White Horse Pilgrim

Coats of many colours

Doru has just a little of his winter coat remaining. That is the frosty covering which is, really, a kind of transition between his true chocolate winter coat and summer's almost metallic roan.

Near the gate his field still displays signs of the winter's churning. Mounds of earth stand as if petrified by the newly awakened sun.

He's happy in retirement. However it is strange seeing the old fellow in such soft condition. All the time that I owned Doru I'd known him in hard condition, muscled and ready to work. Old photos show him rounded and taut, with a great rotund rear full of muscles. That was the stout stallion that carried me three miles forward and two thousand feet upward in an hour each morning.

I have repainted the trailer floor above and below, a process that has given me some satisfaction.

This particular type of trailer is usual in having a wooden floor made up of two layers. The lower planks run longitudinally above a steel frame, and the upper planks sit laterally on top of those.

Critics say that this causes urine to be trapped between the layers with the result that the floor rots from the middle. However my trailer still has the original hardwood lower floor which appears to be in good condition. The softwood upper floor, which gets battered by shod hooves, has not long been replaced.

I painted the top with a treatment intended for garden decking. That should provide a measure of protection against rotting.

On top of this I will add a layer of rubber stable matting when I am transporting Brena. That will stop droppings from getting down between the planks.

You can see that the trailer has a useful storage space in front of the breast bar. However I don't transport Brena with quite such a mess of gear dumped there. The haynet to the right is the main focus of her attention of course. For a single large horse this is a nice spacious trailer that allows legs to be straddled for balance.

The bottom timbers have been treated with creosote on an annual basis apparently. Creosote cannot be bought anymore, being carcinogenic, therefore I applied used engine oil as an equivalent means of waterproofing.

It was a whole lot of fun lying in the narrow space beneath the trailer applying thick black oil with a paintbrush whilst the liquid ran down my bare arm and dripped off my elbow.

Well, actually, I don't mind that kind of work at all. It is real, useful and fairly quickly executed. It differentiates me from other owners who do nothing but ride.

Now I am ready to take Brena out on a nice ride tomorrow. 

In the evening D and I took the dogs for a walk. The big white Hungarian sheepdog Balanca has had her coat clipped. This has turned the four year-old into a near-puppy, full of life and just wanting to play.

It has also made her a lot less smelly, and far easier to clean when she does roll in fox poo.

Here she is careering up a steep slope. Taking the picture I was looking down a near-45 degree bank. The smaller, older Mina, veteran of two years (and several thousand miles) on the trail cannot keep up with the revitalised youngster's speed.

So finally all the animals are truly settled in and - with a bit of help in Balanca's case - properly adapted to their new lives.

Seen on the way to work this morning

Being British I cannot help but post this.

On the way to work I saw a railway locomotive painted up to regognise the British Army, a sentiment with which I am totally in accord. (The logo reads: Army. Be the Best. Which describes our army very well.) My town is home to an army bomb disposal unit active in Afghanistan. They have my respect.

The oddity is that the locomotive is operated by the German State Railway, Deutsche Bahn.

How nice to see that globalisation has brought recognition from a nation that once was our enemy.

On panic attacks

I went out to the barn intending to complete the treatment of the trailer's interior timber floor. That task I completed in a broadly satisfactory way. I would have liked to clean it using the nice Bosch vacuum cleaner from home, but have more sense than to try. So I swept the floor then painted it liberally with the timber treatment solution.

Whilst the floor was drying I slipped off up to the field, gave some attention to both horses, and was greeted by the vet who has a horse in the adjoining field. She adminstered Brena's flu and tetanus innoculations which are necessary if we are to attend a riding club camp in four weeks time. Indeed this is almost the last moment to start as tetanus requires three weeks between the two shots.

Then my phone rang. Well actually it rang twice. First D asked me whether I had fed the cat - Tiger who has just had several rotten teeth removed. He was making a pitiful spectacle of hunger and woe. Of course I had fed him. But thanks to splendid acting he received a second tasty meal of premium wet food. Clever old "Toothless Tiger".

Then a friend called me. She had suffered a panic attack on the previous day and wanted to talk about this. I won't go into her details, obviously, however I do have much sympathy for her predicament. I've been in that situation too.

Back in Transylvania, when I was forced to rely on an unreliable office manager, an untrustworthy accountant and banks whose employees varied from incompetent to plain corrupt, doing business could be a struggle. When I was out riding away from home five days a week I had to rely on the office manager and accountant as a minimum. There was a time when I was trying to make some investment and, frankly, whenever I was away problems occured. Telephoned instructions were ignored or modified. The accountant submitted paperwork with basic arithmetic errors. After a week guiding a group whilst on and off the phone again and again trying unsuccessfully to resolve idiocy I received more bad news of a financial nature.

