Whispering Back

by Adam Goodfellow

  When all the horses were finished, Monty called everyone into the pen.

  ‘What we’ve seen here this afternoon, this . . . bridle-less riding, this, this display of horsemanship is really one of the most . . .’

  I shut my eyes. I felt seriously dizzy. Surely he wouldn’t tell me off in front of the entire group?

  ‘. . . amazing feats I’ve seen in a long time.’

  I breathed again.

  ‘That someone could take my concepts and apply them so quickly, to such good effect, and explain them so clearly. Well, I’m overwhelmed.’

  He said much more, too much for me to remember, and aside from stating rather too emphatically that I wasn’t a professional rider (‘far from it, in no way could she be described as such’), it was complimentary, embarrassing, but lovely, too. I couldn’t remember ever feeling more pleased with an achievement.

  Candide might have been the high point of the course for me, but the last few weeks were precious, too. I spent a lot of time with the nervous pony, going out for walks, and sitting in his stable. I offered to continue working with him, for free, over Christmas, but the owner was unconvinced. He had made great progress on the course, but she wasn’t satisfied. I was devastated when I learned she was seriously considering having him put down due to his unpredictability. It was so frustrating to feel I could help him, but wouldn’t have the opportunity. I never did find out what happened to him.

  I couldn’t bear the thought of the course ending. The last day was 20 December 1996, and I think if it hadn’t been so close to Christmas, I would immediately have succumbed to a serious depression. We went to Windsor Castle to receive our certificates from Terry Pendry, the Queen’s Equerry. It was like a sort of pilgrimage, returning to the place where it had all started in this country. The last thing I said to Kelly before I got in my car to drive back to my old life was, ‘If you ever need any help, any sort of help at all, please ring.’

  However, we had another problem to occupy us – a 16.3 hand high problem.

  Wilberforce was never really the horse for us. He was aggressive (we clearly weren’t the first people to have hit him), and unpredictable. We didn’t have perfect control when riding him, but even less from the ground, especially when we first got him. Sometimes he charged at us in the field, and he once cornered Adam in the stable, threatening to kick him. He would strike out with his front legs, and sometimes when we were leading him, we had to let him go. At times, we resorted to carrying a whip in one hand, smacking him smartly across the legs if he struck out. In the year or so that we had him, we did manage to improve our relationship, and even took him on a long holiday, riding the length of the Ridgeway. He loved the views, and would stare into the distance for ages, while Sensi stuffed her face and admired the only view she cares about – a close-up of the grass! This experience definitely brought us closer to him, but we decided he might be better off with someone else. Just before I went on the Monty course, we put him on loan, but he came back with lameness problems. When the course ended, I decided to try out my newly acquired skills.

  Wilberforce responded to join-up in almost textbook fashion. Despite my fears about being charged at, he didn’t challenge being sent away, and very rapidly gave all the signals. When I invited him in, he walked straight up to me, stopping a respectful distance away. He followed me meekly as I walked in circles, and lowered his head for me to rub it. It was almost as if he was saying, ‘This is how I should be treated.’ When I attached a long rope, I was able to lead him wherever I wanted, with no sign of that nasty tendency to strike out. Finally, we were communicating.

  Shortly after that we discovered that Wilberforce had Wobbler’s disease, a progressive degeneration of the spine, which eventually leads to the horse being unable to control its movements. We watched as he became gradually less co-ordinated, and when I saw him fall over in the field, I knew it was time to act. The illness is incurable. He was fully insured, but we couldn’t claim unless we let him get so bad that he had to be destroyed on humane grounds. We couldn’t let that happen to him. Phoning around the local slaughterers is one call you wish you never have to make. I felt literally sick with fear as I walked down to his field to wait for the knacker man. I gave him one last feed as I said goodbye, filling the bucket with all his favourite foods. Adam stayed at his head, whilst I held Cobweb, Wilberforce’s field mate, a safe distance away. The anticipation of waiting for the shot to be fired was nearly unbearable. Adam had made me promise not to watch, but it was almost impossible not to look over. Wilberforce wouldn’t keep his head still, and it hadn’t occurred to me to save any of his feed from earlier. Finally, he stood still, looking off into the distance, and the man fired the bullet through his brain. Cobweb and I jumped as Wilberforce crashed to the ground. Adam knelt by his head, stroking his neck, until his heart stopped beating. We walked over to say goodbye. Cobweb sniffed him all over, and I patted his neck one last time. Then he was winched into the lorry and was gone.

