Whispering Back

by Adam Goodfellow

  ‘You know, this horse has hurdled,’ Pennie said the first time she assessed him.

  Pennie can look at a horse from 50 yards and the body will tell her the horse’s story. Her fingers fill in the details. She’s petite and slim, but her hands are like iron, and she’s got muscles like Popeye. With a shock of cropped blond hair and an assortment of trendy jewellery, when she pulls into a stable yard in her sky blue Porsche, she hardly comes across as a typical horsewoman. The establishment accepts her, however, because of the incredible depth of her knowledge of horse anatomy and movement. Most of her clients are competition riders who use her skills to get the best performance from their horses. We use her with almost every remedial horse we have in, to gain as much insight into the horse’s history and physical state as possible.

  ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so,’ I told her confidently. ‘He was a flat race horse.’

  ‘Maybe so, but he’s also definitely hurdled.’

  Sally later confirmed what Pennie had known for certain. Joe had hurdled, but only for one season, several years ago. Because hurdling involves jumping at speed, the horse moves his forelimbs in a particular way, throwing them forward, as in a gallop stride, rather than tucking them under his chest, as in showjumping. This movement pattern is written in the muscles, and unless something is done to remove it, it stays there.

  It’s not that I think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with hurdling. It’s just that any horse needs well-fitting tack, a careful fitness regime, support and maintenance, and the more intense the activity, the more help their bodies need to be restored to their healthy state after such stressful activity. Some of what we ask horses to do, on the other hand, does compromise them unnecessarily. We once did a lecture-demo at a riding club, and Pennie came along to assess the horses for us. One horse we were asked to work with was notoriously aggressive. Pennie took one look at him and said, ‘This horse is jumped with a tight martingale.’

  This also turned out to be true. Unable to stretch his head and neck properly over fences, the horse was forced to use his body in a completely unnatural way. As a result, his muscles were like rock from head to toe. He was in constant pain. This horse, who greeted anyone he met with a flurry of teeth and hooves, stood quietly while Pennie eased his aching muscles, only shooting her the odd warning look when she went in deeper than he could bear.

  Joe also told Pennie what he could cope with, and every time she saw him he was able to heal a little more.

  With his body more comfortable, and a saddle that didn’t pinch, Joe began to reconsider his views on being ridden out. The early rides involved a lot of standing still and going backwards, but within a week or so he would quite happily ride out on his own or in company. We used an item of equipment called a ‘wip-wop’. This is just a piece of soft rope that you flick at the horse, touching him behind your leg on either side. Unlike a whip, it doesn’t hurt at all, but it’s an unpleasant, possibly annoying sensation, and also works in the horse’s visual field; the sight of something moving swiftly behind their head will often encourage forward movement. The trick to using the wip-wop lies in the timing. As soon as the horse moves forward, you have to stop using it, and in this way they learn how to ‘switch it off’. With Joe, however, there was an additional factor. If you used just slightly too strong an aid, it seemed to offend him, and he would point-blank refuse to move until he had recovered from his sense of wounded dignity. You had to ask him politely, not tell him what to do. I had some fantastic rides on him. His trot felt like he left you up in the air for minutes at a time, and in canter he seemed to cover 20 yards in one stride. The power coming up through him, even in his still far-from-perfect physical state, was breathtaking, and I longed for a race track to really let him loose on.

  Sally successfully rode him at Moor Wood and also at home, but he was never really happy about the pigs, and she began to feel he wasn’t the right horse for her. Julia, however, had fallen for this noble, damaged creature, from the very first moment she set eyes on him, and it was decided that she should loan him from Sally, and continue to bring him on.

  Julia spent all her hard-earned money and spare time trying to restore Joe to the horse he should have been or, at the very least, to make him comfortable in his own body again. It was a difficult healing process for him, and he seemed to find it hard to let go, as if it was only his tension that was holding him together. Julia longed to gallop him, but wouldn’t have minded if she never rode him again, so long as he was happy.

