Why horses can teach us so much about love
Some of the Gypsy Vanners in Suze's fields
She trotted over to me and stood quietly, untied, while my fingers disappeared into the long, winter-thick fur. I scrubbed out a few patches of dried mud, breaking it into powder. I massaged her back, her neck, her mane, her ears. Checked her feet for stones and her long, feathered heels for bugs and skin problems.
Meanwhile her nose fumbled around quietly looking for my pockets but I don’t feed other people’s horses, so she found nothing in those pockets apart from fuel receipts and used Kleenexes. Instead she took a bit of my coat in her mouth and sucked on it gently. Baby horses have teething issues just like so many other species do.
This was a 2-year-old, unbroken, unhandled Gypsy Vanner filly who belongs to a wonderful Romany family in my part of England. She, along with 7 other fillies, live on some fields I own locally. They are as tame as pet dogs and, with their open-hearted affection for humans, are living demonstrations of the way love can flourish between (in this case equid and human) species.
To see the trust in their eyes when you cuddle them is to see how sad it is when we encounter prejudice, hatred, bigotry and suspicion in our relationships with members of our own species, never mind those with “animals.” These are horses which have been brought into the world and brought up with love; and in return, they love back.
How our relationship with horses – and what they can teach us – gets distorted
Snobbish and nouveau-riche? I don't think so...
In the UK – an island in which envy forms a significant part of opinion formation – people who keep horses often are portrayed as being very rich, not very intelligent, or both. Cliché horse owners fall into a number of hackneyed stereotypes, e.g.:
**You go hunting which kills (or used to kill) poor little furry foxes (by the way, those are the same furry foxes that invade urban homes and have been known to attack babies and other young children. But of course that doesn’t, er, stack up in the anti-establishmentarianists’ book.)
**You’re a nouveau-riche nitwit who knows little about horses but insists on breeding Argentinian polo ponies and carving out a polo field in some innocent UK west-country field, so you and your friends can play a few chukkas after lunch on a Sunday and hopefully manage not to fall off and break your necks.
**You’re from the Middle East and think horses are a breed of hump-free camel but buy a racehorse so you can leave your country to go watch it race in Europe, wear your Rolex watch and other jewellery you have to hide at home, drink alcohol, swing from the chandeliers with gorgeous high-class hookers and generally learn what it’s like not to be strapped up in a long white nightgown with no booze and unbelievably restrictive living conditions.
Is this really a load of media-generated horse poop?
Despite the British media trying hard to keep alive the image of horses being the sole privilege of racy, rich nonentities, numbers of those stereotypes were always in the minority and now are decreasing further.
Suze with another 4-legged friend, "Merrylegs"
The vast majority of UK horse owners are not chinless, nouveau-riche polo players or rich Mid-Eastern racing wallahs. They are ordinary people who work one full time job – and sometimes a second part-time job – so they can afford to keep their beloved horse on a livery yard and pay for the often costly expenses of travelling to shows, lessons and competitions, vets’ bills, farriers’ bills, feed bills, etc. All for the pleasure of riding their horse, perhaps competing in simple shows and competitions, and enjoying the strong camaraderie that exists among fellow horse-lovers.
In the UK alone, the British Horse Society (which monitors horse ownership) claims that there is a total of “…4.3 million people in the UK who ride or who drive horse-drawn vehicles. “
4.3 million, most of whom are ordinary, hard-working people.
So what does this teach us about love?
Already we appreciate the love and partnership between us humans and our dogs and cats. But the relationship with a horse is different. It’s not about one species physically dominating the other, because even a Shetland pony is an awful lot stronger than an average human.
Equally, it’s not about psychological domination of one species over another; you don’t psychologically dominate a horse, although you can persuade it – by using its own language – to accept you as its leader.
"Lola," left, and "Macy"
No, in my view it’s about the sheer, uncomplicated joy that a relationship with a horse or pony can bring to both equid and human. It’s an innocent, pure love that requires total, mutual trust – a love that cannot hide behind human posturing, bullying, physical strength or anything other than being your true self. It’s a humbling, enriching experience and one which I treasure.