  SEVEN

  Student at work

  (Adam)

  Every night, when Nicole returned from Witney, she would tell me in detail about her day. I heard all about the starters, the problem horses, the nervous pony, and her achievement with Candide. I saw her wake at some ungodly hour of the morning, and leap out of bed with enthusiasm for the day ahead. I shared her pleasure in meeting Lucy Rees, and was thrilled that Mary Wanless had some positive things to say about her riding. It was clear that the course was a high point in Nicole’s life. I was worried how she would cope after it ended.

  And, of course, Nicole did come back from the course in a despondent mood. Then, one day after Christmas, the phone rang. She launched herself into the room, suddenly cheerful.

  ‘That was Kelly Marks! She’s asked me to go and help on the first day of the next course – assist with the admin, and maybe say a little about my experiences on the course. Good, eh?’

  This continuing connection with the course, Kelly and Monty was a huge boost, and having something positive to focus on helped her to deal with the pain and distress of having to have Wilberforce put down in January.

  She came back from the first day in an ebullient mood, but there was just the hint of resignation in her manner, and the following evening I found out why.

  ‘It was lovely to see Monty again, and fascinating to see him work – there are some unhandled yearlings at the new place – you know – Willow Farm, where the courses are being held now, and Monty says it’s the nearest thing to a mustang that you’ll get in this country. He says it’s like a university, there’s so much learning to be had. Anyway, he remembered who I was, which was great, but he didn’t mention anything about the Candide thing. I half-expected him to, because he was so complimentary about it at the time. So I got to thinking it was deliberate. He was trying to tell me that what I did was good, but I can’t expect to continue receiving praise and approval on the strength of one achievement. I got the impression he knew what I was thinking, and that I expected him to say something, and so he wasn’t going to. And that was all right.’

  She paused, and took a swig from her pint of tea.

  ‘I mean, I think it’s really important that we don’t do these things just for the recognition, you know? It’s that old school thing of only being motivated to write an essay because someone is going to mark it. If the subject really interested you, you’d write it for its own sake.’

  ‘I guess so.’ I wasn’t entirely convinced that anyone would be that intrinsically motivated, or that they’d be quite right in the head if they were. The thought of all the Cambridge essays that I never wrote even though I had someone waiting to mark them loomed guiltily from my conscience.

  ‘So, I’d just got around to accepting the fact that my moment of glory was past, when Monty said to the group of students, “Do you all know Nicole and what she did on the last course?” I looked at my feet, and he launched off into an explanation of the whole thing. It was really nice, in an embarrass
ing sort of way.’

  She looked at me and grinned.

  ‘The thing is, it did go really well with Candide – I mean, I was really pleased, and we did trot to halt transitions, turns and canter and stuff. But to hear Monty tell it, we were doing canter pirouettes, sliding stops, flying changes, turns on a dime . . .’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘Did you correct him, then?’

  ‘Oh no! Heavens, who am I to contradict him? It wouldn’t have been appropriate . . .’

  Not long after this first conversation, Kelly rang again. When Nicole hung up she was almost dancing. I was beginning to think that whenever she talked to Kelly it was good news.

  ‘Kelly’s asked me to start a pony for her! The idea is to bombproof her, make her safe for a young kid, Kelly’s niece. You’ll have to help.’

