Gill E. lives on a horse farm in Suffolk. I had asked her why she was so drawn to horses, and she remarked that this was perhaps the first time she had given any serious thought to the matter, so much are horses a given in her life. In the measured phrases of her handwritten letter, the gs and fs and ys curving gently below the line like barbless hooks, Gill reminded me that the horse is indeed a teacher without ever intending to be.
Gill has two daughters, Sara and Hannah. Each had a pony as a child. Pheasant gave Sara the confidence she would need, Pippa taught Hannah patience. If Hannah was rough the pony would abruptly stop, sending her rider over her head into a heap on the ground “and Pippa would graze with a smug expression on her face.”
Ponies and horses have punctuated Gill’s entire life. As girls, Gill and her sister Ro joined the Pony Club, where they sometimes fed their little mounts chocolate and fizzy lemonade. Gill remembered her first boyfriend and how they rode out together hand in hand. The part-Thoroughbred gelding she competed with as a teenager was eventually sold — to buy a car. Husband Michael led to daughters, then new ponies, and another horsy generation was launched.
When Gill’s mother fell prey to cancer, Gill and Ro nursed her at home over the course of two long, hard years. Ro, early in this period, had given Gill two young Arab horses — “a large stroppy gelding called Dan and a worried dainty mare called Spookie.” Hannah, Sara, Gill and Ro spent the next year breaking the horses, who sustained them during a dark and difficult time. “Our horses,” Gill wrote, “helped us through our grieving. Just to go down to the meadow in the evening to touch and smell Spookie was healing, soothing and very reassuring.”
If the horse is magic, as Maxine Kumin believes, the enchantment is not confined to those, like Gill, who have ridden since their youth. Nancy, another woman on that Wyoming ride, reminded me that discovering horses late can be better than coming to them early.
“To some of us the touch of a horse’s body, the way he tilts his head toward you, the feel of soft mane in your hands, the smell of his sweet breath and the intoxicating effect of burying your face in his neck are all pure joy,” Nancy wrote from rural Vermont. I have watched her with her two Arab horses in the paddock and marveled at her marveling. One of my photographs from Wyoming has her in what might be a trademark pose: a joyful, face-first embrace of the horse’s neck.
“I was not one of the fortunate ones,” says Nancy, “to grow up with the smell of manure on my shoes and the privilege of riding lessons. I waited to fulfill my dreams till I was forty. Perhaps the years ahead will be all the more precious for me because the gift was so long in coming.”
The gift of the horse comes with all sorts of strings. The horse is a huge and potentially dangerous animal who bears the stamp of every human — kind and otherwise — who ever owned or rode him. Obsession with horses can be obsession with power, and many horses know that to be true.
It would be foolhardy to presume that affection alone, or trust or care, would earn every horse’s loyalty; or that loyalty, once won, somehow safeguards your bones and those Chiclet teeth that Bill Barich described. My own contact with the horse and with horse-wise people has caused my respect for the horse to grow immensely. I like the word respect in any case, but I especially find it appropriate to human-horse relationships. It should land us in a good zone — somewhere between wariness and wonder.
If many of us are still wild about horses, it is because the horse still matters, maybe now more than ever:
Because the horse literally lifts the rider up off the ground and lets her, lets him, see the world in a singular way.
Because the delicate balance in riding between risk and power still delights and rewards.
Because the horse still speaks to us of elegance and beauty, spirit and proud lineage.
Because horses took us to war, plowed our fields, pulled our wagons across continents, and the memory still feels fresh.
Because to get close to a horse is to feel a kinship with the great tribe of horses long gone, with Ruffian and Secretariat, with Comanche and Bucephalus.
Because partnership with a horse is ancient and primal and consuming, and writers and storytellers are still drawn to that territory, so that riding begets reading.
Because the horse offers us, even those of us of peasant stock, the sense of privilege that royalty felt.
Because there is no promise like the promise of a foal, no journey like one on horseback, no sight so pleasing as horses grazing in a paddock, no thought so warming as the knowledge that free horses still run on the plains.
Because to sit astride a walking horse is to banish time and to live, as the horse lives, in the moment.
Because no other animal lets you partake so directly, so sensuously, in what a fleet horse feels — the tickle of wind, the kettledrumming of hooves, the easy grace of the trot.
