Transylvanian horseman

Requiem

Today I announce a requiem for Gelu, Tudor, Olga and Luciana - four good horses who tragically have secumbed to the carelessness and imorality of others.

Readers will remember that I sold these four, plus Luciana's foal Luke, when I left Transylvania. I thought that I had sold them to a good home - to an Anglo-Romanian "charitable foundation", the British wife of whose director professed to love horses - where they would be safe and happy for the rest of their lives. It was the least that I could do for them after years of good service. Especially good old Gelu, a sweet and loveable gelding who had been with me for almost  decade. But it was not to be.

I have just heard that all four were stolen "by the gyspies" two nights ago. By now they will have been slaughtered for meat or perhaps sold - either as cheap expendable labour for a peasant who knows that he has bought stolen horses or for export to be slaughtered abroad. The news left me shocked. I had hoped for so much better for these horses.

I remember happy rides with these horses over the years. Gelu I rode more than the others, a generous and loveable fellow, now approaching old age. It fills me with numbness and despair to imagine them in the hands of the dregs of Romanian society, cruel gypsies who live by stealing horses for the slaughter trade.

From shortly after I sold the horses, I had my concerns. I do still have several independent pairs of eyes and ears looking out for me in Transylvania, and the new owners have contacted me a few times too.

First there was the attempt to drive down the price after the deal was done and the horses delivered, based on some spurious bull***t that the horses were "not worth" the agreed price. (As if a safe, reliable riding horse somehow is not worth much more than the slaughter value. I sold those horses inexpensively so that people could readily buy them whom I thought would take proper care of them. Oh, and a deal is a deal amongst decent people.)

Then there were the requests for the most basic information - where to find a vet and so on. I gave contact details for two good English-speaking vets who, so far as I know, were never contacted. I gave details for the best farrier in the region, yet hooves were allowed to grow long and ragged. I know that another foreigner was also asked for basic information - where to get wormers - as if the owners were quite helpless and clueless. Yet they had money, friends, a well-staffed office, a car and driver - all that was needed to obtain information, supplies and help.

I have been told that the five horses received, shall we say, unreliable care. Last summer they were allowed to become seriously dehydrated for want of a thoughtful, sober groom. Last winter, I gather, they were not ridden because it was "too cold" - though of course the locals would have been out daily with their horses and carts. Their feet were neglected. Despite promises, a proper stable was not provided for the winter. The expertise of a willing American volunteer living nearby was spurned.

And now, after all that, I am told that "police raids have been organised on the places where gypsies hide stolen horses." So why exactly were the horses left outside unattended all night in a society where every peasant locks his horses in a barn during the hours of darkness? In eight years, I never lost a horse, and nor did a single one of my neighbours. I guarded these horses.

I am told that "a helicopter might be used to search for them." Really, after those attempts to screw me out of the last few hundred euros of the selling price? After no-one could be bothered to call the farrier?

I wish that I had euthanased those good, faithful horses rather than leave them to a fate that culminated, most likely, in painful confused final hours followed by a brutal death. Or that somehow I had managed to borrow the substantial sum needed to ship them to Britain and then given them to caring new homes.

As a local informant commented, "now the owners won't have to pay for them." Followed by the opinion that, if a peasant bought them, at least they will be shod and perhaps the vet called if they get sick. Well, knowing how careless some peasants can be, that is an optimistic statement. But there are good people amongst them, perhaps many good people, even if they work their animals hard.

In the unlikely event that the (now ex-)owners of those fine horses are reading this: do not bother to comment or email me in connection with this post. No, I will not take down this post - not unless, by some miracle, you manage to save all four horses from whatever fate awaits then and promise in future to take far better care of them. I trusted you to take care of those noble, kind, gentle animals, and you failed them. You had the resources to provide a good, safe home for those horses, but you were not prepared to make the effort. Now, thanks to your errors and omissions, they have most likely come to a grisly end that no horse deserves.

Numbed by the news, mechanically I have gone to work and returned home. I have travelled out to the stable, troubled by sadness transmitted from afar, to see almost the sole survivor of my horses who is not lost to my sight - the big brave strong roan stallion, Doru. The great horse thrust his elegant head out above the stable door and neighed, reaching out to be petted and receive a crisp apple. He and Pintea, at least, have been rescued to live out their days in security and happiness.

Goodbye to you all - Gelu, Tudor, Olga and Luciana - who have passed beyond my sight and perhaps beyond this world. You served me faithfully, and I did not intentionally fail you. May you all live happily in green pastures where pain or suffering are unknown.

Laura too reports this sad, pointless news from a more local perspective - see her post here.

