Whispering Back

by Adam Goodfellow

  We worked with several horses to show join-up, spookbusting and other techniques, and Misty gave everyone who wanted one a hug. All the while I could hardly bear to watch when people approached High Flyer’s stable, on which was posted a note advising that a distance should be kept, and that on no account should anyone go into the stable with him, no matter how friendly he seemed. The notice also mentioned that he was a Welsh cob, section D, for sale.

  When it was High Flyer’s turn last thing in the afternoon, I realised my precautions were not unreasonable. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite so dangerous as Lynette trying to take him from the stable to the pen, not even with all the bucking horses I’ve seen Monty and Kelly deal with. Those horses might be potential killers, but are generally quite safe so long as you don’t try to ride them. But you literally couldn’t do a thing with this High Flyer without being in mortal danger. Lynette had been trying to groom him in the yard, to smarten him up for his big day. He was getting increasingly het up, and whirling in circles. As a yearling, he was small, but strong enough to pull her around, and with his teeth, front legs and back legs all so close together, it was very hard for her to put herself in a safe place. He had clearly spent some time working on his repertoire. While snapping at Lynette, he would rear and strike out with his forelegs, and then a split-second later, curl his back end around and cow kick with his hind legs. He managed this while leaping and twisting almost continually, and rarely seemed to have more than one foot on the ground at a time. Lynette had a short lead rope on him, which she held tightly under his chin, and he kept pulling her off balance so that she was frequently in danger of getting right underneath his flying hooves. I’m not at all sure how helpful my ‘they’re ready for you in the pen, now’ message was. As she tried to lead him towards the gate of the yard, he got even more frantic. It wasn’t even clear that the circles they were spinning in were getting them any closer to the intended destination. At that moment, Adam appeared, armoured from top to toe with hat, body protector, long sleeves, gloves, chaps and steel toe-capped boots, in spite of the heat of the day.

  The idea had been for Lynette to lead High Flyer to the pen so that people could see how difficult he was, and also that he had received no training at all from any of us. But it was clear that in doing so, Lynette would be risking serious injury. In the end, I took Finn, our Exmoor pony, to give him a lead, and Adam put High Flyer on a long rope, which he held at the end farthest from High Flyer’s teeth and front legs. By now, the spectators were peering curiously around the corner, giving the odd gasp as High Flyer came a bit too close to one of the cars that lined the track to the pen. It was erratic progress, but thanks to the lead Finn gave, Adam got him there in one piece.

  Once in the pen, High Flyer put on a display as impressive as the one in the yard. But he was frustrated when his usual bag of tricks didn’t produce the normal results. Working with a longer rope, in the confined space of the round pen, Adam was able to stay out of the way of the thrashing hooves and snapping teeth, without having to worry about High Flyer actually getting away from him. Snaking the rope vigorously whenever his space was invaded, Adam could keep the yearling at bay, and only invite him closer on his own terms. By leading him from a distance, instead of by his shoulder, he was able to show that he wanted him to follow. And with careful application of pressure and release, soon he was getting the idea and began to lead and back up without all the tantrums. Once High Flyer had grasped the principle that Adam could control his movements with the rope attached, it was time to show him that the same principles held when he was loose.

  Unlike many bottle-reared horses, High Flyer was actually relatively easy to send away. From time to time, he would swing his back end in and lash out at Adam, but it seemed more like a token protest than a well-aimed strike. When Adam invited him in, High Flyer was reticent, as if unsure about the new boundaries, and whether or not he was meant to approach. But by the end of the session, which in total had taken about forty minutes, the change in his attitude was quite extraordinary. He was no longer a piranha on legs, choosing instead to follow Adam around most courteously, as if that had always been his intention. The walk back down to the yard was spectacularly dull in contrast to the journey up. Following Adam politely, High Flyer walked calmly back down the path on a loose rope, without even trying to eat the grass.

  High Flyer had certainly lived up to his name, and provided a fantastic finale to the end of a successful day. I was really pleased that Lynette had brought him along. But there was one niggling doubt at the back of my mind.

  ‘When’s he going home?’ I asked Adam.

  ‘Well . . .’ he said shiftily, not looking me in the eye, ‘she’s hoping someone will want to buy him. Apparently a couple of people have expressed an interest. It would be good if he could stay here for a couple of weeks for a bit more training, and then he would be a lot safer in his new home.’

  ‘Hmm. That’s fine, but we’re not keeping him. We don’t need eight horses. Do we, Adam?’ I said the last bit as emphatically as I could, more a statement than a question. It wasn’t just that we already had seven horses, there was something about High Flyer that I just didn’t like. It wasn’t even particularly his behaviour, as I was confident he would soon be absolutely fine to handle. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I just knew I’d rather he found somewhere else to live.

  By this time, we had got quite used to people offering us horses. Probably the most unlikely candidate was a 17.2 hand high, eighteen-year-old thoroughbred, who needed remedial farriery every three weeks, couldn’t live out, reared and bolted, was aggressive towards people and horses, and was prone to colic. Not exactly the ideal companion horse, which was how the lady on the phone was trying to promote him.

