Spirit of the Horse

by William Shatner

  So in real life, if fictional young dog owner Joe Carraclough fell in a river, chances are pretty good Lassie would jump in and attempt to save him. If a squirrel came by at the same time, the dog might be tempted to chase it, but the safety of the master would come first. Meanwhile, if Roy Rogers fell from Trigger in a prairie fire, Roy would be on his own. Trigger would not gallop for help. He would not pull Roy out by his teeth. He would get away from the blaze.

  Eons have evolved an animal that lives in apprehension of everything around it. And that’s one of the beauties of a horse, in that the horse is in the moment. Because it needs to be. We do not believe it will think or reason. It has no comprehension of what happened in the past, nor the ability to perceive of the future. It lives in the now, and that’s a huge lesson for human beings.

  I love them all, horse and dog, just the same. But if I’m in trouble, and my dog can’t help me, then I’ll be calling 911.

  Yet, all that being said, my good friend the author Linda Kohanov tells of spending time with a horse to which she was really bonded who got injured and couldn’t be ridden to any great extent. Linda spent time with her, taking her for long walks in the desert. The horse became so acclimatized to doing this that Linda would take the leading rope off, and started taking her dog out with them. Well, one time they ran into a herd of longhorn cattle that came out of nowhere and were disturbingly interested in the uncommon trio. The cattle started walking toward the group, with these long horns and really intense looks on their faces. Linda says that she expected the dog would chase them off, or that she would need to take a lead rope and scare them off, or just kind of slink away quietly and try not to be stampeded or skewered with their horns.

  What happened was that while the dog ran and stood shivering against her leg, the lame horse stepped out and herded those cattle away from them: she put herself between Linda and the cattle, and she was not even an experienced cow horse.

  Linda says that this was the first and only time she felt that this idea of horses as quivering gutless victims, always ready to run off, was turned upside down.

  One could say that the horse was protecting itself, or briefly joining the larger herd, or even maternally looking after that herd. We cannot know for sure. But if the horse was looking out for its companions, then perhaps we are witnessing the first glimmers of a change in evolutionary behavior brought on by centuries of human-horse bonding.

  Don’t Look a Gift-Horse in the Mouth

  VERSE AND WORSE, by HARRY GRAHAM (1905)

  Mr. Graham (1874–1936) was a Renaissance man. Soldier, journalist, poet, lyricist, translator, and humorist, he was also engaged to one of the leading actresses of his day: Ethel Barrymore. When he did marry, he had a daughter—Virginia Graham—who became a humorist in her own right.

  I have to confess, I laughed out loud when I first read this one, which not only addresses horses having self-protective horse sense, but also some of the most ancient wisdom known to humankind. Though I also have to admit that the challenge of anthologizing in some ways mirrors the megrims of the Internet, where it is impossible to verify certain things that are written and said. There was some debate among us about one word in this light verse: the printed edition says “servant’s tooth” and it is impossible to know whether that was a typo meant to reference the line in King Lear about a “serpent’s tooth” or a play on Shakespeare’s words. We left it as we found it, though the consensus is that this version is in error.

  I knew a man who lived down South;

  He thought this maxim to defy;

  He looked a Gift-horse in the Mouth;

  The Gift-horse bit him in the Eye!

  And, while the steed enjoyed his bite,

  My Southern friend mislaid his sight.

  Now, had this foolish man, that day,

  Observed the Gift-horse in the Heel,

  It might have kicked his brains away,

  But that’s a loss he would not feel;

  Because, you see (need I explain?),

  My Southern friend has got no brain.

  When any one to you presents

  A poodle, or a pocket-knife,

  A set of Ping-pong instruments,

  A banjo or a lady-wife,

  ’Tis churlish, as I understand,

  To grumble that they’re second-hand.

  And he who termed Ingratitude

  As “worser nor a servant’s tooth”

  Was evidently well imbued

  With all the elements of Truth;

  (While he who said “Uneasy lies

  The tooth that wears a crown” was wise).