Dog in the manger

After filling the mangers in the early afternoon, we let the horses back into the newly cleaned yard. Here is the familiar row of bottoms as the main herd of twenty feeds. They are busy eating, with little in the way of herd politics interfering. Except for one.

The yard provides a total of 32 metres (105') of manger for twenty small to medium sized horses. It is plenty. However Pintea does not agree. Not only is the cheeky grey thoroughly dirty from rolling in the mud, he wants to eat on his own as well. So here he is, enjoying a great swathe of manger like, well, a dog in the manger.

It's not as if Pintea is a complete newcomer. He's been here for two years now. During that time, I've used him as a lead horse until I switched to the larger Doru. Plenty of guests have ridden him before he became Danielle's favourite.

Personalities do take time to appear. Over the years, we have watched many of the horses develop as characters. Some, like Olga and Pintea, are bigger characters. Others, like the roan mares Mura and Roua, have grown into steady, reliable working horses. The old alpha mare Nelly is allowing her mantle to fall onto her assertive adult daughter Lee.

My horse Doru and I are getting used to one another too after somewhere around three thousand kilometres on the trail together. There is something in one's relationship with a horse that is beyond ready explanation in words. Teachings of the Horse made me think of this yesterday. A master:slave relationship won't prosper, yet a horse needs to respect his handler. I like the idea that one has to be just one step up the hierarchy from one's horse, not necessarily at the top. One needs to spend a lot of time with one's horse, and that is a challenge whether one has to divide one's time amongst thirty horses or spend one's day in an office (or even both, as can happen here). It is interesting getting to know Doru's personality, to discover what he enjoys, to learn the cues that he gives to show interest, boredom, pleasure and displeasure. To see how work or, conversely, lack of activity affects him. (He is one of those horses whose temperament benefits from work.) The season, too, as he is a stallion. He is quieter in winter, when he can even be turned out with the geldings, however there comes a time as the weather warms when he needs to be separated from them. Perhaps because he is neither treated as an oddity nor filled with oats, he is quiet and sensible around other horses, he just can't generally be turned loose with them.

Is there still snow?

When I travel 80km and descend a few hundred metres to town at this time of year, a common question posed by people who know me is whether there is still snow where I live? Seemingly, I live in such an alpine wilderness that townies wonder whether we are still snowbound. There is still snow higher up, however mud is a commoner commodity after several days of rain and drizzle. The fields are muddy, the yard is muddy, the roads are muddy. This does not stop a few teenage girls from teetering around in heels looking (as Danielle delicately puts it) like hookers outside a biker bar. However most of us manage fine with wellingtons. The town people, safe in their conglomeration of concrete apartment block and congested communist-era road system, have a less scenic but relatively mud-free existance.

Spring is far advanced in the low rolling hills of central Transylvania. Ploughing has begun, creating a thrilling patchwork of rich brown and fresh green. Down there, the world is coming alive again, as it will here after a few more weeks. However, for the moment, up here it rather feels as if we are in the corner of the fairytale garden that is forever winter.

This is my favourite time to travel the lowlands. There is plenty of agricultural activity, little traffic, and the temperature is mild. Snowdrops and crocuses are blossoming. When the sky is a clear blue, the slanting light emphasises the gentle topography. It is a big landscape beneath that wide open sky. Yet it is also an intimate, small-scale land, with woods and gulleys, villages tucked away in little valleys. It has hidden places, as every special landscape should have.

Nothing important is hidden from Doru, who concentrates on a manger full of hay. I stood on the manger to take this photo, though it would have been better with a wide angle lens. His rope headcollar is heading towards replacement time. Fortunately he is not a horse to pull back when tied up, nor an escapee such as Gelu who has freed himself in the stable during two of the past three nights. Fortunately Gelu is trustworthy and has a good sense of self preservation. His companion Tudor has not worked out how to free himself and, perhaps surprisingly, nor has Gelu liberated him. Gelu has developed the habit of removing his neighbour's headcollar. Each evening around nine, I free each horse in turn to drink from the old enamel bath that holds the stable drinking water. Gelu and Tudor are privileged to be sent to drink together. Occasionally Tudor drinks and then heads to the stall where spare sawdust is stored, quickly dropping down and rolling. Afterwards he rises and heads quietly back to his place, knowing that he has not overstepped the bounds of good behaviour. He is outside all day long, free to roll, however the sawdust is soft and dry. These older horses have developed such individual personalities. As far as is safe, I allow them to exercise their personalities, since they are happier as individuals and nearer to what they were created to be. They are not mean or rude horses, and they and I are comfortable around one-another. There is a lot to be said for working with geldings.

Feeding time

Tudor and Rozy have just been let out of the corral and off to the stable for their evening feed. They are moving briskly, Tudor in a trot and Rozy apparently cantering. I was too busy trying to anticipate the delay on the digital camera to notice the pace at which each horse was moving.

