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| Belinda and Lancer |
Most
people have an interest or hobby about which they are passionate. It could be
gardening, golf, quilting or fishing. For me, it is horses. My parents, as
non-horsey people, never understood where my passion for all things equine
stemmed, but I lay this lifelong love of horses squarely on my father’s
shoulders.
He faced a lengthy recovery period after surgery at the end of WWII that had nothing to do with war
wounds. His occupational therapy of
choice was making soft toys for his then unseen baby daughter. He arrived home
when I was two years old. I promptly howled at him but was quickly pacified by
the beautifully made animals he brought with him—a pink rabbit, an elephant,
two dogs, one white and the other black, and a blue felt horse with an arched
neck and flowing mane and tail. ‘Horsey’ became my instant love and constant
companion.
In
the post-war era, we still had door-to-door deliveries, and I quickly learned
the sound and names of the vendors’ horses and ponies. At six and seven years
old, spending long summer holidays in Cornwall, I knew and rode every one of
the beach ponies. At eight years old, I had my first formal riding lesson. At
nine and ten, I spent the summer holidays with my grandmother and two cousins
who were as horse-mad as me. It wasn’t long before we found riding stables
where we worked all summer for our rides. We handled the most bloody-minded
ponies imaginable, unaware at the time of the valuable lessons they taught us.
When I was thirteen, we moved to an urban area with not a horse in sight, but I
read about horses, drew horses, and hand-crafted horses from pipe-cleaners and
wool.
When
I was sixteen and contemplating a career, my parents refused to let me leave
home and take up the prized working-pupil position I so coveted, which would
have earned me a horse riding instructor’s certificate. At eighteen, I left
home anyway and worked in a hunting stable until marriage and family ended that
career. When my daughter, by now a teenager, became interested in riding, we
haunted our local riding stables. Most evenings after riding, we would go to
the local pub, The Ragged Cot. It was here one evening that, after some quick calculations
on a napkin, she announced, “You know, Mum, with what we spend at the stables,
we could have a horse of our own.”
My
old dream of having a horse resurfaced. If we did this together, then having a
horse became financially viable. Between us, we agreed on our criteria. Our
horse would have to be of medium height and hardy as, having no stable, it
would have to live out. It had to be good in traffic as we had the prospect of
a lot of road riding before we got to bridle paths and other off-road tracks.
Sex, age, and colour were optional. Versatility for combining our equestrian
ambitions was essential. We started scouring the classifieds and travelled all
over our county and two neighbouring ones, only to become quickly disillusioned
with the vagaries of advertising.
A
horse described as ‘onward bound’ had no brakes. A mare described as a ‘good
jumper’ was and proved it several times by jumping out of her paddock. After four days of a two-week trial and seeing the probability of
numerous looming liabilities, we returned her to her owner. As summer came to a
close and we had not found our dream horse, we decided to end our search for
that year. Then, in the last week of September, I opened the local paper and
was immediately drawn to an advert that read: ‘15hh chestnut gelding for sale.
Six-hundred pounds including tack.’
Right
size, great price and, I thought, too good to be true. I put the paper aside
but picked up the phone two days later. The young woman who answered sounded
breathless, as if she’d been running, and said, “Oh, I’m so glad you called!”
Did we know each other? But no, Diana was simply anxious to sell her horse as
her wedding to a non-horse person was only weeks away.
“Could
you tell me a bit about your horse?” I asked.
“Well,”
she began, “his name is Paunt House Royal Lancer, and he’s a full-bred Arab
and—”
I
stopped her there. We didn’t want a full-bred anything, especially something as
exotic as an Arab horse.
“But
you must at least come and meet him,” she exclaimed. “He’s a lovely person.”
Now,
the concept of a horse being a ‘lovely person’ was a bit beyond me, but I got
swept up in her enthusiasm and arranged to meet her and her horse the following
Sunday. She said to look for a white-walled house with a red-tiled roof beside
a bus stop. We had no trouble following her directions. Paddocks and neatly
kept flowerbeds surrounded the house. As my daughter and I walked up the garden
path, the front door opened, and Diana greeted us like old friends.
“You’re
perfect,” she said as she looked us over. “Lancer is going to love you. This
way.”
We
followed her around the back of the house, slightly bemused by her certainty
that we would be Lancer’s new owners. We stopped at the paddock gate,
immediately entranced with the sight before us. Beauty, it is said, is in the
eye of the beholder, but here beauty stood almost knee-deep in lush green
grass.
Here
was a horse whose coat glowed as brightly as the crust of a loaf of bread fresh
from the oven. The graceful curve of his neck and head, the crescent-shaped
tips of his ears and the flaring, questing nostrils declared him a true Arab
horse, the fabled drinker of the wind. Behind the fringe of his thick forelock,
we could see one full, round eye, gleaming with interest, intelligence, and
unmistakable kindness.
We
stood silent and stunned as he came toward us. His legs parted the grass
soundlessly, making him appear to glide rather than walk. His warm and moist,
sweet-smelling breath washed over us as he gently nuzzled us in turn. We drank
in the magic of his greeting and called him ours.
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