How about you?
About SuzanStMaurCanadian-born, UK-based Suzan is highly trained and very experienced journalist, business writer and editor, as well as being a best-selling author with over 30 published nonfiction books to her credit. She takes on commissions to provide and edit unique, quality written content for clients - from blog posts and articles to entire books - and runs the popular self-help site, “HowToWriteBetter.net” which offers more than 300 of Suzan's articles about writing as well as a showcase of her own books. You'll find her at suze@suzanstmaur.com.
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7 Responses to Why horses can teach us so much about love
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Hi Suze
Two things that might interest you if you’ve not yet come across them:
I got to know Lynda Cookson via Ecademy and we’ve had a few good conversations: http://www.lyndacookson.thepainterspalette.ie/index.php/art/category/23-horses
Click on one of the pictures and you get more of their life – and you can go back and forward to the other pictures.
The wonderful 2-part TV programme on horses with Martin Clunes – that you can get on DVD from Amazon. I’ve seen this programme a couple of times and each time I get something different from it – and I’m not even particularly a horse lover!
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Thanks for your comment, Linda – I just looked at Lynda Cookson’s work and think it’s fascinating.
Being a “horsey type” I know of several other talented equine artists but my favourite has to be Dianne Breeze, who does some stunning anatomical drawings and other serious visual interpretations of horses as well as some very funny cartoons. She has illustrated both my horsey joke books. More about her here: http://www.diannebreeze.com/
I’m delighted to see that progs like those of Martin Clunes et al are bringing people to understand horses at a much more realistic level than in previous generations.
Actually, horses really have needed this major turnaround. For centuries they were part of the working animal scene in the same way as oxen were. But with the advent of motorised technology early in the 20th century onwards their usefulness as working animals diminished and now almost has disappeared.
Thank Heavens our society has been able to “repackage” horses as recreational animals, and even as motivational creatures helping tech-weary executives get back in touch with their natural selves.
Suzan St Maur I lovingly typed…Why you need to reMAMBA your marketing articulation
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Good to see you have a great time with your horses, you do have to treat them well and you do, so keep up the good work.
Thanks Les – in fact these Gypsy Vanners don’t belong to me – they’re just my “tenants!” I used to have my own horses though and had lovely relationships with them. Completely different from the relationship you have with a carnivorous animal like a dog or cat, although I have a number of both those too…
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I know just what you mean about that special relationship between horse and human, Suze. I’ve only ever “owned” (as much as anyone can own another living creature) one horse, although I rode for most of my teenage years.
My steed was a fairly ugly skewbald (brown and white) cob called Geisha who had such a lovely soft nature. There were many horses and ponies at the DIY livery yard where I kept her. A couple of stunning throughbreds, a few very handsome hunters and an assorted array of cobs and Thelwell-type ponies. And the most popular? My Geisha. She would stand quietly for hours while the children in the yard plaited her mane and tail, dressed her up and generally played with her. Their own ponies were too quick with their teeth and hooves to stand still for long. She just lapped up the attention.
Geisha never minded being shoed, and once was kicked by another pony (a beautiful palomino with a vicious temper) somewhere very delicate, and just stood quietly while the vet stitched her up. Any other horse would have had to be sedated for the vet’s safety, but Geisha just stood and let me talk to her while the vet stuck needles in her nether regions.
We were only together for a couple of years (during which time I had a break from riding when I fell off her, breaking a bone in my spine – not her fault, a stupid bird flew at her and startled her, unseating me), but I was heartbroken leaving her at her new owners, and only then when I had satsified myself they would love her as much as I had.
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What a lovely story, Jane – Geisha sounds like she was a wonderful little mare and you were lucky to have that relationship with her. From the description, and her being coloured (USA: paint!) she could well have had some Gypsy Vanner blood. Do you know if she came from Ireland originally? Many coloured cobs come from there and they are known for their lovely temperaments.
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Horse is the oldest vehicle in human society. It understands our language. It help us to do many things. So we like horse.
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