Dandelion: The Extraordinary Life of a Misfit

by Sheelagh Mawe

“There's a year yet before she'll be good for anything,” the veterinarian called after them. “A lot can happen in a year...”

  McCree made no answer, but, his fist tight on the halter under Dandelion's jaw so she could scarcely move her head, hurried her away to the south meadow.

  A beautiful place it was, that meadow, rolling and sweeping off to the far horizon. Large enough for the whole of McCree's land to fit inside with space left over on all its sides. Great trees towered about its boundaries and stands of them clustered within making it a fitting home for the fine thoroughbreds living in its lush interior. Not that Dandelion saw any of it that day, all her attention being taken by the field's occupants.

  Thirty or more of them there were, all born in the same spring as Dandelion, crowding and jostling each other along the fence, vying with each other for their first view of the strangers whose coming they had sensed long before they came into view.

  Many a beautiful thing Dandelion was to see in her long life, but nothing to compare with those young horses, all crowded together in their many colorings as she saw them that first morning. Not that she didn't think them strange, for she did. How could she not when all she knew of the horse before that day was her mother's stocky frame? But these thoroughbreds were tall, their height coming from long legs that looked like sticks to Dandelion after her mother's massive fetlocks. They were slender too, more like her own width, and their movements quick and sleek. Their faces were long and narrow and they held their haughty heads high, as though nothing in the world was quite as superior as themselves.

  They had an easier time of it though, studying Dandelion, than the other way around, for she had McCree's heavy fist on her halter, pulling her head this way and that, trying to get her through the gate and not one of them willing to let her pass.

  It was a shock at the last to find herself alone - dwarfed - in the midst of those arrogant creatures, being pushed and jostled from every side and McCree, muttering yet, walking away over the hill. He seemed dear and familiar to Dandelion then, and she was saddened to see him go, him being the last remnant of the only life she had ever known.

  “Don't be leaving me here,” she shrilled to his retreating back. “Take me back to me darling mother and me little field. I'll calm meself... Be like me mother... Better than me mother...”

  But he paid her no mind. The last of his old hat disappeared behind the crest of the hill, and she was left to make the best of it.

  “What a cry baby,” a dappled gray with a dark muzzle sniffed.

  “I'll thank you to be keeping your opinions to yourself,” Dandelion said with a toss of her head.

  “It's frightened she is,” said a tall black, her lip curling. “I can hear the heart in her knocking from here.”

  “Frightened, is it?” Dandelion snorted. “And why would I be frightened by the likes of you?”

  “Because you are so small and funny looking and we are thoroughbreds.”

  “I'm not understanding your meaning,” Dandelion said.

  “Why do you have such a strange looking face?” the rude gray asked.

  “Yes, why?” repeated half a dozen others.

  “Your eyes are too far apart.”

  “Yes, they are. And too big besides.”

  “Why are you so little? Are you a pony?”

  “Your muzzle is very narrow.”

  “And your nostrils are very large.”

  Dandelion felt their criticism like hailstones on her back, and she tossed her head so her forelock covered the confusion she knew to be showing in her eyes. She had thought her appearance to be a matter of concern only to McCree, but in the stable yard and again in the meadow she had learned otherwise. At a loss as to how to come to her own defense, Dandelion was speechless until she remembered the only kind words ever spoken of her by a human.

  “I am as I am,” she told them, feigning a hauteur she did not feel, “because I have Arabian blood.”

  She couldn't have said a wiser thing if she'd thought about it the rest of her life. No more than herself did they know the meaning of “Arabian blood,” and so they were silenced.

  Dandelion used her advantage to clear herself a path through their midst, but they were not through with her then nor yet for many a long month to come.

  “Who is your mother?” one of them called after her.

  “Why, me mother is Daisy,” she replied, thinking the question kind.

  “Daisy?” chorused thirty voices all at the same time.

  “Aye. Daisy.”

  “What races has she won?”

  “Me mother doesn't race,” she told them. “She doesn't believe in speed. Me mother works for the farmer McCree.”

  “Works?”

  “Aye. She works. She pulls a plow. And a cart...”

  “She means her mother is a farm horse,” one of them gasped. “How common!”

  “Our mothers are race horses,” the chestnut preened. “Famous race horses...”

  All together then, all at one time so that none of them made a bit of sense, the thoroughbreds began bragging of their fine mothers and their champion sires. Of bloodlines and heritage. Of races they would win and records they would break.

  Dandelion left them to it, backing away slowly so that her leave taking wouldn't bring down fresh insults on her tired head. She knew nothing of Derbys or Grand Nationals or the like, and she didn't take kindly to their pushy ways and arrogant manners.

  Bewildered and confused she was. A short walk she had taken from McCree's small farm to Lord Harrington's fine estate, and a wide world of difference lay in between. From being at the center of one she had become an outcast in the other, and she felt her ignorance sorely.

  FOUR

  Dandelion stayed off to herself all of that first day, long after her temper had been replaced by curiosity. Her sheltered life had given her no experience in making friends, especially with so boisterous a crowd, and in any case, Lord Harrington's great meadow offered her such a variety of food after the meager grasses she'd shared with her mother, she was kept busy nibbling and tasting the whole of the day.