The horses enjoy their maize feeds. Those that need more than just hay through the winter receive between one and three kilos of maize daily. They are always in a hurry at feeding time, after appearing like clockwork at the gate. They hear us preparing feeds, and I have read that a little anticipation is good for the equine digestive system.

Doru had been tied up in the yard after a short ride, and saw all the feeds being prepared and distributed. He was very keen to get his, and very willingly went into his box.

A short ride on Doru earlier had cleared my mind. My back isn't especially well, however riding took my mind off that nagging problem too. We had a pleasant canter away from home and up towards the woods. An especial pleasure that comes after riding a great deal is achieving a measure of balance, so that one doesn't impede one's horse. It is rewarding to have a balanced seat (forward, in this case, cantering) and quiet hands, feeling my horse surge forward freely. Such moments are wonderful.

As for riding a great deal, I have worked out that the length of the trail rides that I have led around here, added together, comes to much the same distance as riding around the world. I've allowed for the oceans, when my horse would have been flown or transported by freighter. But that still leaves plenty of land remaining. It's odd to have "ridden around the world" within the confines of a single mountain range. I suppose that I have myself to blame for that sore back. Especially since I have chosen to live in a country without a single licensed chiropractic.

Festive horses

Gelu and Tudor went to accompany a wedding procession this afternoon. I photographed them as they departed ridden by our employee Nelu and a neighbour also called Nelu.

Each horse was decorated traditionally with flowers in the bridle and an embroidered saddle cloth.

After horses and riders left in the tail end of drizzle that had persisted since sunrise, the sky cleared and the late afternoon was pleasant in the last slanting rays of early evening sunlight. Good enough weather for a wedding procession. As I write, the inky night sky is dotted with bright stars.

Heating pads for cats

In this cold winter weather, every cat needs a nice warm heating pad to sleep comfortably whatever the hour.

Here, our cat Claws has found an excellent heating pad, otherwise known as Doru the draught stallion. Doru doesn't mind in the least at having a feline passenger. Claws, for his part, seems to have realised that (despite his name!) he needs to tread carefully.

It seems like a good arrangement, though not exactly symbiotic as in the case of the waterbirds that clean crocodiles' teeth. There again, without reversible thumbs, Claws would find it difficult to hold a brush to groom his host.

Kaluga's life

I met Kaluga first at Beclean-pe-Somes stud, 80km west of here. I was looking for a sturdy draught horse, and spotted Kaluga with another mare pulling a cart on stable cleaning duties. The stud was only too happy to sell Kaluga because she had failed three times to carry a foal to term, making her of little use to a breeding facility. That's also how she gained her name, Kaluga, meaning monk (phonetically, anyway, as the correct spelling is calugar: why the masculine form was used for a mare, I don't know). At the then-current exchange rates, I paid around £300 (or $450) for her.

She arrived in an open truck, arranged by the stud. Livestock transport in Romania was quite primitive back then in 2000. Standing on the bed of the truck, her head was way higher than the cab roof, making for a strange sight as the vehicle arrived. In fact horses travel well in an open vehicle, since they can see the road ahead and soon learn to lean into the bends. Still, at the time it gave me quite a surprise to see a horse arrive like that. Since the truck had no ramp, we unloaded Kaluga a short distance away where we could back the vehicle against rising ground.

Kaluga's breed, the Semigreu or Romanian Medium Draught Horse, is derived in part from the Lipizzaner. She is a pure-bred example carrying stud brands. I was impressed by Kaluga's action, raising each front hoof high as she moved forwards. This looked splendid, although it also made her quite a slow horse in each pace. She was paired with our other grey, Gelu, a part-bred Lipizzaner. For seven years they made a beautiful pair, matched in colour if not exactly alike in build.

Although bought as a draught horse, Kaluga was ridden from time to time. She was useful for carrying unusually heavy or tall riders. The heaviest was a 250lb (120kg) RAF Wing Commander, a portly aviator not surprisingly relegated to desk duty.

On one occasion I rode her for a week, back in the first full year of operation of the riding centre. It was a bleak ride, over a cloud-covered Suhard ridge and down to the windswept Rotunda Pass, a place so remote that until recently a hermit lived there. We headed high into the Rodna mountains, on an exposed Habsburg track , experiencing swirling snow flurries on an incredible August afternoon. All this, the sturdy mare pushed through as if a long trail and bad weather were nothing to her.