And because there is nothing quite like a gallop in wide-open spaces, when human and horse and the earth below feel all of a piece, when heartbeat and hoofbeat find each other’s rhythm.
FURTHER READING
INTRODUCTION
Evans, Nicholas. The Horse Whisperer. New York: Dell Publishing, 1996.
Masson, Jeffrey Moussaieff and Susan McCarthy. When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals. New York: Delta Publishing, 1996.
McCarthy, Cormac. All the Pretty Horses. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
—–. The Crossing. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.
Millar, Ian and Larry Scanlan. Riding High: Ian Millar’s World of Show Jumping. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1990.
Roberts, Monty. The Man Who Listens to Horses. New York: Random House, 1997.
Scanlan, Lawrence. Big Ben. Toronto: Scholastic, 1994.
—–. “Flying High.” Equinox 69, June 1993, 34–45.
—–. “Why Humans Love Horses.” Equinox 85, February 1996, 24–35.
Chapter 1
HEAVENLY HORSES
Anthony, David, Dimitro Y. Telegin and Dorcas Brown. “The Origin of Horseback Riding.” Scientific American, December 1991, 94–100.
Barclay, Harold B. The Role of the Horse in Man’s Culture. London: J. A. Allen, 1980.
Clark, Ella E. Indian Legends from the Northern Rockies. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966.
Clark, La Verne Harrell. They Sang for Horses: The Impact of the Horse on Navajo and Apache Folklore. Tucson, Ariz.: University of Arizona Press, 1966.
Denhardt, Robert M. The Horse of the Americas. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1975.
de Vries, Ad. Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery. Amsterdam: North Holland, 1974.
Dobie, J. Frank. On the Open Range. Dallas: Banks Upshaw, 1940.
Ehrlich, Gretel. The Solace of Open Spaces. New York: Penguin USA, 1985.
Gregg, Josiah. Commerce of the Prairies. New York: Readex Books, 1966.
Howey, Oldfield M. The Horse in Magic and Myth. New York: Castle Publishing, 1958.
Jankovich, Mikos. They Rode Into Europe: The Fruitful Exchange in the Arts of Horsemanship Between East and West. Translated by Anthony Dent. London: George Harrap & Co., 1968.
Jurmain, Suzanne. Once Upon a Horse: A History of Horses — And How They Shaped Our History. New York: Lee & Shepard Books, 1989.
Lame Deer, John (Fire). Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions: The Life of a Sioux Medicine Man. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972.
Law, Robin. The Horse in West African History. London: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Lawrence, Elizabeth Atwood. Hoofbeats and Society: Studies of Human-Horse Interactions. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1985.
Leakey, Richard. The Making of Mankind. New York: Dutton, 1981.
Norman, Philip. “All the King’s Horses.” Sunday Times Magazine, 7 December 1997, 44–50.
Plutarch. The Age of Alexander. New York: Penguin USA, 1980.
Roe, Frank G. The Indian and the Horse. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955.
She
pard, Paul. The Others: How Animals Made Us Human. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1996.
Steele, Rufus. Mustangs of the Mesas. Hollywood: Murray and Gee, 1941.
Uden, Grant. High Horses. Harmondsworth, England: Kestrel Books, 1976.
Vernam, Glenn. Man on Horseback. New York: Harper & Row, 1964.
Chapter 2
WILD ABOUT WILD HORSES
Berger, Joel. Wild Horses of the Great Basin. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Birdsell, Sandra. The Two-Headed Calf. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1997.
Bower, Joe. “Planned Parenthood.” Audubon 97, July–August 1995, 20.
Collins, Jerry. “Mange on the Range: The Chilcotin’s Wild Horses Are Judged to Be a Nuisance.” Western Report, 1 May 1995, 14.
Dary, David. Cowboy Culture: A Saga of Five Centuries. New York: Avon Books, 1982.
Dean, Cornelia. “Horses of Coast Islands, a Regional Symbol, Harm the Environment.” New York Times, 27 July 1993, C4.
Dobie, J. Frank. The Mustangs. London: Hammond, Hammond & Co., 1954.
Dolphin, Ric and Marilyn McKinley. “A Death Threat to the Prairie Ponies.” Alberta Report, 22 March 1982, 36–40.
Edwards, Elwyn Hartley, ed. Encyclopedia of the Horse. London: Peerage Books, 1985.