At that point I began to feel quite unwell. I lost interest in my surroundings, vision receded to a tunnel and other senses faded away. My heart hurt. Without actually caring about the outcome I came to the conclusion that I was suffering a heart attack. At that moment truly I would have welcomed death. After so much struggle and such a lot of senseless opposition there seemed to be little to live for.

Obviously after a while I felt better. Clearly I am still here. I did make a long train journey to receive comprehesive medical tests which showed that I was physically quite fit and healthy. I have always been robust physically yet that experience knocked my confidence.  

Only later did a doctor explain that I had suffered a panic attack. I wouldn't have come to that conclusion myself, perceiving panic as a matter of running around crazily out of control rather than an essentially passive experience.

What I felt was not an explosion of energy so much as a cloak of darkness drawn across the sky and all around me. It was like a curtain being closed on life.

That experience was the nadir of a lifestyle whose highs included wonderful rides in a wilderness of mountain and forest.

Clearly that splendid and varied life had strengthened me to the point where I could survive such a trial and remain philospohical. What does not kill builds one up.

The fact that place made me grow did not mean that I should remain there. Why remain and become spent physically and emotionally (and financially) in a place that, in the end, I came to outgrow?

I have emerged able to appreciate how a friend felt at a particularly horrible point in her life. I've been able to be there for her and give a little advice. I have been able to say: "it's not the end of the world" - which such attacks can feel like.

Life has moved on a long way since that dark day.

Not only has life become safer and in some ways more rewarding, it has put me in a position to use my experiences to benefit others.

Actually I am quite happy with that outcome. Gaining the ability to apply experiences is a precious gift.

Alternative realities

Rilke wrote:

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

That seems so very true, certainly in my life. Work is serious, so is the matter of getting to work in partnership with my horse. To step back, to relax, now that is difficult.

But T.S. Eliot added:

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.

Now that is true too. How many do I see engaging with the world's problems? They are too difficult, too serious. Let's hide in recreation and drink.

Thank goodness our Royal Family, of which we are still subjects (and not citizens), are throwing a jolly wedding for the populace to enjoy. They are going to a lot of effort. London is awash with flags. I do hope that everyone is grateful for this little bit of unreality. (It is unreal: whom amongst us commoners have a clue what life is like for the Royals?)

As for me, I shall be riding my horse with as little seriousness as possible across the chalk hills. It's not that I don't wish the couple well, far from it. I hope that they are happy and succeed at the first attempt (rather than the third, as in my case).

However the associated media circus makes me nauseous.

I'll tread that lovely trail along the ridge (or, rather, Brena will tread it for me), that track that Romans trod millennia ago. Their leaders, too, knew a thing about bread and circuses. Don't call me cynical. I'm impressed by the brashness with which this wisdom was (and is) enacted.

My vanity, call it unreality if you will, lies within my imagination.

As I ride I dream still of the last homely house (to borrow from Tolkien), the travellers' refuge, that cottage below the woods by a meadow and a stream where the wanderer and his (or her) horse are welcome. There's a long balcony outside with benches where stories can be swapped in summer, and a cozy lounge with a cracking log fire in winter.

That's my escape from what some call reality. But it's real enough within heart and mind. Things figurative, things allegorical, they always are real.

I've the whole of next week free from work. That's plenty of time to indulge in riding and imagination - time to ignore the worst of the seriousness and explore my personal reality.

It will be fun.

Flow of time

I love the timelessness of the hills. As Brena's rich deep mane blows hither and thither in the breeze, so time and memories swirl about these ridges and slopes.

Prehistoric dwellers farmed these hills, though I wonder how they found water for man or beast in this arid place.

Romans trudged along this trail too. Perhaps they wondered at the long-abandoned hillforts that had been left by vanished peoples? Maybe they thought just of arrival, food and drink?

Saxons lived in the valleys where water is freely available, but crossed these hills nonetheless, and their shepherds were busy up here. In dark days Saxons clashed with one-another, or with Vikings. Then in time the two became one, at which point the Normans (who were really just more Vikings) appeared.

After that the life of these hills became a little quieter. After a few hundred years there were some Civil War skirmishes up here. Then almost half a millennium passed more quietly save for the tread of boots, the bleat of sheep, and the clip-clop of hooves on the hard dry chalk of the upland trails.

This is a land across which time has passed like water along the limpid trout streams on the plain below, perhaps scouring a little but essentially a benign interloper that leaves soft gentle changes in its wake.

The shallow valleys of the lowland watercourses are smooth and well weathered like the great ancient hillforts on the ridge, so old and so normal that most walk across them with scarcely a thought.

