Time and love

An astoundingly long week, so by the time I stump out to meet the Remarkable Trainer and Red the Mare I don’t know what my name is. Usually my dander would not let me admit defeat, but this time I say: ‘Can you do the hard riding, and I’ll watch?’ So off they go together, doing all kinds of manoeuvres, yielding at the shoulder and the quarters, snaking in and out of the slalom course we have set up. Once I might have felt a tinge of jealousy or defeat. It should be me. Now, I think: how lovely that the good mare has two riders, and it’s a little circle of learning. Ego, schmego.

At the end, I get on and I don’t think about my seat or my position or all the new things I am absorbing. The Remarkable Trainer comes on foot, and the three of us just amble about, beating the bounds, as if we are cowgirls out on the trail. Sometimes that is just as satisfying as any kind of clever schooling. The very fact that my racing thoroughbred is perfectly happy to walk at her ease, confined by nothing more than a bit of rope, in a vast pasture, feels like the most golden of gold cups.

She is the most relaxed horse I have ever met. She was not always like this. She came from a good yard, from one of the best horseman I ever met, but she is a sensitive soul, and she was alarmed and uncertain and tense at first in her new surroundings. She used to jump three feet vertically in the air if she saw a bird or a moving shadow. She got like she is now because of time and patience and love. I had brilliant raw materials to work with, but there was work. There was thought and care. She likes to have a person to trust and I had to show her that I was worthy of that trust.

And after all that, here we are, able to move together in perfect harmony with no tension, no doubt, no fear. That’s quite something, with a half ton flight animal of absurdly high breeding.

I used to know a vast amount about horses and then I went away from them and forgot a lot. When I came back, after all those years, I had to start the learning process almost from scratch. I had old instincts to work with, which helped. Yet in many ways, I am a novice, all over again. I’m not one of those certain experts, who can dole out sure advice without taking a beat. But if anyone did ask me what the one thing was that really counted, with a horse, I would say: time.

And love, of course.

 

Today’s pictures:

The beeches are at last, at last, in leaf:

HorseBack herd, with the dear Polly the Cob taking her place in it, as if she has always been there:

My glorious, beautiful, brilliant girl:

With the Remarkable Trainer up:

(‘This is an EX-RACEHORSE,’ cries the RT. ‘In a ROPE HALTER. On a LOOSE REIN. Cantering in a BIG FIELD.’ We do both go on about this a bit, but there are so many people out there who insist that there is not a thing to be done with a thoroughbred off the track. Too sharp, too crazy, too hot, too Yada, yada, yada, I think, as she comes to a gentle halt from not much more than a voice command.)

Stanley the Dog, with his irresistible ear:

The hill, from a different angle than usual:

Happy Friday.

A good day.

It’s at the stage where all I can resort to is telegraphese.

Love, family, canine sweetness, interesting people, perspective police.

HorseBack work, blinding Scottish sunshine, a To Do List without end.

Old friends, writing, achievement.

Red the Mare, weaving in and out of slalom poles in nothing more than a rope halter, cantering around the field so balanced and relaxed she could have been a dressage horse. ‘That’s a thoroughbred ex-RACEHORSE,’ exclaims the Remarkable Trainer in delight. A small admiration society gathers, with me as founder member. Oh, oh, oh, the love.

Also, there was kindness, good sense, a dash of geo-politics, and a flying visit from The Perspective Police.

Which adds up, I think, to A Good Day.

Some quick pictures:

HorseBack:

Home:

Those are his most serious, every good boy deserves a biscuit eyes.

He got a biscuit.

Out of whack

I love the internet. I love most of the people on it. I love that its great power is often used for good instead of evil. But sometimes it knocks me for a loop and this is one of those days. One day I shall butch up and deal with my tender feelings but for the moment they remain tender.