  When Pennie wasn’t available, he was worked on by a Shiatsu practitioner, a rather abrasive woman of the ‘stand still and be healed!’ variety. She once pinched Joe on the lips when he tried to bite her (having warned her several times that he was unhappy with what she was doing) and even slapped him on the rump when he didn’t want to let her into the scarred part of his body that had been hit by a bus. I thought Julia was going to deck the woman, but she managed a restrained ‘I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t hit my horse!’

  Even so, Joe changed. He had a lot more energy and ‘presence’, and even began prancing around and showing off to the mares. His personality began to shine through, and he started to exhibit a real joie de vivre. Julia started riding him again, and they began to have fun together.

  It was a cold, dark, windy night in February, and we had just finished for the day. Down in the field, Julia and Jo were checking our horses before the last light faded. I was looking forward to going inside for a cup of tea, when Jo came up from the field.

  ‘Julia’s having a bit of trouble with Joe. She can’t get him to move. She’s wondering if you could go down and have a look, and bring a headcollar.’

  I hurried down to the field. In the gloom, I could make out Julia standing next to Joe, who was resting a hind leg near the fence. I felt something drop inside me as her frightened eyes met mine.

  ‘I noticed he didn’t come over for his hay when I put it out for them, and it looks as though he can’t move. I think he might have been kicked.’

  As soon as I saw the leg, I knew in my heart it was no good, but my head refused to believe it. It was puffy and swollen, and he wasn’t putting any weight on it.

  ‘Perhaps he’s pulled a tendon,’ I suggested hopefully. ‘Let’s get him inside, and then call the vet out.’

  We tugged politely on the rope and he started to move forward obligingly. As soon as he tried to put that hind foot on the ground, however, it was clear that he simply couldn’t.

  ‘Or, on the other hand, let’s leave him here and the vet can look at him in the field.’

  As I raced up the track to the house to call the vet, I couldn’t stop myself from crying, for I feared the worst. But I tried to be matter-of-fact as I told Danny and Adam about it, and when I called the vet I was able to speak quite calmly. By the time I got back down to the field to Julia, I was composed again.

  ‘I think it’s probably broken,’ she said. ‘Will you stay here with him while I go and get him some food while we wait for the vet?’

  Alone with Joe, I put my arm around his neck, a gesture he would normally shrug off. He turned and nuzzled me.

  ‘I don’t think you’re going to make it,’ I told him.

  He already knew.

  Joe seemed pleased to be brought an impromptu feed and chewed calmly and thoughtfully. Not normally a demonstrative horse, he seemed glad of the company, and accepted having his neck stroked and his mane smoothed most graciously. When Danny arrived he acknowledged him with a ‘how nice of you to come’ sort of expression.

  Adam arrived with the vet, Greg, shortly afterwards. By now it was dark, and he had to park in the gateway and shine his lights, full beam, into the field, where we stood with Joe and some of our horses, who were milling around, unaware of what was happening. A quiet man with a soft Australian accent, Greg introduced himself to Julia and said hello to Joe before walking around to have a look at his leg. He felt it gently, and then straightened up and looked at Julia.

/>   ‘I’d like to sedate him so I can have a proper look and assess the damage. Is that all right?’

  Julia nodded her assent, and Greg scrambled through the mud to his car to collect his equipment. Joe watched him leave and return with a calm interest.

  Sedated, he showed no concern as Greg palpated his leg.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s no good. It’s completely fractured, and not at all likely to be fixable. I don’t think he’d ever be free from pain.’

  Julia’s eyes brimmed with tears, but her voice remained steady. One hand stroking Joe’s neck, she looked Greg straight in the eyes.

  ‘All right. Tell me what we do next then.’

  As Greg talked her through the procedure, she listened intently, questioning him from time to time. Protective to the end, she wasn’t going to let Joe suffer if she could possibly help it. Satisfied that he would die painlessly, she nodded. ‘Just give us all a minute to say goodbye.’