Then there is the fantasy world beneath and beyond (and above and all around). It is no coincidence that Tolkien came from just down there in the valley, from a place where the Oxen forded the river that came to be called Oxenford and then plain Oxford. These hills breed metaphor. In their organic smoothness they are like a petrified ocean. Stretching towards the horizon (and seemingly beyond) they appear to define infinity. Hidden hangers and coombes come and go like fringes of fabulous kingdoms where elves might tread.

I can imagine (indeed have imagined) passing through the mist and finding myself amongst strange amazed people from another time, at once homespun and warlike, and more bonded to nature than the people of my time. That too is a metaphor - a search for identity - in which case that thread of imagination is a drifting skein of the unconscious.

So, through its open expanses which encourage the mind to embrace freedom and imagine, is this a therapeutic landscape? Perhaps any landscape, if sufficiently free from buildings and roads, has healing potential.

However this place seems to have issued an especial invitation to me.

On the hills

The chair is for mounting from. At the age of 46 I really cannot leap about a horse without the headstart that a mounting block provides.

The chair will sit by the trailer for the duration of the ride. As its an old chair, battered and paint spattered, I doubt whether any opportunist will steal it. If they do, well I didn't pay anything for the chair.

Again Brena simply walked into the trailer without a fuss. I think that she is beginning to see the trailer as a kind of stable, simply one that moves. It feels safe, contains food, and I invite her to enter myself.

She travels better with the top doors at the rear closed too. Perhaps travelling that way is calmer and less distracting.

Sundays are quite a busy day for walkers and cyclists so we had a relatively slow ride. With that many people around, most clearly not used to horses, it makes no sense to rush. At least those who aren't familiar with horses tend to err on the side of caution, keeping back and holding their dogs.

I met the owner of the mare who has Doru's foal. She was riding her old gelding. The foal, I learned, is doing very well. He has become friendly and interested in people, and enjoys galloping around his paddock. It is great to hear that he is sociable and healthy.

Out in the open spaces we relaxed, Brena proceeding nicely on a loose rein. Lunges at vegetation are now few and far between.

It is only in the tighter spots, such as a sunken lane leading from the valley to the ridge, that she is more on edge. It feels almost as if instinct kicks in, for in such places predators could creep up close. My old gelding Pintea, who grew up high in the Carpathian mountains, was like that too after arriving in Britain. Well Brena originated in the Alpine north of Slovenia where, like Pintea's native Transylvania, there are wolves and bears. The knowledge of their existance is bred into her.

We arrived back at the trailer after a couple of hours riding. My chair was still there. It was time for a rest.

Here is Brena tied up to graze whilst I have a flask of coffee and some food. I sat right by Brena, and from time to time she nosed against me for attention.

I scratched her forehead which is itchy with shedding coat and fed the occasional carrot from a supply that happened to be in my pocket.

Then I fished her hairs out from my coffee.

After that I extracted hairs from the apple pie that I intended to eat.

It was pleasant to sit there in the sun, my horse and I content in the late afternoon tranquility.

Riding is enjoyable, of course. But simply being with a good horse is enormously satisfying too.

What a strange circumstance that I, an exile returned from Transylvania, should be travelling along a Neolithic trackway accompanied by a young mare from the far side of the European continent.

Sometimes life leads one along a trail that, whatever wisdom one might have brought to bear, could not have be predicted. Given a little good fortune these outcomes can exceed expectations.

Trimming and trailering

Both Doru and Brena had their feet trimmed today.

The work was done up at the field since I expected the barn to be busy with horse show activities. I was wrong: the barn was merely sleepy as a collection fo young woemn who had been up for much of the night waited for energy drinks to kick in. But it was pleasant up at the field in the sun.

The girls had one scare during the night. A hunter, who is a friend of the farmer, went by. It wasn't the gun that alarmed them so much as the fact that he has a shaved head and the image of a brain tattooed onto his exposed scalp.

The trimmer is getting married next month. She wonders how fearsome tan lines will combine with a strapless dress.

That one's beyond my wisdom. However I gather that her hairdresser will try to make straight locks as full and curly as possible.

We men have life easy.

The horses have excellent feet. Doru's are hard as ever and nicely shaped. Brena's feet are even harder. Her hinds were low on their outsides at each previous trim. But now they have grown out level. I won't need to boot her hinds with wedge pads. I am happy, and relieved.

The only odd thing is the bruising that is growing out. That seems to be a relic of concussion last summer when she was working shod in Italy. However, bruises notwithstanding, she is absolutely sound even on hard stony ground.

After trimming I led Brena down to an awakening yard and my trailer already hitched to my truck.

Brena has not been particularly forthcoming about loading. Therefore I was surprised and delighted when she walked straight on without a qualm, settling down to devour a net of hay.

It was but a short drive to the feet of the hills. She travelled beautifully and left the trailer calmly backwards on request.

