughbred, and wouldn’t consider riding the far more suitable Bonnie, whom she called an “ugly bitch” to her sweet face. I wondered why she kept the horse if she was so repulsed by her, so offered to take her on myself - all her care and all the expenses, but I was accused of trying to “steal” her horse. Apparently, Bonnie had been left there by an ex-lover. I felt that perhaps Bonnie was a living reminder of this failed relationship, and rather suffered for it, but as so many of the tales surrounding my landlady, her horses and her life were shrouded in mystery and fantasy, nobody really knew for sure.

On our last ride out, my landlady and Pavvy were some way ahead, when Bonnie independently decided she wanted to catch-up. She launched herself into a canter, and all four of her legs promptly gave way beneath her. I stayed on, as I read her so well, but she was clearly shocked and shaken as she got up again. I dropped the reins, leaned forward and stroked her trembling neck.

“It’s alright darling. Nobody’s angry with you. Take a minute. Stay still…” I said.

Then she perked up again and trotted up to Pavvy who was waiting for her.

“Her legs gave way.” I explained as we arrived.

“That’s because she’s so fat.” Said my landlady. “I told you to push her on. You’re not helping her by indulging her laziness.”

I wondered if she might have a point, I showed a picture of Bonnie to a horse trainer friend who said she certainly didn't look too heavy for her breed. Still, I worried. I took her out for walks rather than riding her, and she would nod along next to me, but something told me it was something else, and that no amount of exercise would help.

As another winter set in, Bonnie started getting ‘cast’ a lot. She would be found in the paddock, wedged up against the fence, unable to get up.

One morning, my landlady knocked on my door with her van and a length of rope. Bonnie had got cast again, and she wanted me to help her drag her to her feet. When Bonnie saw the van coming across the field however, with Herculean effort, she got to her feet in absolute terror. I caught her, put on her head collar, and began to lead her limping slowly back to the barn. Once there, I stayed with her in her box, running my hands up and down her poor ‘dead’ leg, willing the circulation back into it, whilst my landlady called the vet.

“You are my sunshine…” I sang.

Bonnie was confused and afraid.

My landlady began to soften. I saw another side to her. She too realised something was very wrong indeed. She also realised just how real my love for this horse actually was. She became a lot nicer. She became genuine. The part of her that truly did care, that she had buried for so many years for whatever reason, began to surface.

On 15 December that year, I came home from work to see my answering machine flashing with several messages. My landlady had called in ever more panic, praying for me to pick up. Lisa had left messages on my mobile. I had been in Dorset all day.

“Emma,” my landlady’s voice said on the first message, “please pick up….”

“Emma, where are you, Lovie?” She said on the second.

“Darling, it’s me again” on the third. “I didn’t want to have to tell you like this, but Bonnie’s dead. Please get in touch.”

I went ‘round immediately.

My landlady was alone at her kitchen table with a wine box.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Her legs…. Arthritis… riddled with it. She wouldn’t have made it through the winter. I had to let the vet…”

“Where is she?” I managed.

“She’s in her box. She had a big bowl of food before the injection. She died eating…” my landlady managed with a wan smile.

“May I see her?”

My landlady reached out and touched my arm.

“Of course you can. Take as much time as you like.”

I went through the dark to the barn. Bonnie was lying on her side. I knelt on the rubber matting beside her head.

“Oh my darling…”

I lay across her cold body. I sank my fingers into her thick woolly winter coat. I kissed her whiffy neck.

You are my sunshine… my only sunshine… you make me happeeeee…. When skies are grey… you’ll never know, Bon, how much I love you… please don’t take… my Bon-Bon… away.

I stayed there for I don’t know how long. When I finally left the barn, I saw a lone figure on the drive in the darkness. It was Lisa. We held each other and cried. Lisa had learned to ride on Bonnie. Bonnie had taught her everything.

They took her away the next day. I had to shield Garland and Pavvy from the sight as the winch pulled her out of the barn. They knew damned well what was happening though, and no amount of apples could distract them.

Garland went into a depression. Pavvy went wild in his box. He screamed, he whinnied, he kicked. I couldn’t reach him.

“You’ll see her again” I said uselessly. “When the light is right.”

I decided I could no longer live there. I started looking for another place. I couldn’t find one. Everywhere was too expensive. I cursed my stupid lack of money. The lack of money that meant that I would never be a horse owner, which meant my instincts and hunches would never count for anything other than crackpot theory with those who were.

A few months later, and Garland started to go downhill. The worms had turned her guts into a colander.

By this time, another young girl had moved in with her pony, a chestnut Forester. The sweetest natured pony I had ever met. He befriended Pavvy, and things started to settle down again, but Garland continued to sicken.

I chatted to her one last time when she was standing alone by the fence.

“You want to go, don’t you darling?” I said.

“Yes.”

She was put to sleep when I was trapped at work again, and once more, I was not there to say my goodbyes.

Again, Pavvy was blinded and maddened by grief. Again, I couldn’t reach him. In the end, I had to ask the little chestnut to explain to him what had happened.

Later, I saw them both out in the paddock, noses touching. Pavvy was much calmer after that. I felt sure that the “little orange man” as his owner called him, had done exactly as I had asked him to do.

Shortly after that, my landlady announced she needed to make some savings and needed to move into the annexe she rented to me, so she could let the main house. Having lived there for three years, she tried to give me just three weeks’ notice.

It took me longer than she would have liked to find a new billet, and she lurked on the path daily, trying to hex me to leave, but everything was beyond my price range.

Finally a flat came up in town. Small, dark, damp. But it had a bathtub a washing machine, and a designated parking space.

On moving out day, I went to say goodbye. My landlady looked me up and down. Asked me what I had been doing and telling me I looked like I had put on weight (I hadn’t actually eaten for two days at the time), so I said a curt ‘goodbye’ and walked out.

I gather she still rides Pavvy. Just walking now. He is not allowed to run or jump, and nobody is allowed to ride him who might give him any ideas of doing either. She makes videos about the loneliness of old age, and insists that all new tenants should have horses – presumably to obtain help with her own.

I can’t blame her for that.

He needs all the help he can get.

'Bonnie'

© EWB – 2015