  I felt utterly helpless. Without the adrenaline that comes from being directly responsible in a situation, there was nothing holding me together. I couldn’t believe what was happening. The thought of Joe’s life being so abruptly terminated was almost unbearable. Worse was the grief and pain that Julia was feeling, and there was nothing I could do about it. Stepping forward to say goodbye, I knew I was in the presence of a great spirit.

  As the drugs coursed through his veins, he looked surprised for a moment and then sank gently to the ground. Julia knelt beside him in the mud, stroking his long nose again and again. After a minute or two, Greg crouched down and gently pressed his stethoscope to his chest. He looked up and nodded. ‘He’s gone.’

  We all felt a strange sense of gratitude to Greg, whom we had only just met. He had made a terrible situation bearable, and had treated Joe with so much care and respect. He said gently, ‘He seemed a very noble horse. He died with true grace.’

  Julia and I fetched a tarpaulin to protect Joe from the buzzards. We hung the lantern torch on the fence next to him. The warm glow made it seem a less desolate place for him to be lying as the frost began to crystallise on the grass around his body. He was finally free from all the pain he had carried around for so many years. Feeling numb, we walked back to the house.

  Over a whisky, we all talked and remembered. There was a shared sense of having witnessed something truly remarkable, and we all felt honoured to have been part of it, to have shared Joe’s last moments. Joy, gratitude and love mixed with grief, sadness, and loss.

  The other horses in the field came over and investigated when we pulled the tarpaulin back the next morning, but Ben, a livery horse who came in at nights, was devastated when he found Joe lying in the field. He sniffed him all over and whinnied in distress, nudging him gently to try to get him up. He didn’t leave his side, and when the transporter from the crematorium came to remove Joe, he was frantic, hovering around, getting in the way, trying to stop them taking his friend away. As the trailer containing Joe’s body drove up the track, Ben’s plaintive neighs were heartbreaking.

  SEVENTEEN

  Amber

  (Adam)

  ‘Yes, hello there,’ said the voice on the telephone, ‘I’ve bought a young horse, an Arab mare, for my daughter and she wants to, you know, break it in, I wondered if you had any advice.’

  Breaking in a young horse. Advice.

  For a moment I was so flummoxed I couldn’t find a word to say. I couldn’t think where to start. Finally I stammered, ‘Yes. Don’t let her do it, unless you don’t like her very much.’

  By now I had seen enough messed-up young horses to know that starting one is not something that most amateurs should be getting involved with. A young Arab mare, being a combination of notoriously difficult traits, was unlikely to be easy.

  If I had known what was going to happen to her, I would have been as forceful as I could in my salesmanship, which would probably have scared my prospective client off in seconds. We seemed to hit it off, but there was a major stumbling block. The daughter was quite a good rider, she said, and she wanted to take part in the training as much as possible. In itself, that didn’t seem a problem, but they lived in London. It would be very difficult for her daughter, a student called Emily, to see and participate in much of the process, unless she stayed here, which was not ideal, especially as the horse, who was called Amber, had been moved recently. I offered to visit London, even for a few days at a time, training the two of them together, but this wasn’t a great scenario either. It was a hard decision for my prospective client to make, so instead of trying to persuade her, I emphasised that I thought she should certainly get professional help, rather than letting her daughter do anything by herself, and sent her a letter outlining the various options we could offer, but heard no more.

  I had all but forgotten about it when the phone rang a few months later, but I knew immediately from the tone of the lady’s voice that things had not gone well with the training. The first time a saddle had been put on, it had not been done up tightly enough, and had slipped. Amber had got loose with it upside-down around her belly and had run around the school in a complete panic. The stirrups had banged around her feet, tripping her up, and she had become entangled in them. Eventually the saddle had ended up dropping down her body, and, after falling over, she managed to squirm, buck and kick until it came off. She was now extremely phobic about the saddle. I could hear a voice in the background, anxiously adding details to a disastrous picture. Amber had become unrideable, although the trainers had tried on many occasions. She had bucked everyone off, and they now thought she was incurable and should probably be shot. As I delved deeper, the story got worse. Although the yard was right on the edge of one of London’s most scenic parks, Amber had been kept in a stable for twenty-three hours a day, as there was no pasture available, and her only time outside was half an hour in a patch of mud. Then she had been taken off to the school and trained – or tortured, as she must have seen it. We arranged for Amber to come and visit us. Emily, whose term was ending, would accompany her and stay for a few days while we assessed the situation and began work.