We had a good ride. Perhaps it's inevitable that the first few minutes of any ride with Brena will be a little lively and involve much staring at distant objects. Yet she isn't going to run off. I can keep her on a loose rein. My calmness quietens her. So much in life, in and out of work, comes down to leadership.

Brena is curious and observant. But that is not the same thing as flightiness.

She feeds off my emotional state, whether I am agitated or calm. The key is to get on her calm at the start of a ride. That means not drinking a lot of coffee in the morning. It means mental effort to focus on quietness. It means looking away from things that are commonplace but which I imagine might alarm Brena. Leadership is hard.

I guess that she and I are growing closer.

During less than half an hour in the trailer Brena defacated twice and staled. That reminded me that I need to treat the trailer's wooden floor with preservative - another job that will be a pleasure because it will be for my horse and I.

At the barn

Health and safety is, of course, top priority at the barn. So is the avoidance of unnecessary walking.

There were five of them on the quad: four teenage girls and one of their mothers.

But only one of them worked at any given time.

There are moments when I do wonder just how long it will be until someone is hurt. On the other hand I think back to what I was doing at sixteen. (At weekends driving tractors on an airfield where I helped out in part-payment for flying lessons. But aviation does instill a certain sense of responsibility because that is how one stays alive.)

On reflection horses and some things associated with them are rather less safe than aviation.

Perhaps I am being a bit stuffy? Probably.

How else to learn but through experience. How bad a thing can happen through moving hay and feed in this way? Maybe this actually teaches youngsters to look out for themselves and their mates? Isn't gross recklessness a strictly solo activity?

Anyway I do miss having a draught horse to pull a cart around the yard like we worked in Transylvania. One stout horse could pull half a ton of hay and several people if need be.

The feeding regime seems to be simply throwing a slice of hay to each horse twice a day. That's arbitrary and too little. After they left I threw a bit more hay to Brena and Doru.

 

Spring changes

Doru is changing his coat at a good rate, his redundant winter coat coming out in handfuls. Consequently he presents a slightly comical mottled appearance.

The "we are not amused" response to his feeding being disturbed is rather typical.

I need to procure some more bute from him. They vet keeps her horse in the next field and wants to examine Doru before dispensing more bute. I did tell the vet practice manager that I expect not to pay a call-out charge as the vet is there every day anyway. I gained the impression that she was not happy with my expectation.

However nor will I be happy paying $50 for the vet to detour twenty paces.

I have gained the impression too that Doru has lost a little weight. Brena seems perpetually hungry too. The hay stock seems largely depleted after the winter, yet grass has hardly begun to grow in the fields. The board includes supplementary hay. My experience is that the barn manager just about feeds enough, and anyway it's preferable to keep horses a little light than obese. Nevertheless I am keeping an eye on the situation. If Doru drops any more weight then I shall raise the matter.

I felt too tired to ride today, so I walked Brena out to graze her. She was voraciously hungry, and quite lively. On reflection I was glad not to be riding. I do get the sense that she is bored with short rides around the farm. All her life Brena has gone out on longer rides: half a day or all day.

Thirty minutes familiar road around a small farm seems to invite boredom and naughtiness.

It bores me too, however I don't prance on the spot or pretend to be frightened by commonplace things.

So it looks as if I will need to trailer out for every ride. That means ten minutes to hitch the trailer and drive to the field, ten minutes (at least) to load Brena, then fifteen minutes to drive to the nearest suitable parking place. On the way back similar times will be needed. At least there are two or three suitable places to park for a nice ride.

What this tells me is that the current barn will not be a permanent solution. The people are nice enough, it's safe and secure, however the riding just isn't up to scratch for this horse.

Brena is a horse of the open spaces even more than Doru was. She needs space to burn off energy. That takes me back to an Irish Draught mare that I owned during the late 1990s. Unless a ride occupied a couple of hours then it wasn't worth the effort. Twenty miles was a morning's ride, and may be again soon.

It's exciting to have a mare like this: idiosyncratic, lively and a character. It's a challenge too to find the right places to live and ride. But we shall have fun.

Doru's progeny

This evening I enjoyed a first glimpse of Doru's progeny, a healthy filly. She's two days old now, and still to be named.

She and her dam had been put in a barn for the night and it wasn't possible to take great photos with a pocket camera.

This is the first of Doru's progeny that I have seen, although I am sure that he covered other mares back in Transylvania. I was excited to see this pretty little filly, whose owner naturally is thrilled.

It looks as if the youngster may have Doru's colouring. Certainly she hasn't taken after her mother.

I'll try and get by during the day to take some better photos. I do sometimes ride with her owner so I'm sure that I'll be seeing more of this foal as she grows.