  ‘I wouldn’t want any money for him,’ she hastened to add. ‘It’s just that I can’t afford to keep a horse I can’t ride, and this one is really dangerous.’

  As a child, I would have been happy to take on anything, but as an adult I had learned to look a gift horse in the mouth. It didn’t take long, working as professionals, to realise that however deserving each case might be, if we were to take them all on, we would be inundated with horses, without time to make much of a dent in their problems, only in our bank balance.

  Apart from Karma, Free Be had been the latest addition to our herd, bought for just one pound with the intention of rehabilitating him and selling him on, or at the very least saving him from becoming dog food. I still can’t imagine what made us think we’d be capable of selling a horse, let alone one with the traumatic history that Free Be had obviously experienced. So when I saw Adam falling for High Flyer, I knew I had to nip it in the bud.

  Two years later, he’s still here. Living out with our herd has brought out the best in him, and he seems to have discovered what being a horse is all about. The overhandling of his youth has been diluted by only receiving the most minimal handling since. Adam somehow managed to convince me that he would be a good prospect for selling on. The fact that we were paid £300 to take him helped sway the decision, although inevitably he has cost far more than that to keep. Now, of course, Adam’s decided he might be a useful character to have around, and has visions of him being helpful on riding clinics. I have a strange suspicion he might be with us for a long time yet.

  Just as we tend to become extremely fond of the horses we train, so too with the owners. Overwhelmingly, they have their horse’s best interests at heart. Of course, it can be quite exasperating to receive a phone call at half past ten at night to check that ‘little Jimmy’ has settled in all right, but we understand the sentiment. It is dreadfully difficult to entrust the care of your horse to someone else, and I’m not at all sure how I’d feel about sending my horse away. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that everyone has such different views on how horses should be kept, and I’m sure this is a big part of the reason for the tense atmosphere of so many livery yards. One person will be tut-tutting at the poor horse stuck i
n his stable all the time, while the other will be tsking at the poor horse stuck out in the field in the rain. And each will feel that what they are doing is the best for the horse, and that the other practice is tantamount to cruelty or neglect. At the very first hint of disapproval, war is declared, and grudges are borne for ever. I’ve never heard anyone say, ‘Oh yes, you’re right, I am very slack with my horse care. I’ll do it more like you in the future. Thanks for that.’ It just doesn’t happen.

  Which is why we’re often amazed at the open-mindedness of our clients when we (tactfully) inform them that certain aspects of their horse’s care – the saddle, their riding, the feeding regime, the home environment, or their handling of the horse, for example – has actually been part of the problem, or even the entire cause of it. It’s quite a leap for the owner to realise that to become part of the solution, something major has got to change.

  We had become so used to dealing with people whose main concern was for their horse’s comfort and well-being, that when we came across someone who didn’t think like that, it took us a long time to recognise the situation for what it was. One owner we dealt with gave us a horse to look after whose feet were in a terrible state, and whose mouth was black with ulcers and laceration. They seemed uninterested in the horse’s well-being, merely wanting her to be trained. When we explained that we could do very little until we’d sorted her health out, the owner took her away. We didn’t mind losing the business, but were just concerned for the horse’s welfare.

  I don’t think we realised quite how different the life we had chosen to live was, until our friend Dan came up to visit. He’d been in the same college at university, and had played with Adam first in a duo called The Gypsy and Van Gogh (Dan was the Gypsy, Adam was Van Gogh), and then in another band called Industrial Accident.

  When Dan came to visit us that autumn, he had been working in London for several years as a very successful computer programmer, variously self-employed as the owner of a limited company, and also doing contract work for larger clients. He loved driving on ‘proper’ roads, and had been meaning to come out and see us for ages, but it had been about three years before his executive lifestyle and our lack of available weekends had allowed a time to visit. As it was, we didn’t think it was a particularly suitable time of year to come.

  ‘Bring lots of warm clothes,’ Adam suggested, ‘and a waterproof jacket. Oh, and don’t forget your wellies.’

  But when Dan climbed out of his low-slung, turbo-charged, super sexy sports car, and pulled off his trendy sunglasses, he took a small hold-all out of the tiny space at the back of his car that masqueraded as a boot.

  ‘I’ve brought all the warm clothes I own,’ he said. This turned out to be one thick woollen grey jumper. ‘I didn’t bring my wellies, because I don’t own a pair. This jacket is quite waterproof, though.’

  We looked at it doubtfully. It was made of suede, with hippy tassles hanging off the arms like a horse’s fly fringe. I could only imagine what short work High Flyer would make of it.

  ‘What will you do about the mud?’ we asked incredulously.

  ‘Mud?’ he replied. ‘Why would I be near mud?’ which prompted a sarcastic retort from us about earth, rain, and the general lack of concrete that more or less defines the countryside.

  Nevertheless, he gave us each a big grin, and a hug, and we went into the house.

  ‘Don’t you have central heating, then?’ he asked, almost managing to make the question sound merely conversational.

  ‘Yes, it’s on,’ I assured him.

  ‘Are you sure you’ve switched it to “heat” and not “air-conditioning”?’ he asked.

