Why we love horses revisited…

Do you ever think about why we take horses to our hearts? As I write about the obvious connection between horses and the characters in book 3 of the ‘Daughters of the Wind’ series, I often spend a lot of time thinking about this relationship. Horses are such graceful, glorious creatures. They have so many things about them that fire your imagination. Is it their structure, or the way they move, the strength of their bodies or their shining coats, or is it simply the earthy way they smell. I think every horse is magnificent whether it’s the sturdy brumby or the couture designed thoroughbred. All have their own unique characteristics wonderfully adapted to their purpose from the country they originated.

Pearsons Sarron yearling

Humans have long and wonderful relationships with horses. We brush them, draw them and sculpt them. We train them, plait them and paint their hooves. We wash them and rug them and buy matching accessories for them. We give them molasses in their feed to keep them healthy. We use warm water to mix their feeds in winter. We grow their manes and tails long and talk about them as if they are human. We speak to them using human adages ‘ here’s my boy’ or ‘my boy’s not happy today’ and more times than not, every cent we earn is used to keep them happy and healthy. Likely, every day, every weekend and many evenings are spent cleaning saddlery and mucking out stables, grooming, foaling down mares, treating an injury, and then, maybe, riding. But having horses is often not just about riding them, it’s about being with them, looking after them, knowing their history and how different the world would be if we didn’t have them.
Pearsons Sarron foal

I have always been horse mad and as I grew up I realised there’s a romance associated with horses, artists have painted or sculpted them for thousands of years and I often wonder if this romance is because they seem wild and vulnerable. After all they still have that fight instinct. They also have incredible strength, sometimes frighteningly so. And possibly people love to conquer them. Don’t forget we use the term ‘breaking in’ to describe the process of how a youngster is turned into a riding horse. When you spend a lot of time in the saddle you become very aware that they are stronger than you. For all the work we do with horses they are still unpredictable. After all they are not dogs! If they want to run and buck and rear and get you off their backs, they can.

Pearsons Sarron yearling

Yet even knowing that horses have the potential to be a lethal weapon, we still fall in love with them. So why is that? Is it because you can escape on a horse? You can gallop so fast that tears stream from your eyes. The horse is the ultimate escape! Slow or fast, life is spread out below you and so much more picturesque when you’re riding a horse.

But don’t you think life seems to have turned a little upside down. In the past, people conquered empires on the back of a horse, they transport humans everywhere and never let them down. Now humans transport their horses everywhere!

Pearsons Sarron 10 years M Vink Photo

Horses are now a luxury item, an accessory to their human minders, even though they remain our companions. We trust them and we have our favourites. If you’re fortunate enough to have given your heart to a horse and made him your true friend, then you are a very contented person.

My husband and I have bred Arabian horses for over thirty years www.pearsonsviewarabians.com and there are so many of our horses who have stolen our hearts, maybe over the next weeks I will blog a little about some of them.

Pearsons Sarron 20 years photograph taken 2010

For today I will show you Pearsons Sarron (aka ‘Teddy’ owned by Byrnlea Park Arabians Victoria first foal by Simeon Stav x Simeon Sarah)