  But horses are gregarious by nature, the herd instinct in them strong still, despite thousands of years as man's servants, and so, preoccupied as she may have seemed, she moved ever closer to those exotic creatures she was to live amongst.

  She came to see she was more like them than she was like her mother.

  “Flighty!” Daisy would have snorted seeing them revel, unabashed at their own beauty and freedom, outrunning their shadows one moment, striking exaggerated poses the next.

  And “temperamental,” she would have called their fierce squabblings, their wild joy, their sulks, their jealous tantrums.

  But Dandelion understood them perfectly, for not only did she share their youth, but she sensed in them what she sensed in herself: a yearning, overwhelming desire to express themselves.

  Understand, of course, that animals do not measure themselves by possessions as humans often do. No. An animal has only itself...

  It did not take her long then to become one of them, and they, each in their own special way, became as familiar and dear to her as the small creatures that had filled her first year.

  With more time still passing, Dandelion forgot her humble beginnings and the role she was born to play. She saw her mother and McCree from time to time, sometimes working in a field close by her own, other times at a distance, always a cart or plow at Daisy's back. Fervent hellos she shrilled at the start, keeping pace with them on her own side of the fence. But as she became immersed in her grand new life, her interest in them dwindled, and at the end she scarcely raised her head at their passing. They were a part of her past with no role to play in her present. For didn't she live the life of a thoroughbred now? And hadn't she become, in her own mind at any rate, a race horse? Indeed she had.

  And how could she not? She was a young and impressionable soul, and fast besides. And didn't she live their life? And dream their dreams? Intenti
onally and unintentionally then, she adopted their mannerisms, their easy stride, and through association became as much a race horse as her mother had become a part of McCree.

  To an unknowing onlooker those horses would have appeared as little more than a group of high-spirited, untamed youngsters brawling through their days while, in truth, they were creatures earnestly learning about themselves and each other through their one great passion, speed.

  In that regard, Dandelion learned that there were those with great natural talent, but a spirit too small and mean to give of it. Spiteful beasts they were, jealously hoarding their precious gift for fear others might profit just from the watching of them. Yet others, with only half the ability, had such great giving hearts they'd go until they dropped, trying to drag one more ounce out of themselves or in helping others.

  They had their braggarts, too. Loudmouths who wore them all out with their tales of what they could do and what they would do, but were never seen in the doing. Dandelion thought them silly things until she understood that it was their own fear of failing that kept them always on the sidelines, exercising their mouths instead of their limbs.

  She saw fear of failing in others, too. In those who called “liar” and “cheat” at the first sign of weakness in themselves. And in those who made excuses the length of the day, wanting more sun and less wind, a better night's sleep, more and different food...

  Whatever the differences in their temperaments and personalities, however, the focal point of all their lives was speed. And from sun up to sun down they strove to go faster... further... In hot sun or drenching rain, whether whipped by wind or numbed with cold, they raced. Singly and in pairs and in a great thundering herd.

  And when they rested in the heat of the day under the great oaks, or at night, their thoughts and dreams were of speed and how to do more and better.

  How they dreamed! Of the races they would win... The records they would set... The certain fame that awaited them. The very thought of it all enough, sometimes, to send them rocketing out into the moonlight in the joy and expectation of it all.

  A long way Dandelion had to go to catch up with them, and at the outset, before she forgot her beginnings, she gave herself not a moment's peace. Never before had she had a yardstick, so to speak, to measure herself against, nor competition to set her on edge. The games of her youth, played alone in her small field, were a far cry from matching herself against the finest blood in Ireland, with space enough to go the distance. But she was fierce in her determination to equal them and so, long after the thoroughbreds had taken themselves off to rest under the trees, Dandelion would still be hard at work forcing herself to lengthen her stride, teaching herself to hold something back for the finish, smoothing out her starts...

  Not that she still didn't like her moments of solitude. Too many months of her life had she lived alone not to have the need of them. Besides, it was in those quiet moments, particularly when she drifted between sleep and wakefulness, that the answers to difficulties often came to her.

  For example, there was the time she was teaching herself to canter figure-eights and coming to the crossover in the middle, her legs would tangle beneath her, bringing her up short time after time.

  The aggravation of it sent her off to brood in a corner and there, dozing, she saw in her head, clear as the nose in front of her, how it should be done. A simple matter it was of understanding that as she crossed the center point, her circle went off in the opposite direction. The solution then was to change stride at the center point, so that her inside legs always led in the direction the circle took her.

  No sooner did she see it than she was doing it, and by nightfall her flying change was flawless, just the way she'd seen it in her head.

  The only thing she failed to notice again was the connection between her thoughts and her actions, but that simple little fact, that cornerstone of life, escaped her still.

  Happy, happy days those were and all of them too young to know it. They were eager to have them done and over and themselves full grown and gone. Dandelion expected, not knowing her time there limited, to have one of Lord Harrington's grooms come riding over the hill, single her out, attach a halter to her head and lead her away to a grand future, for such was the fate of one after another of her companions.

