I read the article below several decades ago and have spent the last few months trying to remember where I read the especially wonderful words at the end.
Finally I found it!
The article was printed in “The Journal of THE ARAB HORSE SOCIETY 1935 – 1938”
I’ll share it with you in several parts this week as it is a little long for one blog. I hope you enjoy Lady Kitty Ritson’s words as much as I do.

Not a Purebred Arabian but a typical horse of the Marwar breed in the grasslands

of western Rajasthan from http://nrce.nic.in/eqindia.htm” The ears captivate me!

THE ARAB AS I KNOW HIM
By Lady Kitty Ritson

An Arab horse is not a luxury; he is a necessity to all horse lovers. If you judge the worth of a horse by height, or his ability to protect himself over ridiculous show jumps then you are not worthy of an Arab, but if you want exquisite beauty of form, the manners of a prince and the affection of a dog, then you must acquire an Arab – or perhaps it would be truer to say, allow and Arab to acquire you.
Until I went to India many years ago, as a child bride, I had never seen an Arab, my only conception being something based on the sentimental song:-
“My beautiful, my Beautiful, thou standest meekly by
With thy proudly arched and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye.”
But the first time I did see a real Arab the words came back to me, because I think that almost the most lovely thing about the outward appearance of an Arab is that dark eye. Personally, I wouldn’t call it fiery, for on the contrary you Arab gives you a long, soft look, but if he is a true son of his race he does “stand meekly by,” either because you wish him to wait for you, or else because you have been so foolish and maladroit as to take a toss.

I was pitch-forked into a stable of Arabs and I lived amongst them for years and grew to love them with a love which has never left me. I am not knowledgeable about the strains, I only know them as friends, and as such I lived with them in India.
There was MR JOSEPH, the grey entire who carried me when I went out with the pig-stickers, and who, during the rest of the week, played polo.
There was no question of riding astride in those days. MR JOSEPH carried a side saddle and together we tore across miles of black cotton soil, the which is a nightmare and a despair. He never put a foot wrong and he always allowed me to scramble up and down by myself. Any woman who was not able to look after herself would not have been popular at Muttra.
Looking back, I suppose that MR JOSEPH was about 14.2 but there was never any question of me and the side-saddle being too heavy for him, and in those days side-saddles were side-saddles, and in addition I was a hefty young woman. He was a particularly loveable little man and I used to spend many hours grazing him. Like all in his tribe he walked in and out of the bungalow with the greatest unconcern….. to be continued