On another early ride, we took a strangely unmatched group of three horses: the large, slow Kaluga for a novice rider; the fast, flighty Arabella for his highly exerienced wife; and Nelly the pushy Alpha Hutul for me. The objective, as I discovered out on the trail, was for the lady to convince her husband that riding was a good thing and therefore he should buy her a horse back at home in Britain. As it turned out, the wife was out of shape and, showing off by jumping the athletic Arabella, inflicted upon herself a groin strain. I had to get the group down off the mountain with her in considerable discomfort sitting sideways across a patient Kaluga, her husband leading Nelly (who was at least more sensible than an Arabian) and me leading Arabella. It was an ignominous event, although I heard later that the husband did yield and buy his wife a horse.

I shall not forget Kaluga's kind, benign expression and large, floppy ears. She has a kind face and large, quiet eyes that spoke of calmness. Those great ears were expressive too, moving to track whatever interested her, yet also inferring a gentle, untroubled nature. Two photos show Kaluga to the left of the shot, paired with a slightly smaller Gelu.

One summer afternoon last year, I drove Kaluga alone over the 20km forest track northward to Sant. She was a simple, straightforward horse to drive, and a communicative horse too. When thirsty, she would look across at a water trough or stream in an expressive way impossible to misunderstand. On the long steady descent into Sant, I screwed the cart brakes on lightly to hold the weight of the vehicle, then walked down the road next to her. If I walked in front, she would follow me. Where the gradient changed, necessitating changes to the brake setting, I could trust her to walk steadily ahead whilst I went to the back of the cart to make the changes. (The brake screw is at the back of a farm cart.) It was a great pleasure to travel with such a calm, friendly, sensible horse.

Kaluga was a superb logging horse too. She was a good, hard puller, who could lean into a load to get it started. She was sensible and alarmed neither by chainsaws nor by the crash of a tree being felled. When a load was too much for her, she would stop and decline to pull, telling us that something was wrong. A lesser horse would use that technique to shirk work, but not Kaluga.

I remember her galloping across the field at feeding time. Most often she walked, or trotted in her elagant high-stepping way, however we were treated to the occasional gallop. The ground shook as she passed.

I had expected that she would enter her twilight years slowly, spending a year or two on light yard duties. There is always a need for a safe, sensible horse to pull the tip cart, taking away manure and returning with sawdust. That is the horse that replaces a tractor. It seems that misfortune has cheated Kaluga of this role.

As it is, she is enjoying each day of a suddenly enforced retirement, basking in the sun during the day, and eating copious amounts of hay and plenty of corn. She seems happy and alert and, although thin, isn't suffering from the cold and isn't losing any more weight. She might see the spring yet. I hope so. I know that her condition is likely abruptly to worsen again, however I would like her to enjoy the warmth and fresh grass of one more spring.

I'd like to thank everyone who has sent a message of support. I do appreciate every thought and message. Thank you all.

Never again...

Never again to be harnessed. The last journey is over.

Never again to pull the cart. The barn is filled with hay.

Never again to plough. The final furrow has been made.

Never again to taste the sweet spring grass. A better place awaits, where the grass is always sweet.

Suddenly our big old grey mare, the elegant and gentle Kaluga, began to lose condition. So today we loaded her into the trailer and took her two hours to town for a thorough veterinary examination. It transpired that the large 16 year-old, who used to pull so strongly, is suffering heart failure. On the way back, standing in the trailer was too much for her, so she lay down for the last hour. Here she is pictured resting as slowly we travelled the bumpy road back from town. Now we shall make her last days as comfortable as possible, arranging a humane end end before she starts to suffer.

I shall write more about her over the next few days, creating a fitting tribute to this memorable mare who has spent over half her life with us.

Gelu and the Pig

Here, from my archive, is a photo of Gelu with the pig. I didn't manage to capture them grooming one-another, however here they are co-existing peacefully. Later on, the pig managed to use her snout to undo the rope that tied Gelu to the fence. Can horses mysteriously communicate their mischievous desires to pigs? It would appear that Gelu may be able to.

This photo might also stimulate a bit of debate about "why horses are frightened of pigs in Britain" and not, apparently, elsewhere. I haven't any real idea of why, however I know that my old horse in Britain was averse to pigs, and so were most other horses. I don't have an English horse here to observe, however I am aware of Ukrainian and Polish horses imported into Britain. Can a British owner of an imported horse comment?

Olga and the Pith Helmet

One tries not to make fun of guests, since they do pay the bills, however occasionally it is difficult to resist. Especially when Callie clearly is aching to see a photo. Here is a rare view of the most eccentric Olga with her pith helmetted cavalier. Her ears reveal that she is attentive to his singing.

The photo was taken on the old Austrian border track. Olga is grazing the near-vertical side where the track cuts into the slope, which is why the photo appears to have a very strange perspective with verdant terra firma not in the usual place.