  It saddened her later, remembering how eagerly they had pressed towards those grooms, each of them sure in their own hearts that their time had come. For she was to learn later that while racing made men rich, it made horses old before their time, their good years over in a handful of seasons and only the best retained for breeding, while the rest were sold off to work they were not suited for, and many a tragic end besides.

  But none of them knew that at the time, and they strode off into their futures, those beautiful darlings, with never a backward glance at the only happy times most of them would ever know.

  They sulked, those left behind, wondering why another had been chosen over themselves, though each, at their departure, was sorely missed by those who remained. And a long time it took Dandelion to understand that they were all part of a whole, each unwittingly playing a role, and when one left, all were diminished.

  FIVE

  They came for Dandelion on a Sunday after the mass. Not Lord Harrington's groom on a fine horse but her mother and McCree.

  It is true she'd forgotten them entirely, yet, seeing them crest the hill, a halter in McCree's free hand, she knew why they were there and she bolted. Finding she was not to be enticed by sweet talk, nor carrots in the palm of his outstretched hand, nor yet by Daisy's pleas, McCree left for reinforcements. He brought back two grooms with him, mounted, and the battle for Dandelion's freedom began.

  Hours it was before they separated her from her conspiring friends who, with her at their center, galloped like bandits making off with a prize. Longer still before they trapped her in a corner, forced a halter over her outraged head and led her away, a prisoner, a possession again.

  Terrible it was for Dandelion to find herself back in the narrow confines of a world she thought to be her past. Humiliating to have her hard-earned skills and new-found assurance snatched away by as simple an act as a gate slamming shut at the back of her. And that by a man who despised her.

  Thinking her heart broken and her life destroyed, Dandelion fretted and railed and wore a path inside the towering walls of the field with her frenzied pacing. And it did her no more good than her crying had done when she was newborn and left without a mother. She felt trapped by the circumstances of her birth, and she cursed the day McCree had taken himself off to Dublin and bought her mother. With all her young heart she wanted to race, and she was going to have to pull a plow.

  Often she wondered what it was in her that could not accept the life she had been born to as her mother accepted hers, with never a thought. She doubted Daisy had ever once questioned what she was or how it might have been otherwise. Nor, for all their flighty imaginings, had she ever heard a thoroughbred yearn to be other than it was.

  Not that she gave up on her dreams. Not at first anyway. On the contrary, finding them thwarted, her determination to be more than a plow horse grew stronger than ever, and she thundered about the small field until the stars paled in the sky. A savage pleasure it gave her, too, hearing McCree curse her noise in the middle of a summer's night. A small enough sacrifice, a night's sleep, she thought, when weighed against what he had taken from her.

  Daisy had no time for her ranting. She was short with Dandelion, brushing aside her dreams and ambition as youthful folly, something she had expected her to outgrow. Dandelion saw her mother then as old. Old and set in her ways. To be sure, she had been old all Dandelion's life, but she had not known it until she met up with youth.

  A battle royal they had, McCree and Dandelion, in the matter of her schooling. In her he had a rebellious, unwilling student who fought bitterly the hard metal bit he forced in her mouth and every one of the leather contraptions he strapped about her head and her body.


  No Saint Patrick was he himself. To break a horse in such a way that the animal becomes an interested, willing partner needs love and understanding and respect. McCree had none of them, nor the pride he'd had in her mother. He took Dandelion's natural boldness as something to be crushed, whipped out of her, and in so doing he made her sullen and arrogant. And because he had her in such a state of nerves she couldn't make head nor tails of the commands he gave her, he saw her as dull and stupid as well.

  A terrible frustrating time it was for both of them. A daily war with never a winner. But he was a stubborn man, McCree. Dandelion had been bred to take her mother's place, and he never thought to change his plan, small and flawed though he saw her. And if she learned nothing else in her year of schooling, she learned that he would not give up, but come back, day after day, until a victory of sorts was his.

  To be sure, the victory was a compromise, for at the end of a year, with Dandelion's bold confidence stripped away and tentative uncertainty in its place, he was obliged to work her as a team with Daisy, hoping to balance the youth and strength of the one against the patience and experience of the other and so temper what he called the “foreign devil” in Dandelion.

  A strange-looking pair they made, the mother and the daughter, when harnessed side by side, each making the other look larger and smaller by comparison. There was Daisy, tall and poised, her mane a-flutter of bright ribbons braided in by McCree, her walk as confident and regular as the ticking of a clock. And there was Dandelion, her harness an ill-fitting mess of patched hand-me-downs, her uncertainty showing in the whites of her eyes, the sweat on her hide, and her legs pumping two strides to Daisy's every one.

  “Me Grace and me Disgrace,” McCree called them, joking to hide his humiliation at the laughter they caused on market days and in their rounds about the district.

  Dandelion felt disgraced too. Mortified to be seen, a wretched cart at her heels, when she knew herself capable of so much more. And never more so than when their work took them to Lord Harrington's. For then it was the heads of Dandelion's friends that showed at the half doors of each stable to call cheery greetings and their hooves that thundered past her on the practice track.