White Horse Pilgrim

Today's excitement

Britain is bathed in sunlight, scarcely a cloud covering any fragment of this six hundred-mile long island. Low bright rays illuminated our evening ride, highlighting the rolling hills and the texture of crop and soil. Trees cast long shadows, and so did Brena and I. It was a lovely time to be out and about. Colours were vibrant, the air was clear and the quiet almost tangible.

Brena stepped out keenly. Sunday's tiredness, evidently, was long gone. We rode down the slope and into the lowest point of the meandering dry valley. That's down by the trees in the photo, at the end of the path through the crop - a right of way that the farmer has marked as the law obliges. Then we turned right, walked a curving section of the trail, then cantered as soon as we had a clear view ahead.

It was a fast ascent of the gently rising valley. We flew along in harmony, Brena negotiating the various dips and ruts with fluency. It was as if we had each thought of cantering, translating idea into reality without conscious request or command. Then we paused near the crest, Brena grazing in the lee of a bank of beech trees, panting, her neck wet with sweat.

A roaring sound disturbed my thoughts. I thought that the farmer might be tipping some hard granular material into a metal-bottomed trailer behind the trees. It was that kind of a noise. Again it came in a burst of a few seconds duration, and again. Perhaps a dozen times the roar repeated. Only then did its source become clear.

This hot air balloon crept from behind the trees, the pilot burning his tall yellow gas flare again and again. Brena stared, then decided to turn around, flight in her mind. I had no wish to canter back down the valley, so turned her back to face the airborne peril. This time Brena stood quietly. I dismounted to take some photos whilst she realised that the grass had not disappeared. The danger was not so great that grazing need cease!

The balloon had crept across the ridge after being carried across the steep northern scarp slope by a faint breeze. It looked rather as if the pilot had been caught out by the steepness of the hill, coming practically between clumps of trees. The picture above is not an optical illusion! (The one below is.) Hence the frequent burns to gain altitude. With a surprising amount of noise the drifting balloon slowly gained height, cleared the next copse and climbed away after what might just have been an alarming few minutes for the pilot.

Brena was no longer distracted from her meal. Just a noisy blob in the sky! Then it was time to ride on. Sunset was half an hour off, and we needed at least that long to regain our trailer. Brena was calm as ever, clearly not in the least concerned by what had transpired. We walked briskly. I did not seek more fast work, not wanting to take her back to the barn soaking wet. It's unseasonably warm but Brena has by no means shed her entire winter coat yet.

It was wonderful to feel completely attuned to Brena, as if I was meant to ride her and she to carry me. I felt unusually balanced upon her. I was sitting nicely, naturally upon my seat-bones, with a little weight in my feet. My lower back, all too often stiff, was rocking to absorb her motion. I needed no contact with her mouth. On we went, like good friends who scarcely need to speak in order to understand one-another. Except that I do talk to Brena. Quite a lot in fact. I like to talk to my horses, softly and warmly, for I appreciate them.

Trimming chestnuts

Today I set to trimming Brena's chestnuts, which had grown to impressive proportions. They showed no sign of being shed, and I was beginning to be concerned that they might become caught on long vegetation. On occasions we do find ourselves picking through bushes fallen across the trail or thick tough scrub.

I removed about half the length of each easily with a good pair of hoof nippers, then smoothed the ends of the remaining parts with the less aggressive side of a hoof rasp leaving them tidy.

The inside of a chestnut proved to be rubbery, indeed almost waxy, rather like the inside of the frog. I had expected hard horn all the way through, though I had no reason to imagine them hard or soft inside.

There are some curious folk tales about chestnuts. Foals are said to be born without them, which in fact is not true. Back in Transylvania I looked at a newborn foal in order to check - and that mysterious land is just the place where a superstition ought to be true.

Other people hold that a foal's legs are held together at the chestnuts in the womb, which is also untrue. At least that might have sounded plausible back in the days before x-rays and ultrasound enabled us to look inside a pregnant mare.

Then there is the superstition that one can catch a loose horse more easily when carrying a piece of chestnut. Apparently the chestnut emanates a peculiar smell that somehow attracts horses. (I checked. The pieces cut from Brena were almost odourless.)

However a piece of chestnut is by no means the only thing supposed to grant a man power over his horse. In days gone by there were the ploughman's 'knowledge' that was secret to the uninitiated. Perhaps it was something strong smelling that masked or modified a horse's senses?There were 'magic' words to be whispered into a horse's ear too. They might just have been a hoax to put others off the trail of just what a skilled horseman really did. After all knowledge is power. It's best to keep the competition off the scent - or, rather, on the wrong scent.

The horn regrown

Working from home today (and indeed still working thirteen hours after I started) I did manage to slip out at lunchtime to see Brena and Doru. The low mid-day sun cast long shadows as the affectionate mare followed me around the field. I'd fed her and hung around for a while.

She has a way of hanging over the fence when I am leaving that makes me really regret going away. This is one mare that I would like to spend a lot more time with.