  It was a warm day in early summer when they arrived. Nicole and Julia were off teaching on a course, which was perhaps why Jo and I were sitting outside in T-shirts, taking a break, delighted at no longer having to wear several layers and coats. A rented horsebox drew up, from which emerged a driver, and a slim girl in jeans and a huge polar coat with a fake fur hood. Her hair, long and barely controlled, was too blond and wispy for a horse to confuse it with hay, but this was about the only thing to indicate she might have anything to do with horses. Although I didn’t think she could possibly be old enough to enter one, she looked more like she belonged in a nightclub than the Pony Club. It seemed she had just emerged from a state of hibernation, one not of sleep but late nights and urban energy, which had given her white skin an extra pallor, as if hardly ever exposed to the sun. We introduced ourselves to Emily, who looked otherwise as if she wouldn’t have said a thing, then got the ramp down and let Amber out.

  She had loaded and travelled reasonably well, but was obviously very tense, practically leaping down the ramp. A darker stain of sweat lay beneath her bright chestnut coat, and the tips of her ears, so inward-pointing as to look almost like crescents, darted in all directions as she took in her new surroundings, so different from those she had left. The constant hum of London’s traffic and the endless stream of jets passing overhead had given way to the gentle shushing of the leaves in the trees and the acrobatic tumbling of swallows, recently returned from Africa. An appetising smell of wild garlic emanated from the woods, a welcome change from the polluted urban atmosphere. Getting away from the city had to be good for Amber, but it was obvious that she would need more than that to come right. Although she was well halter-broken, and never pulled on the rope, or did anything outrageous, I noticed immediately that she paid no attention to anyone, ignoring us, occasionally stepping through someone’s space, quite subtly, more out of a lack of consider
ation than aggression, almost as if they weren’t there. She tried to do it to me, and when she found I wouldn’t let her, and pushed her back, she swished her tail in annoyance, and pulled the first of the many splendid ugly faces we were to get used to over the coming months.

  As we took Amber up to the yard, Emily gave me a cheque for a thousand pounds – enough for almost two months’ stay. This was more than most of our clients had ever paid, and I had hardly ever seen a cheque as big. In an attempt to break the ice, which backfired spectacularly, Jo and I quipped, ‘Oh great, thanks, you can go home now.’ Not the slightest hint of a smile showed in her face. The couple of days she was staying suddenly seemed a very long time.

  Later that day, having unpacked enormous quantities of tack, rugs, ointments, remedies, feeds and supplements, and a crooked saddle, I showed Emily and Amber around, and took them up to the round pen. I had seen join-up make a difference so quickly to so many horses, I could not help hoping that she might be about to change her whole outlook, and allow me to wipe the slate clean. I led Amber around the pen for a while, letting her see the wood and valley dotted with grazing horses, while I explained to Emily about join-up. Amber’s head was raised, and she snorted as she looked out, and began frantically to pop her lips open and shut in rapid spasms, in a grotesque impersonation of a goldfish. I had been explaining about how I would be looking for her to lick and chew, as she began to calm down and accept me. But this seemed uncontrollable, a nervous tick. She followed me well enough as I walked around, making sure not to put herself under any pressure from the rope, but steadfastly concentrating on anything else but me, and having trouble just staying in a walk. She began to empty her bowels, producing another little contribution for the muck heap about every minute for the rest of the session. I bustled about, giving her a rub, clearing up again, stroking her quietly, then leading her round, until eventually I let her loose and continued walking as if she should follow.