  And so, on 2 February 1997, Nessie arrived at our paddock at Milton Keynes. Only 12.2 hands high, she was tiny, and like a miniature version of a racehorse, with a fine head and beautiful dark, intelligent eyes. Not what either of us had been expecting. Nicole took one look at her legs and said, ‘Oh, my God, they’ll break if I sit on her!’

  It was fascinating to see Nessie progress. Nicole and I both worked with her, together and separately, as often as we could. Somewhere along the way, Kelly added in the goal that we should try to get her so good she could be used in the next set of demonstrations, which started a month later in March.

  Nicole had started a new job, working as a Communications Operator in the Control Room for Thames Valley Police, and although the job was part-time, she had to go on some lengthy full-time training courses. She ended up doing a lot of work with Nessie after dark, training under the glow of the street lamps that lit the footpaths around the outside of the paddock. Nessie was quite ear-shy, and we worked on getting her good at having her ears handled, and taught her to lower her head for the bridle. We introduced her to as many scary things as we could, including plastic bags, tarpaulins, fluorescent sheets, stones in tin cans (which make a great noise), bicycles, cars, motorbikes. We took her out for long walks and let her meet sheep, wooden footbridges, and sailboats. We didn’t have a school or a round pen, just our stable and small paddock with trees and water troughs and other immovable objects in it. We had to get her as calm and accepting as possible before we could even think of getting on her. Luckily, Monty had been at Henley where Nessie had been kept, and had already done a join-up and introduced her to her first saddle. We did also long-line her, but as she was so small, it was just as easy and perhaps even more useful to simply stand by her shoulder and use the reins as one would when riding her, and in this way we taught her to turn, halt, and rein back.

  As it happened, Nessie had been with us for more than a fortnight before it felt appropriate to back her. Nicole was working on her own, and I kept watch nearby. She placed a bucket beside Nessie, and stepped up and down on it, getting Nessie used to the idea of someone suddenly rising up above her. Nicole lowered herself across Nessie’s back, gradually letting more of her weight rest on the saddle. When she finally took her feet off the bucket, Nessie staggered a little under her, and struggled to gain her balance, but she soon relaxed.

  At the time, I was working very long hours, often fourteen a day, at a nearby Japanese international school, so Nicole worked with two very capable young riders for the next few days, progressing to leading Nessie out with one of the youngsters on board.

  About three weeks after she had first arrived, Nicole took Nessie to Campbell Park, one of Milton Keynes’s lovely, landscaped, public parks, through which a bridleway runs, in fact the very same bridleway where Wilberforce and I had our big fight about the puddle. As part of her bombproofing process, she led her up some steps, through a bus-shelter, and straight up the side of a steep hill to the viewing point. Nessie was behaving so impeccably that Nicole decided it would be an appropriate time to ride her for the first time with no one at her head, and also to trot her for the first time. She reasoned that the park was enclosed, and well frequented, so even if she fell off, Nessie would be safe and Nicole would be found quite quickly. What she didn’t tell me until several years later was that she hadn’t brought her hat with her, but had decided to ride the pony anyway. This was out of character for Nicole, who is a very safety-conscious person, and luckily it all went well. Sometimes you just get a sense that something’s going to be all right, but we wouldn’t dream of taking this sort of risk now.

  Nessie progressed steadily over the next couple of weeks, and Kelly’s niece, Daisy, eventually came along to hack her out. The pony behaved beautifully, and went home at the beginning of March. Soon afterwards, Nicole and I went to Henley, to meet Monty and Kelly, and Daisy’s mother Sandra, to show what we’d been doing with Nessie, and to see whether she’d be good to use in the demo. Monty flapped a large piece of tarpaulin over her back, and under her belly, and Nessie didn’t move an inch. Daisy trotted her over a huge sheet of plastic, and led her under a clothes-line, and the only thing the pony did wrong all afternoon was to try to take a tiny little chunk out of Monty.