—–. The Ultimate Horse Book. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1991.
—–. Wild Horses: A Spirit Unbroken. Stillwater, Minn.: Voyageur Press, 1995.
Fazio, Patricia Mabee. “The Fight to Save a Memory: Creation of the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range (1968) and Evolving Federal Wild Horse Protection.” Ph.D. thesis, Texas A&M University, 1995.
Flaherty, Kathleen. On the Skyline Trail in Jasper National Park. Ideas, CBC Radio Transcripts, 23 March 1995.
Green, Ben K. A Thousand Miles of Mustangin’. Flagstaff, Ariz.: Northland Press, 1972.
Hall, E. T. The Dance of Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983.
Harbury, Martin. The Last of the Wild Horses. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1984.
Irving, Washington. A Tour on the Prairies. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971.
Keough, Pat and Rosemarie. Wild and Beautiful Sable Island. Fulford Harbour, BC: Nahanni, 1993.
Kirkpatrick, Jay. F. Into the Wind: Wild Horses of North America. Photography by Michael H. Francis. Minocqua, Wis.: Northword Press, 1994.
Klinkenborg, Verlyn. “The Mustang Myth.” Audubon, January–February 1994, 36–51.
McInnis, Doug. “Hold Those Horses.” Montreal Gazette, 31 March 1996, B4.
Nagle, Patrick. “Wild Horses Raise Prairie Dust Storm.” Toronto Star, 3 July 1993, D6.
Ryden, Hope. America’s Last Wild Horses. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1970.
—–. Mustangs: A Return to the Wild. New York: Viking Press, 1972.
Scott, Jack Denton and Ozzie Sweet. Island of Wild Horses. New York: Putnam, 1978.
Spragg, Mark, ed. Thunder of the Mustangs: Legend and Lore of the Wild Horse. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1997.
Wyman, Walker D. The Wild Horse of the West. Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 1965.
Chapter 3
THE HORSE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
Anglesey, The Marquess of. A History of the British Cavalry, 1816 to 1919, vol. II, 1851 to 1871. London: Secker & Warburg, 1982.
Budiansky, Stephen. The Nature of Horses: Exploring Equine Evolution, Intelligence, and Behaviour. New York: The Free Press, 1997.
Clifton, Merritt and The Animal Legal Defense Fund. “Kitty Cruelty: Why Is Animal Abuse Punished So Lightly?” Utne Reader, January/February 1993: 131–132.
Gould, Stephen Jay. Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History. New York: Harmony Books, 1995.
Gzowski, Peter. An Unbroken Line. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1984.
Hyland, Ann. Equus: The Horse in the Roman World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.
Lowie, Robert. The Indians of the Plains. Garden City, NY: Natural History Press, 1963.
MacEwan, Grant. Memory Meadows: Horse Stories from Canada’s Past. Vancouver: Greystone, 1997.
Morris, Desmond. Horsewatching. New York: Crown, 1989.
Noyes, Stanley. Los Comanches: The Horse People. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1993.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. New York: Penguin USA, 1989.
Trench, Charles Chenevix. A History of Horsemanship. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970.
Chapter 4
THE GENTLE ART OF THE HORSE WHISPERER
Ainslie, Tom and Bonnie Ledbetter. The Body Language of Horses. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1980.
Anderson, J. K. Ancient Greek Horsemanship. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961.
Blundeville, Thomas. The Arte of Ryding and Breakinge Greate Horses. New York: Da Capo Press, 1969.
Davis, Susan. “Gentle Hands for Wild Horses.” Sports Illustrated 85, no. 20, 11 November 1996, 7–9.
Dorrance, Tom. True Unity: Willing Communication Between Horse and Human. Tuscarora, Nev.: Give-It-A-Go, 1996.
Fredriksson, Kristine. American Rodeo: From Buffalo Bill to Big Business. College Station, Tex.: Texas A&M University Press, 1985.
Hunt, Ray. Think Harmony With Horses. Tuscarora, Nev.: Give-It-A-Go, 1991.
Johnson, Dirk. “Broncobusters Try New Tack: Tenderness.” New York Times, 11 October 1993, A1, A13.
Littauer, Vladimir S. The Development of Modern Riding: The Story of Formal Riding from Renaissance Times to the Present. New York: Howell Book House, 1991.