  “One must be poor,” George Eliot said,

  “To know the luxury of giving”;

  So too one really should be dead

  To realise the joy of living.

  (I’d sooner be—I don’t know which—

  I’d like to be alive and rich!)

  This book may be a Gift-horse too,

  And one you surely ought to prize;

  If so, I beg you, read it through,

  With kindly and uncaptious eyes,

  Not grumbling because this particular line doesn’t happen to scan,

  And this one doesn’t rhyme!

  MY GREAT DAY

  I would like to share with you where my love affair with horses truly started. Not just as a kid talking his way onto a horse’s back, or riding in the movies, but the real deal. The passion, the deep and profound communion, the road to enlightenment about the horse, myself, and the universe we live in.

  It began with my beloved horse Great Day, a relationship that would constitute and define a large part of my life and of my life with horses. I have owned many other wonderful horses—for example, Harley, so-named because it allowed me to tell people I was riding one; and the exceptional All Glory, a renowned trotting horse who my wife, Elizabeth, rode to many championships. But Great Day was special and to explain why will require a number of digressions and divertissements … starting, in fact, right at the top.

  American Saddlebreds are proud, sturdy creatures. To this point, they have been used in war many times, the most expansive of which was the Civil War. A horse in war is facing gunfire and explosions and shouts and cries of other horses and riders—sounds that would rightfully terrify anybody. These horses face sabers swinging by their eyes, whips cracking here and there, mud and blood splattering their flanks, bullets striking other horses, other riders, crashing in their field of view. There is also the physical stress imposed by those same riders attempting to physically enlarge themselves by standing up in the stirrups and screaming to their men to move onward, forward, attack!

  Even if you can desensitize horses to that, there’s still the unexpected. Thunder and lightning. Wind.

  Elephants.

  Not in the Civil War, of course, but the commander from Carthage, Hannibal who, in 218 BCE worked to get as many elephants over the Alps as possible, because he knew that the warhorses of Rome would be frightened by the appearance and sound of the elephant. And when he managed to get those few that he did across the mountains, it delivered the early success he enjoyed against the Roman legions: the horses turned 180 degrees and flew.

  Many otherwise rational human beings have that reaction in their first experience with war. They become panicked and run away like any wild animal.

  So the Saddlebred was bred to do the best that any horse can do under warlike conditions.

  Enter me and T. J. Hooker.

  I shot this series in Hollywood from 1982 to 1986. During that time we filmed an episode involving a racetrack heist called “Homecoming.” We went to a barn in Los Angeles that we were using as a location for a chase scene. And we drove up and down the stall way, the pathways around the stalls, me in a cop car after the bad guy. For the most part, these Saddlebreds reacted with curiosity, as opposed to ramming their heads against the stall in order to get away. That intrigued me.

  At that time, I had no knowledge of their iron const
itutions, relative to many horses. And, of course, though I was getting knocked around in the car there were no screeching tires. The horses saw cars moving by, something that had a familiar fuel smell—and most likely they felt no threat. I don’t know.

  But between shots—when actors have a lot of time to learn lines or, in a chase scene, to do nothing—I looked at these beautiful, beautiful horses, and I fell in love. Not with one animal in particular, not yet. But with horses in general. Maybe that sense of wondrous freedom and accomplishment I had felt as a boy was stirred. Regardless, I decided to investigate horse ownership. Needless to say, my financial adviser and my business manager were both against it. They said, kidding but not kidding, “Don’t buy anything that eats while you sleep.”

  Actually, buying horses was a process. I inadvertently laid the groundwork when I bought some land in central California, just with the idea of buying some land and living on it. I hired somebody to watch over the spread, and he lived in a house that was already on it while I built another house for us. After I shot that T. J. Hooker episode, the person who was living on the land said, “What else do you want to do with the land?” I asked him what he meant. “Well,” he told me, “I could build some fences, and you could run a horse here.” And I said, “That’s a great idea, I’ve never had a horse.” He said, “So happens there’s an auction not far from here tomorrow, would you like to go to it?”