  ‘Someone’s been feeding this pony titbits!’ he proclaimed, and looked accusingly at Nicole. No one said anything, and I didn’t think too much of it, but I saw Nicole’s face darken and her lips tighten. On the way home in the car she explained indignantly what had happened.

  ‘Sandra and Daisy wanted to make sure Nessie followed them really well, so she’d go over the tarpaulin willingly. When they came up to ride her, they had a little Tupperware box full of treats that they’d rattle to get her attention. They’ve been feeding her treats, and Monty thinks it was me!’ She nearly wailed this last bit.

  The next time I saw Nessie she was at Addington, the prestigious equestrian centre where I had first seen Monty perform amazing feats with Dually. Nicole was buzzing because Kelly had arranged for her to do a join-up during the demo with a horse that had been on her ten-week course. She hadn’t known about it until about half an hour beforehand, which was probably just as well for her nerves. Nessie behaved like a miniature police horse, walking under the clothes-line as if no horse could possibly find it spooky, and standing calmly on the see-saw bridge as it rocked under her feet. Daisy rode and handled her beautifully. Although I was becoming familiar with Monty’s methods, I was still amazed to see how effective they had been, even when applied by virtual novices. This horse had been completely raw only six weeks previously, and was now virtually bombproof, ridden by a child in front of an audience of over a thousand. This was unimaginable progress to most trainers.

  And then, less than a month later, we met Misty.

  EIGHT

  Misty

  (Nicole)

  Misty emerged from the trailer like a cork from a champagne bottle. Her eyes were bulging with fear, and her nostrils distended, snorting in a frantic attempt to gain information about her new surroundings. She wore a tatty leather headcollar, which hadn’t been removed in over two years, still with a rotten piece of lead rope suspended from it. She followed her owner into the stable like a cat on hot coals, her whole body trembling, quivering with fear. When her owner, Tina, let her go, she shot to the back of the box, and stood cowering in a corner.

  She was beautiful and wild, and I wanted to wrap my arms around her neck and tell her it would all be all right. I knew the most reassuring thing I could do, however, was leave her alone. We moved away from the stable, and Tina filled me in on her history.

  She had bought Misty from a pony dealer somewhere in Wales. She could see the pony was very frightened, and felt that in a caring, loving environment she would grow more confident. She wasn’t convinced when the dealer said that Misty was basically well handled, but she was wearing a headcollar, and Tina thought she probably wasn’t too wild. The clincher was that Misty was in foal – and Tina very much wanted to breed a Welsh Mountain Pony foal.

  When she got Misty home to Oxfordshire, however, Tina realised the full extent of her terror. For nearly a year, she was hardly able to ge
t within ten yards of her. She and her daughter tried everything they could think of. Occasionally, after hours of very patient work, they could catch her, and she was slightly calmer once caught, but was prone to sudden panic attacks. At one stage, a well-meaning friend managed to grab hold of her, and tied her up while she combed her extremely tangled mane. Misty was terrified by this experience. It confirmed all her fears, and seemed to double her resolve to never let anyone get close enough to catch hold of her again. The patient work of months was eradicated in just one hour.

  No one had ever managed to get onto Misty’s off-(right)side, and since even from a distance she always made sure that she kept people on her near-side, the belief was that she was probably blind in her right eye. Whatever had happened to her had obviously been horrific, but there was no way Tina could find out the true story. It’s rare to come across a former owner who says, ‘Oh, yes. She was naughty, so I got her in the stable and beat her within an inch of her life. She always seemed a bit nervy after that.’

  Tina would have been happy to give up her dream of Misty being ridden by her grandchildren, and might have considered leaving Misty alone (praying that she never needed any veterinary care), but the problem was the foal. Now almost a year old, she followed her mother’s example, and never let anyone near her. Tina found herself with the prospect of owning two ponies she couldn’t get near! Breeding wild Welsh Mountain Ponies in Oxfordshire had never been the plan.