An affectionate horse makes ownership a whole lot more pleasurable for me. I'm not interested in going out and winning things with her. the enjoyment comes through relationship: with a horse and with the land that we travel.

Even when eating she likes me to be close and give her attention - unlike Doru who will threaten to bite anyone who gets too close when he is eating hard feed.

It was whilst looking at her mass of muddy mane looking forward to the spring - when I might just manage to get her clean again - that I saw how Brena's ear horn has regrown. This is an odd and apparently benign growth in her left ear. Last May the horn separated leaving a tiny root. Now a replica has grown.

I've never before seen such a thing on a horse. It is Brena's individual personal peculiarity.

Meanwhile I stood to let her rub her nose and forehead on my shoulder, for which reason I always wear an old fleece when I visit her. In Brena's company clothes will become ingrained with shed hair and dirt. She does enjoy a good rub on her human. Then I stood with a shoulder under her throat, reached up, and gently pulled both her ears. Brena likes this, and so does Doru. (Siegfried Sassoon also wrote of how his horse enjoyed having his ears pulled, especially when tired.)

Finally I picked smooth hard clods of mud from Brena's mane. I'll have done that plenty more times before this winter is through.

Silent visitors

Riding this afternoon we came across these two visitors to the upland meadows, where the grass had been mown and the hay made just in time to create a fine smooth landing strip.

 
From above the land looks relatively flat. So I suspect that the two glider pilots, having carefully avoided standing crop which they are trained to recognise from the air, had a little surprise. The field on which they landed slopes fairly sharply uphill. Even this photo is deceptive, for Brena had just plodded uphill carrying me up the parallel trail. At least they managed to land into the breeze, making their task easier.

Brena appreciated the distraction. A stop to take photos means the opportunity to graze lush upland grass. She will make a fine travelling horse as she eats at every opportunity. Our journeys may not be fast however she will be well nourished. After all a travelling horse does need to eat a great deal, a lesson first pointed out to me nearly twenty years ago as I prepared to spend two months riding across Transylvania and Moldavia.

 

The pilot was waiting for help to come. And it did come, in the form of a vehicle pulling a very long trailer into which the dismatled glider fitted, when we rode past again half an hour later.

Sometimes I hear a faint whistling when out riding. Looking above, there is a glider a couple of thousand feet up. I think that they only make any noise when flying fast between thermals. But today the sky clouded over and thermals, presumably, were stifled.

A curiosity gone

I have referred to the small horn in Brena's left ear previously. Well it is no more.

A comment was made that it seemed to be getting longer. So I took the horn very gently between finger and thumb to check. It dropped off without so much as being pulled. Brena did not seem to notice, there was no bleeding, nothing. All that remains is a tiny waxy stub reminiscent of the soft clear material of a new-born foal's frog.

I wonder whether it will grow back? If it is a type of sarcoid then perhaps it will. However it seems quite benign, and certainly isn't spreading elsewhere.

On this evening's windy ride we passed a troop of boy scouts flying kites. Brena was not in the least bit perturbed. I was proud of her.

Oddest thing I picked up riding

I found this on a high ridge in the Eastern Carpathian range. I took this hoof capsule because it showed very clearly just what was inside, notably the lines of the laminae and the inside of the frog.

The remains comprised just a very smelly skeleton picked clean by bears at the point when I rode by. The locals did dispose of carcases up there. I suppose that this came from a brood mare as, oddly, there are no marks from nails. All the working horses were shod.

Even wrapped in a plastic bag it stank in my saddlebags, and did so for the rest of the trail ride. Afterwards I soaked the hoof in water at which point its odour assumed more benign proportions.

The ridge of the Obcina Mestecanis was a wild beautiful place frequented only by shepherds, woodsmen and horse breeders. 

It was a high terrain of alternating rough pasture and dense coniferious woodland. The ridge-top track was associated in folklore with the Tatars, and indeed some residents of the deep valleys possessed a dark swarthy appearance that spoke of well-travelled ancestors. The Mongol Horde had passed that way, and so had its successors.

From there the land fell away to the northeast in a succession of ridges that ended only at the march of the steppes. Scarcely a trail was direct amidst the jumble of high ground dissected by myriad streams and cut by powerful rivers. Yet in its remote mystery the Obcina was a rewarding landscape to visit.

We rode those trails three or four times a year, basically whenever I could draw together a group for a two week trek. Three days we journeyed to get there, and three back, crossing a seven thousand foot mountain on the way. Four days we ducked and dived amidst a terrain fractured and fascinating. In all that time we crossed two metalled roads.

There it was far away in a place visited by no other tourists that I collected this dessicated hoof of an unknown horse. Perhaps my guests thought it a strange scavenging? However I am a collecter and a hoarder of curios.

Finally, looking at this body part and pondering how far off the beaten track I found it, I begin to realise the bravery of that business and of those trails. It was a pioneering venture in a wild place. I was lucky.