  I thought: Why not? It might be an interesting experience, just to watch the process.

  So he and I go to the auction, and there we meet a friend of his who has a son named Philip. And Philip is about twelve years old—kismet?—the age I was when I first rode a horse. And he knows more about horses than the three other adults combined. So I sit beside Philip, and Philip says, “Oh, look at this horse that’s up there now. You should buy this horse. He’s perfect for you.”

  And I look at the animal, knowing nothing other than that he’s a three-year-old horse. That’s not a lot of information for a novice, and as the auction’s going on I raise my hand to Philip and say no with my hand. Whereupon the auctioneer says, “Sold, to William Shatner, for the price of—”

  I had inadvertently bought a horse. And I was torn between saying “No, no, I didn’t mean to—” and embarrassing myself that way, or saying to myself, “All right, screw it, I bought a horse. That’s what I came here for, right?” Well, not really. I’d been thinking about it. It just happened sooner than I planned with me having done absolutely no due diligence.

  But I’m an optimist. I thought, Maybe it’ll work out.

  As they say today, it so did. It was a wonderful quarter horse and I enjoyed riding him, as bad, as unschooled, as awkward as I was. And that begat a whole network of horses and farms.

  Very quickly, I became involved with horse people from Kentucky, because Saddlebreds are most popular in the South and most popular in Kentucky. They are synonymous. Saddlebreds exist in other states as well, of course, but the center of the industry for the last two hundred years has been Kentucky. I arrived in Kentucky and fell in love with the whole Kentucky Saddlebred industry.

  As soon as I arrived—perhaps it was fate—I was introduced to a very young black colt. I was swept away. Unlike with my first purchase, the magnificence of that horse struck me at once. It had to have been the way Alexander the Great felt about Bucephalus. Had to be.

  That was how the two-year-old Great Day came into my life. I overpaid for him—I didn’t know that I should have guarded my celebrity, my inexperience, not that it would have mattered: I had to have him.

  A year later we won the three-year-old world championship in harness. What that means is, you ride in a two-wheeled rig behind him. The horse is so beautiful in his animation that you don’t want to put a rider on his back to offend his line of conformation. You want the totality of his beauty for people to see. He’s a work of art. He’s descended from top English racehorses and has been worked on for two centuries, bred by knowledgeable people who devote their lives to breeding the finest of these horses.

  After I won that world championship, me and my trainer, we made him into a breeding horse. Because he was a breeding horse he could no longer compete, really, because now his interest—quite understandably—was in breeding and not in performance. And during this period he became more and more “rank,” as we call it in the horse business—he became more and more difficult.

  “Where are you taking me to? I hope you’re taking me to a mare. This isn’t a mare, this is a rider! I want a mare!”

  And so a struggle would erupt, and I lost him not just as a competitor but as a friend, because he was stud-like in his behavior, which meant he would nip, he would bite … he could, in fact, be dangerous. And when I took him out to graze we always had a groom beside me because Great Day would do little mutterings, little grunts and groans, and you could see that he wanted to breed. And he was wondering where that mare was. That became very, very obvious, if you get my meaning.

  It was difficult for him and for me to watch him grow so very, very emotional, very high, hot-blooded. And the older he got, the more of a stud horse he became. Which meant that at times he would kick, he would paw, and he would bite himself. So as to make that less hazardous for him, they would use kicking chains on his back feet, which became pawing chains on his front feet, and eventually poles that led to a bit in his mouth and poles strapped to his sides so that he wouldn’t savage himself, gnaw himself—just as a caged parrot might, from frustration and rage, pluck its feathers out. Because they do need others. They’re flock animals, herd animals.

  To understand that more precisely, consider the difference of a horse in the wild. The standard there is for a stallion to work twenty-four hours a day—breeding, defending, and helping to lead the herd into safety.

  In civilization, they’re in a stall by themselves for twenty-three and a half hours a day, and if they were not accustomed to that—even if they are—it can lead to destruction.