Lorenz, Konrad Z. King Solomon’s Ring: New Light on Animal Ways. London: Methuen, 1952.
McGovern, Celeste. “A Kinder, Gentler Cowboy Shows How.” Alberta Report, 21 November 1994, 33–34.
Morris, George H. Hunter Seat Equitation. New York: Doubleday, 1979.
Newman, Judith and Laird Harrison. “Horse Sense.” People, 6 December 1993, 51–52.
Rarey, J. S. The Farmer’s Friend, Containing Rarey’s Horse Secret, With Other Valuable Receipts and Information. Hamilton, C.W.: Porter and Schneider, 1858.
—–. The Modern Art of Taming Wild Horses. Bedford, Mass.: Applewood Books, 1995.
Self, Margaret Cabell. Horsemastership: Methods of Training the Horse and the Rider. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1952.
van der Post, Laurens. About Blady: A Pattern Out of Time. London: Chatto & Windus, 1991.
Xenophon. The Art of Horsemanship. Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1893.
Chapter 5
THE HORSE IN BATTLE
Jordens, Lorraine. “Horses and Mules: The Forgotten Soldiers.” Alberta History (Spring 1993): 20–26.
Keegan, John. A History of Warfare. Toronto: Vintage Books, 1993.
Kelly, William and Nora. The Horses of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: A Pictorial History. Toronto: Doubleday & Co., 1984.
Ketelsen, James. “Mall Mounties.” Forbes, 17 June 1996, 84–85.
Lamb, A. J. R. The Story of the Horse. London: Alexander Maclehose & Co., 1938.
Lawrence, Elizabeth Atwood. His Very Silence Speaks: The Horse Who Survived Custer’s Last Stand. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989.
Seely, General Jack. My Horse Warrior. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1934.
Spuler, Bertold. History of the Mongols: Based on Eastern and Western Accounts of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
Stoneridge, M. A. Great Horses of Our Time. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1972.
Tamblyn, Lt.-Col. D. S. The Horse in War and Famous Canadian War Horses. Kingston, Ont.: The Jackson Press, 1931.
Wallace, Ernest and E. Hoebel, The Comanches. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1952.
Chapter 6
THE WONDER HORSES OF HOLLYWOOD AND LITERATURE
Baldwin, Neil. Inventing the Century. New York: Hyperion, 1995.
Baxter, John. Stunt: The Story of the Great Movie Stunt Men. London: Macdonald, 1973.
Blake, Henry. Talking With Horses. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1976.
Cary, Diana Serra. The Hollywood Posse: The Story of a Gallant Band of Horsemen Who Made Movie History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975.
Fox, Charles Philip. A Pictorial History of Performing Horses. New York: Bramhall House, 1960.
Golden, Lilly, ed. The Literary Horse: Great Modern Stories About Horses. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995.
Henry, Marguerite. Black Gold. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1957.
Hintz, H. F. Horses in the Movies. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1979.
James, Will. Smoky the Cow Horse. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926.
Macauley, Thurston, ed. The Great Horse Omnibus: From Homer to Hemingway. New York: Ziff-Davis, 1949.
McCourt, Frank. Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir. New York: Scribners, 1996.
Muybridge, Eadweard. Animals in Motion. New York: Dover Publications, 1957.
O’Hara, Mary. Flicka’s Friend: The Autobiography of Mary O’Hara. New York: Putnam, 1982.
—–. My Friend Flicka. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1941.
Rothel, David. The Singing Cowboys. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1978.
Rudolph, Alan and Robert Altman. Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson. New York: Bantam, 1976.
Sewell, Anna. Black Beauty. Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1972.
Simpson, George Gaylord. Horses: The Story of the Horse Family in the Modern World and Through Sixty Million Years of History. New York: Oxford University Press: 1961.
Spoto, Donald. A Passion for Life: The Biography of Elizabeth Taylor. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.
Stott, Greg. “Wanted: Will James.” Equinox, 80, March 1995, 55–65.
Tuska, Jon. The Filming of the West. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1976.
Urquhart, Fred. The Book of Horses. London: Secker & Warburg, 1981.
Wanderhaeghe, Guy. The Englishman’s Boy. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1996.
Wise, Arthur and Derek Ware. Stunting in the Cinema. London: Constable, 1973.
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