Horn

Most curiously Brena has a horn in her left ear. I've never previously seen such a thing on a horse. I've owned a couple with sarcoids, one of which required surgical removal, but never before a horse with a horn.

The horn is without sensation and attached by a flap of flesh. Touching or moving the horn does not solicit any response so perhaps the attachment is insensitive too.

I wonder whether, back in the Balkans where Brena originated, this horn aroused memories of any superstitions? I do know that a coloured Noriker is considered 'lucky'. On the other hand I struggle to think of 'unlucky' animal characteristics in Transylvania, albeit a different country to Brena's native Slovenia.

I remember some curiosities, such as a buckskin mare with zebra striped legs and a dark horse with white rings that circled her eyes like spectacles. But no-one looked upon these markings as anything other than curious.  

There again, despite a wealth of foreign attraction to the subject, nor did the locals show the least interest in vampires or werewolves.

However a phenomenon may well have a different meaning depending upon where it occurs. Recently an owl swooped past me as I approached Doru's field. To me that event carries no meaning. Simply it is interesting to see a bird normally so nocturnal fly in the early twilight. To other peoples, however, the owl carries an ill omen. I am reminded of Native American beliefs concerning the owl and what he symbolises. The English, however, merely are fascinated or (if country sportspeople) may be concerned about the bird's possible depradations.

I suppose that the horn could be removed if it carries a risk of malignancy. However it hasn't grown over the year that I have known Brena. Nor does she carry any other such growths. So I suppose that it will remain as a curiosity.

 

Large green pony

I've been looking through an album of aerial photos where I was surprised to find a huge sculpted pony.

Located in South Wales, he's called Sultan after a well-known pit pony and is some 200m (600 feet) long.

Sultan lies in a huge public park created from an industrial wasteland created by a long vanished coal mining industry.

I've not been to visit him. But in photos he looks like a small hill, there to be climbed up and walked along.

One might hide in his nostril or lie on his flank. One could lie in the folds of his tail or run along a limb.

He's more curious at ground level, looking like a strange landform ripe for exploration from rills of mane to hidden dell between hocks.

As with the chalk white horses of my local hills one must walk about striving to make sense of massive curves and sweeps.

Wandering about the surrounding land one must watch out for giant sized hoof prints which form crescent shaped ponds. (Yes, honestly. Search for Penallta, Hengoed on Google Earth and you'll see them. Hoof prints that can be seen from space.)

At least there aren't monumental droppings to clear up from that high windswept meadow.

Refuges

I arrived home well after 10pm. The great report has been sent to the printer, an epic piece of work has been completed, and I have a short welcome pause until the next time-eating challenge. Time enough for two easier weeks and a brief holiday.

This view of sheep in their arboreal refuge appealed to me. There they stood in the heat of Sunday afternoon, immobile surveyors of a grassy domain. I'd love to be up there, resting against a great bole, shaded by broad leaves, just watching the world pass by.

But after a while there I'd hunger for movement and the opportunity to shape the world around me. It was fun today putting the final touches to an important piece of work. Time flew by.

There is that insatiable urge to create. On the train back home I sketched the outline of a short story that I have been meaning to write. Perhaps it shall appear here in a few days time? Now to scrape together the moments in which to write.

Today was a day of strategies and numbers. Perhaps tomorrow may turn into a day of thoughts and visions of far away places?

Meanwhile I remain thrilled to have a trailer. That may not seem like much, however I dreamt for years of having the means to take a horse for trips away, and the free time to do so. The liberation to explore is such a joyous gift.

After years in the tourist industry it is strange to be able to do things that I want to do. For year after year every day of spring, summer and autumn revolved around what guests wanted to do. Now, on at least one day a week, I have the opportunity simply to go somewhere and ride for pleasure.

To begin with it felt selfish to go and do something for myself, and then I thought "why not?" That is such a precious freedom, physical and intellectual.

Things afoot

D and I spent the weekend visiting Larynn and her partner M. We took Doru too, and the roan beast enjoyed his holiday visting friends and grazing a nice pasture.

I'm sure that Larynn won't mind me saying that she created quite a spectacle in a flowing red dress riding a borrowed mobility scooter with her plastered leg much in evidence. Few invalids are quite as active or as elegant.

Generally she seemed to drive the scooter around at full speed irrespective of the terrain, a determined approach that impressed me even as I jogged along behind bringing her crutches.

Full of curiosity, Josh and the goats monopolised her visits to their field.

Neighbours flew a very rare bird into L & M's farm, for their land encompasses a private airstrip.

When I have time I'll post some more about this unusual and special machine. Suffice it to say that the peculiar shape of the cabin windows suggests the original function of the aeroplane, and that it can take off in just ten times its own length (and land in half that).

We visited with the aim of encouraging Larynn and raising her spirits, and in that we were successful.

However I was rewarded with not just reciprocated friendship but the opportunity to witness an unforgetable flying display as if I had stepped back seventy years and moved eastward.