As a result it is half-past six and there is no blog. I can give you only one picture, of this most adored of the Best Beloveds, who did barrel racing manoeuvres in a high wind wearing nothing but a rope halter. When people say ex-racehorses are no good, crazy in the head, can’t do a thing with them, I want to put her photograph all over the damn internet and say – But look. Look. She is the poster girl to end all poster girls and words cannot describe how she expands my heart.

The point

No time for anything, as I’ve been working all day and running around and doing my horse and talking to interesting people and now, for once in my life, I actually have a social engagement and must put my lipstick on.

But there are days, in the cliché of middle age, when I wonder what the point of it all is. More in a musing, quizzical way than a bleak, Dostoevskian way.  Sometimes I know, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I have to guess. Sometimes I think it is the look on Red the Mare’s face when she sees me coming. Sometimes I think it is love and trees. Sometimes, it is what will win the 5.30 at Chepstow. (In this case, a very well-named colt called Fast.)

Today, it was this:

This is a Para. He told me this morning, with generous, humorous honesty, about his crashing PTSD. He told me that when he arrived on Monday he was afraid of horses. Now he is doing this with Archie.

That is the point.

The day rushes past me

It’s 6.37pm and only now have I found time to sit down and write the blog. Forgive the lost weekend: I had a horrid pain, and had to lie down very still in a darkened room. It comes sometimes. It’s some ancient parasite which I collected in the days when I used to get on aeroplanes and fly off with my passport dog-eared from use.

Now I should have something good for you but there is only the sound of swish and blast as the end of the day rushes past me, laughing mercilessly.

There was HorseBack work. There is a new course and some familiar volunteers and a most fascinating new visitor. The visitor is a racing man, so of course that meant that I opened my mouth and did not shut it for twenty minutes. Along with time management, I must learn the art of rationing speech. I put it down to not getting out much. I am entirely intemperate in conversation when I meet someone who rivets me. Must must must learn to pause and listen, instead of issuing a stream of undifferentiated chatter.

There was book work; 597 new words, dead darlings falling bloody to the floor, severe editing. I dream of it now and can’t get it out of my head, which is tiring but good.

The sun shone. The lovely Young Gentleman from last year has reappeared, much to my delight. Despite the fact that he is a very serious student of engineering, he still looks at Red with the light of adoration in his eyes. ‘I’ll be jumping her by the middle of summer,’ he says, smiling. I explain that she was a flat racehorse and I have not yet taught her to jump. That is nothing to him. Until he met her last year he had been frightened of all horses. Now he dreams of my girl. It gives me more pleasure than I can cram into these mere sentences.

So I continue on, always half an hour behind, rushing from post to pillar, smiling widely, talking too much, never getting even close to the end of my To Do List. I grow fretful and scratchy about my organisational frailties. Then I look up at the blue, blue sky of Scotland and remember my luck.

 

Today’s pictures:

Are rather equine, surprise surprise.

The herd:

HorseBack:

This is dear Polly the Cob, who has just arrived from World Horse Welfare, and who was having her very first session in the round pen:

Stan the Man:

That wistful look is because he knows I’ve got biscuits and I’m making him sit and stay before he can having any.

And one more of my glorious girl:

I managed to fit in fifteen minutes of groundwork with her, and she is so responsive now to the softest of cues that it makes me laugh out loud. Here she is, a socking great thoroughbred, highly bred, out of racing and polo, and she is so willing and delicate in all her movements, so clever and eager to please.

The thing that makes me laugh the most is when I vary the pace when I am leading her. I go fast; she goes fast. I slow down to a treacly trudge, what Buck Brannaman calls his old man walk, and she at once matches her gait to mine, putting each hoof down slowly in perfect time. It’s one of those very very small things, although I believe it’s absolute foundational training, but it makes my heart burst with idiot pride.

 

PS. For those of you new to the blog, this is the story of The Young Gentleman:

http://taniakindersley.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/in-which-nice-young-gentleman-turns-out.html

A lesson in humility

After having had a spasm of egocentric madness, where I decided I needed NO HELP with my horse and must do everything myself, I now appear to have two riding teachers. They are both brilliant, and I love working with them in very different ways.

