“Come on, Dover! Move your bloomin’ arse”

— Eliza Doolittle, My Fair Lady (1964)

 

Horses and humans

 

Winston Churchill once observed: “there’s something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.”

I recently attended a “Horse Experience Day” with my eldest son at ‘The Edge Stables’ in Edgwarebury, Middlesex. We learned an enormous amount about body language, positive determination and confidence. Being alien creatures to us both, we were nervous and apprehensive. But there is a spiritual beauty and grace that horses possess, that allows us to communicate purposefully with them and to guide them. We met our horse for the day, Daisy, and we gained her trust.

Any tentative hesitation translates to the horse, and they mimic back your posture and behaviour. Firm, deliberate movements and clear direction and communication accelerates their trust in you, and it enabled Daisy to allow us to place a muzzle over her neck, and to lead her.

Horses give signals – their ears prick up, the way they’re facing, and how reluctant they are to move. Stepping into their line of sight and being determined, will give them the will to follow you. A horse can’t see you if you stand in front of it because its eyes are on its side. Nicholas (17) remembered a scene from the film ‘How to Train your Dragon’ and stroked the front of the horse’s face. It calmed them both.

 

An epic love

 

There is romance and prestige in racehorse ownership – be it footballers, Hollywood producers or gangsters – most memorably Jack Woltz’s multi-race-winning Khartoum, in The Godfather, or Tony Soprano’s newly acquired Pie-O-My, in The Sopranos, S4. Inevitably, both these horses came to a gruesome end. It was Dr Jennifer Melfi, Tony Soprano’s psychiatrist, who noticed from Tony’s grieving, that he had deeper feelings for his horse than he had for most people.

Horses have evolved over 60 million years, according to palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, from a small multi-toed creature, “Eohippus”, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began domesticating horses around 4,000 BC. They reach full adult development by age five and have a lifespan of 25 – 30 years.

The therapeutic benefit of interacting with horses is compelling – from the confidence they give to children, to the experimental programmes in prison settings. Exposure to horses improves the behaviour of inmates and reduces re-offending on release.

 

Alexander the Great and Bucephalas

 

In 344 BC, King Philip of Macedonia was given a horse as a gift – it looked wild and untameable. His son Alexander noticed that the horse was scared of its own shadow, and turning it towards the sun, tamed it. Philip exclaimed that Macedonia wasn’t big enough for Alexander. The horse had a huge head, so was named Bucephalas (“ox-headed”). They spent twenty empire expanding expeditionary years together. Alexander taught his horse to kneel in full harness before him, so that he could mount him more easily in armour – a trick he learned from the Persians.

Alexander’s legacy in the East is sealed forever, through his own name but also through his horse. Today, in Hindi and Urdu, the name “Sikandar” is derived from the Persian name for Alexander, and means a rising young talent. When his beloved horse died, Alexander named a city after it – Phalia – near the Indus River in Pakistan. The city still stands today.

 

Sources: ‘Bully for Brontosaurus’ by Stephen Jay Gould; ‘Alexander the Great’ by Robin Lane Fox.

 

(Pictures: Tony Soprano and Pie-O-My. Daisy and Nicholas. Horse’s head, Parthenon Galleries, British Museum)

 

James Neophytou

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