Love+horse stories

As a child my dad bought me the most beautiful illustrated Black Beauty from a tiny, but magical, German children’s book store. It is the didactic tale of a horse’s journey through life. He bought the book on one condition; he gets to read it as soon as I am finished. My dad had read the book before and loved it. I loved it too, I laughed and cried and traced my hand over all the beautiful illustrations over and over again.

Anna Sewell taught me a very important lesson: circumstances change. When you breed a horse you need to be very careful about where it goes. Ideally we should be responsible for our animals forever and we should take good care of them while we are at it.

The film, though a little Disney, was certainly also good. I cried watching the film years and years later. Admittedly though, my favourite horse film of all time has to be Phar Lap, the inspirational tale of an Australian race horse. Second to this is the Black Stallion franchise and National Velvet. As a 14-year-old I saw The Horse Whisperer and enjoyed it too – though when I watched the film again later as an adult I had mixed feelings about it. The book, which I also read as a youngster, was far more serious and far better than the film.

A lovely film (however loosely-based on reality) is Hidalgo, which I consider a must-see for all horse lovers.

Recently I saw two films that let me down. I had high hopes for the film-adaption of the story of the great American racehorse, and unlikely winner, Secretariat. I own horses with Secretariat in their lines as early as four generations back, and while this is not a singularly impressive boast seeing as many horses have famous achievers in their lines – it does make this horse’s story one that is a little closer to my heart. Simply because I can relate to this horse. I own some of his great great progeny. What disappointed me about this film was that it was very Disney and not at all horsey. I wish they’d recruit only horse-lovers and owners to make films about horses. You didn’t get the shavings-and-muck feel about the film that you got from Black Beauty, for example. The central drama of the film was really not about the horse at all, and more about the people. Unlike Phar Lap, where you really had a feel of the horse and the animal was the central character of the film.

Another, slightly less disappointing film I saw lately was War Horse where Spielberg really tried to create a story about a horse and his people without anthropomorphising too much. What let me down about this film was that whoever put the preview together should win an Oscar. The preview was magnificent, the film however was decidedly less so.

I like the didactic school of horse films, I like the lesson ‘take very good care of him’ above the boast ‘he is amazing’.

But enough of fiction, here is a slice of reality. This is my Sweet Woman (or Special, as we call her). Her five-across pedigree (which shows her pedigree five generations back on her dam and sire’s side) shows that Secretariat is fourth on her sire’s side. I didn’t buy her because I was desperate for another horse. I bought her because she was damaged goods who wouldn’t race well and was selling for a song (indeed for as little as just under $600). For this price I was unsure about the quality of home that she would get and worried about the fact that she lingered in the market for months. I bought her to give her a lovely quiet country life, with little riding and plenty of love and care. She has capped hocks – cosmetically awful, practically only synovial fluid built up around the hocks caused by injury to the area that wasn’t treated properly (in my opinion).  Though nothing serious no proper competitor or avid rider would have bought her. This added to my concerns about the quality home she would get. 

Now: Special with her groom, John, and her best mate Captain Crunchy on the farm

Then: Being loaded for her long journey home (before the farm) - capped hocks obvious