I had a lesson this morning, and the improvement was dramatic. The teaching is a stunning combination of the very gentle with the very sophisticated. ‘I am a scientist,’ says my teacher, truthfully. (She has studied all aspects of human and equine psychology and nutrition and about ten other things. She has something I love, which is empirical evidence, but she also believes in and encourages instinct.)

What all this made me think of, as Red relaxed in the sun, responding delightfully to my cues, not an atom of resistance in her, was humility.

Humility is not a sexy virtue; it is not sung from the rooftops or given parades. There are no books written about it. The Daily Mail does not put someone on its front page for being wonderfully humble. It even carries a whiff of greasy hypocrisy about it; an echo of the phoney Uriah Heep crouch.

And yet, I suddenly see, without humility everything gets wrecked. The people who are not humble are those who shout on the internet or impose their ideas on others. They barge in. They respect no boundaries. They lack nuance and empathy. They are always right, and must be right, so the citadel which is their ego may be constantly burnished.

I had to be humble because I wanted to get better. I had to say: I’m not good enough and I need instruction. I did not enjoy this much at all. I hate not being good at things, and I hate any hint of dependence. I prefer to get on with things by myself. (These are not charming character traits and I’m working on them.)

Once I’d got over my own absurd amour-propre, the gate creaked open on a garden of delights. Both the women who help me have such stores of knowledge and such interesting minds and share their learning so generously.

And what was it all about, after all, that initial instinct to do it on my own? It was an ancient, ingrained form of showing off, so I might have the shallow and fleeting pleasure of someone, somewhere, saying: look what she did. Except of course they probably would not say that at all.

Humility is a good thing in life, I think, and it’s a vital thing with horses. I am humble with my mare because a finely-bred, half ton creature, with the wild ancestral voices calling to her from the plains where her species evolved, consents to trust me and follow me and kindly do the things I ask. I find that very fact profoundly humbling.

It’s also that however much I watch her and study her and listen to her and learn from here, there will always be a sliver of mystery. I don’t think a good horsewoman is ever complete. There are no discrete boxes that may be ticked; no listed virtues or achievements that may be crossed off. Every day, there is a little more learning, that is all.

I think this is a life lesson. I know I sometimes twang the elastic of extrapolation too far, so it snaps back and hits me on the nose, but I really think this small revelation is a good and true thing, not just for equines, but for the human condition too.

It’s not not not all about me, is the burden of my current song. I find it oddly liberating.

 

Today’s pictures:

What I love about this is that, after an hour of concentrated work, my lovely girl is so relaxed:

And off she goes in the field, with the happy spring sun on her back:

(Don’t you love little Myfanwy in the background?)

Well-deserved drink:

Obligatory sheep:

View from HorseBack UK this morning, looking due west:

Autumn the Filly:

Daffodils:

Two of my favourite little trees:

Looking south:

 

PS.

I think someone, somewhere, long ago, pointed out that I had talked about a life lesson more than once, without appearing to learn from it. How strict people are. I do write about these little revelations over and over, because I find that one can know something in one’s head without it quite percolating into one’s gut. I write about them more than once because I need to remind myself. Because this work is in progress. Because most of the time I don’t know what the buggery bollocks I am doing, and I would like to attempt to plot a course, and I need signposts, some of which are palimpsests.

In which I rummage for a missing day

Whoops. Lost a day. It is possible that it fell down the back of the sofa.

Here are some lambs and daffodils instead.

Sometimes it is a relief just to embrace cliché, and what could be more obvious in springtime than small sheep and daffs?:

 

Not even so much as a hill.

Ha ha ha. I laugh in the face of crappy time management. It’s all I can do, now.

And now I’m going to sit very still in a darkened room until I get my temporal bearings back.