March 2011 - How to wash a horse
How to Wash a Horse
1. get a hose
2. get a brush
3. get a big towel
4. get a horse
5. get horse shampoo and conditiona
1 get the horse where you want it
2 rub it all over with shampoo and conditioner and then rins it firmly (sic)
Chloe. Aged 7
I was looking at the wall above the computer for inspiration for this month’s column and my eye fell on a present from our granddaughter, Chloe, done many years ago.
Like all presents from my grandchildren when they were younger it was handmade, a hand-written, lovingly decorated sheet of paper, glued to cardboard and threaded with a ribbon from which to hang it.
It was obviously based on the sort of exercise she would have been doing in school, maybe it was even done at school; practising sequencing. She’d chosen as her subject a topic with which she was already obsessed: horses. She must also have observed someone else, presumably her mother, undertaking the above exercise, although possibly not in that same order.
That present, now gathering dust, still hangs on the wall, alongside a whole collection of photos of horses with every member of the family, but particularly with my daughters.
I started wondering: “What is it about this obsession of young girls for horses?”
Because it is an obsession, and one rarely shown by boys. As a child my greatest dream was to own my own horse, although I didn’t realize that dream until my own daughters were growing up. Instead I had to do like most city children and wait for our annual holiday to the Blue Mountains or Bowral.
Having saved my pocket money for the year I was then able to spend the whole week at the local riding stables, mucking out in the stables when I wasn’t riding. I was in bliss.
Both my daughters were horse crazy, although the obsession diminished in the older as teenage interests took over. We were lucky enough to have a share in a farm at Little Hartley, where all of us finally had our own horses, and we’ve many happy memories of following shows and gymkhanas around the countryside, even of sleeping in the float in the iciness of an Oberon winter.
Even after the girls left home for university, much to the bewilderment of many of our friends, we found a new independence in riding, joining with similarly aged and deserted friends for wonderful rides through the bushland of the Hartley Valley and Upper Blue Mountains.
We called ourselves “The Hartley Hooners” and our favourite ride was a sometimes hair-raising gallop up the old Berkhoffers Pass from the Valley to Mt. Victoria.
Once out of the wilderness and into the village we would ride sedately to the Mt. Vic. Pub, tie up our horses in the park opposite and enjoy a healthy lunch of pub pie and beer.
Anna’s love of horses never abated, and she kept her old horse here with us until Shanty died of very old age.
Chloe’s earliest memories of this place are as a three and four year old, just sitting on Shanty and wandering around the garden.
Along came more grandchildren, and just as surely Ella began her obsession at a very early age. Our little black Shetland was just the thing for a few years, but then there appeared the answer to every little girl’s dream, a beautiful grey Arabian pony called Caspar.
Caspar actually belongs to our neighbour, but over the years he has spent nearly as much time here as he did there. A steady procession of little girls fell in love with him, one of whom now lives overseas and most of whom are now too tall for him. He’s not the ideal horse, lazy, hard to move forward, but that’s not what matters. He looks so beautiful – he could have stepped from the pages of any fairy story.
Now another neighbour’s daughter is his principal rider, but not his only admirer.
Like all these little girls it’s not just the riding that she craves; it’s being in constant close contact with horses. They all have the same desires and expectations: “Why can’t we have a horse?
He can live in the garden, even in the house!
A Shetland doesn’t eat much. It doesn’t matter that I’m too big to ride him.”
As in my family, some of these girls in time will outgrow this insatiable need to be with horses, but not all of them.
Anna now runs the Volunteer programme at Riding for the Disabled so she’s with them every day, although she now very rarely rides.
So what causes this obsession?
Are horses simply animals that look beautiful and can be cuddled and loved and hopefully return that affection?
Do they provide a feeling of independence and adventure that is otherwise missing from some girls’ lives?
Perhaps riding a horse can give them a sense of control they cannot yet exercise anywhere else. Or, perhaps it is all of these.
Now it’s Show Weekend once again and I can see dozens of young girls out there shampooing and rinsing horses, although I think they’re being a bit more thorough and detailed than the above instructions dictate. And Chloe, now in her last year at school is out there too, still busy washing, and riding, her horse.