  ‘I know I only did one year of Engineering,’ I replied, ‘but I do remember a little about Thermodynamics. Heat would be the red bit on a thermostat, wouldn’t it? Yes, the sensation you’re experiencing is technically known as “a draught”. It comes through the walls. This sitting room used to be a tack room. Still damp air encourages mould on leather, so they went for moving damp air instead.’

  Dan looked around the walls, where the marks from the saddle and bridle racks were still visible. ‘But isn’t it rather chilly for a living room?’

  ‘Not if you huddle against the radiator,’ I demonstrated, ‘with a duvet wrapped around your body. It’s surprisingly toasty then. Anyway, don’t worry, this is the only really cold room in the house.’

  The next day we decided to go out for a walk, having asked permission from Henry to ramble through Moor Wood. In spite of Dan’s irritated objections, we clucked around him like mother hens, making sure he would be adequately equipped for this unfamiliar situation, and not weighed down unnecessarily. In the clothing department he was woefully under-prepared, but on the technical gadgetry front he was well equipped, with his mobile phone. We laughed and asked if he was planning also to take a global positioning satellite receiver.

  ‘I thought you were meant to be escaping to the country,’ Adam said.

  ‘Yes,’ Dan replied, ‘but you never know when you might need a phone. I can always ignore the call if I choose to. But the whole point of a phone being mobile, is that you bring it places with you.’ He looked pointedly at our own mobile phone, where it was resting incongruously in the fruit bowl, switched off and covered in dust, patiently holding at least one message sent from Dan asking for more detailed directions on how to reach us.

  ‘I suppose,’ I said, not entirely contrite.

  We had been sploshing merrily through the mud, Dan in a pair of borrowed boots, and were near the end of our walk, when we heard the bell. It was a familiar sound, but incongruous, and it took us a moment or two to realise what it was. It was the same sort of bell that Henry had on his hawk, clasped around its feet, but it was coming from a bird high up in a tree. It wasn’t Henry’s falcon though, and looked like a ‘tame’ buzzard that had escaped. We had no way of knowing whom it might belong to.

  ‘Why don’t you phone your landlord?’ suggested Dan, grinning. ‘He would know, wouldn’t he?’ And he held out his state-of-the-art mobile impishly.

  ‘I doubt there’ll be any reception just here,’ Adam started to say, and then realised that the signal was clear and strong. Even there, in the middle of a wood that has stood since before the Domesday Book was written, out of sight of any dwelling and out of earshot from any road, we were still within the clutch of the modern world. Invisible and inaudible, the microwaves buzzed through the air around us as Adam sheepishly made the call.

  Henry arrived a few minutes later, with a dead pheasant to use as bait, but the recently liberated bird wasn’t hungry. That meant she was probably doing a good job supporting herself. ‘She escaped from Mrs Such-and-such last week,’ Henry explained. ‘But she doesn’t look like she’s lost much weight. That’s it, now. If she’s learned to hunt, she’ll never come back. Which is a shame, because she’s an American buzzard, and they’re bigger than European ones. She’ll probably contaminate the gene pool, but what can you do?’

  Despite our failure to retrieve this retrograde raptor, Dan spent most of the rest of his stay revelling in the glory of his technological success in what he insisted must have been the most exciting incident to occur in Woodmancote since, well, the Domesday Book. This was, of course, a gross exaggeration, and it was to be eclipsed by an event that took place almost the next week.

  This was the date set for us to negotiate a new lease with Henry. It was now a year since Sarah and Peter had left, so the remnants of their lease were now at an end, and we were dreading the expected increase, even though we felt sure Henry would be reasonable. But the rent had not, after all, gone up for five years.

  The day we were due to see Henry, we found ourselves running late. We had several horses in for training, but had left the most difficult to last. This horse, Basil, had a mounting and bucking problem, caused by a brand new saddle that had a nail sticking out of it, which had damaged his back. By about 5.30 p.m. we were only just ready to work him in the round pen, leav
ing just half an hour before our appointment. By this stage, he had come on a long way. He had been ridden successfully several times by Jo, Adam and myself. Although he had shown definite signs of nerves, he seemed to have come through the worst of his fears.

  Part of what had worked so well was the pace at which we had taken the work. It was clear that he had a severe phobia of being mounted from the ground, but after practising a lot with leg-ups and bellying over, we were able to introduce the idea to him gradually, and prevent him from blowing up. By the time I actually got on him properly for the first time, with Adam carefully leading him from the ground, he was able to cope with the idea, but it took all my effort, stabilising my body as much as possible, to keep him from setting off into the trot which I felt could so easily turn into a series of bucks. When I did trot him for the first time, it was as much as I could do to contain his anxiety, but gradually he calmed down and coped well with the process.

  That evening, Adam mounted up, and Basil stood still, just as he had done for many times in a row, while I stroked his head. It was a still, balmy evening in late summer, and with not a breath of wind, there seemed no reason to suspect anything could possibly happen. After a couple of circuits being led around, Adam asked me to take off the lead rope, and he walked around again once or twice and then gently pushed Basil into a trot.