  I didn’t know that, and I didn’t seek good advice. And gradually, as they put more and more appliances on this horse to prevent him from hurting himself, the more guilt I felt for having put Great Day into this position. That horse was in solitary confinement, eventually. And I grieved over it.

  I took him to live in Belle Reve, my beautiful, bucolic place located in the foothills of the Sierras. It is a place of great meaning for the Shatner family. My late wife Nerine and Elizabeth’s late husband Mike are there, and it is where my wife Elizabeth and I will be as well. Native Americans lived and camped on that land for generations.

  There came a time, of course, when there was no more fight left in that magnificent creature. He died on March 20, 2004—two days shy of his twenty-third birthday. Here is part of what I wrote at that time about Great Day upon his passing:

  On a warm, spring afternoon, I led Great Day into a shady dell for his last hour with me. For a while I spent the time watching him graze, connected to a lead shank. It was peaceful and for the first time in years, I was bonding with him. I was anticipating and even dreading the moment when the vet would arrive to give him his final shots. All of a sudden, from across the field, three horses came running. Great Day raised up and then in a flash, the stallion of old, the great protector of the herd, Great Day’s instincts took hold. On feeble rear legs, he reared, pawing the air with bandaged front feet, neighing his defiance. The other horses turned tail and ran. Great Day settled back down, defiant and proud, as someone remarked later. He went into the next world feeling like a stud horse.

  I miss him, still, though I often go to visit. He is buried in land that was occupied for hundreds of years by Native Americans. There’s all kinds of relics still there, left where we found them, which include a pestle and mortar for acorns, and of course the water where they fished and drank. I have spirit statues all over the land. I had a craftsman make spirit statues of the wolf and the bear and the eagle. This land is very spiritual. People that I invite to come up there, they cry out
of joy for what they experience, and Great Day is part of the spirit of this land.

  Thank you, Great Day, for all the memories past … and present.

  Samuel Cowles and His Horse Royal

  SECOND BOOK OF TALES, by EUGENE FIELD (1911)

  Here’s a tale of boyhood from Eugene Field. In his too-short life (1850–1895), Field was a renowned American journalist who also wrote poems and short stories for children. The most famous of his works is the delightful “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” about a trio who went sailing in a wooden shoe.

  I found nothing in his biography to reflect any extensive association with horses. However, with a reporter’s practiced eye and ear he certainly picked up a great deal in the Midwestern environs in which he lived.

  The day on which I was twelve years old my father said to me: “Samuel, walk down the lane with me to the pasture-lot; I want to show you something.” Never suspicioning anything, I trudged along with father, and what should I find in the pasture-lot but the cunningest, prettiest, liveliest colt a boy ever clapped eyes on!

  “That is my birthday present to you,” said father. “Yes, Samuel, I give the colt to you to do with as you like, for you’ve been a good boy and have done well at school.”

  You can easily understand that my boyish heart overflowed with pride and joy and gratitude. A great many years have elapsed since that time, but I haven’t forgotten and I never shall forget the delight of that moment, when I realized that I had a colt of my own—a real, live colt, and a Morgan colt, at that!

  “How old is he, father?” I asked.

  “A week old, come to-morrow,” said father.

  “Has Judge Phipps seen him yet?” I asked.

  “No; nobody has seen him but you and me and the hired man.”

  Judge Phipps was the justice of the peace. I had a profound respect for him, for what he didn’t know about horses wasn’t worth knowing; I was sure of this, because the judge himself told me so. One of the first duties to which I applied myself was to go and get the judge and show him the colt. The judge praised the pretty creature inordinately, enumerating all his admirable points and predicting a famous career for him. The judge even went so far as to express the conviction that in due time my colt would win “imperishable renown and immortal laurels as a competitor at the meetings of the Hampshire County Trotting Association,” of which association the judge was the president, much to the scandal of his estimable wife, who viewed with pious horror her husband’s connection with the race-track.