Love, Sweat and Tears

by Zelie Bullen

  I missed Fred a lot when she left, but Julie promised me that she would never leave me. More than once, she held my face between her hands and told me she would always be there. It was comforting for me, and I’m sure for her too.

  I felt safe and comfortable when Julie was with me. She always seemed confident and outgoing, whereas I was the baby of the family, a mummy’s girl. She would rush up and give someone a cuddle or sit on their lap, while I would hang back.

  A couple of times Julie and I went to visit Dad by ourselves, taking the three-and-a-half-day bus trip across the great empty expanse of the Nullarbor Plain to Sydney. I hated not being with people I knew—without Mum, without my animals—but I did enjoy getting to know our stepmother Jan, and our two adorable little half-sisters, Cloud and Kate, as well as spending some time with Fred before she finished high school and moved out.

  Julie also wanted to establish a relationship with Dad, but I couldn’t have cared less. I have early memories of Mum comforting Julie at night as she lay on the bottom bunk of our bunk bed and she sobbed, saying that she wished she had a dad like the other kids at school. I didn’t understand her pain. Dad was a stranger to me, and I felt little emotion towards him. When we went to visit, I could see that Dad was trying to be nice and I felt I was supposed to be nice too, but all I really felt was discomfort. Julie often wrote long letters to him, Jan and the girls and she made sure I signed birthday cards for Cloud and Kate, calling them her babies when talking about them to her friends. She would be so excited at the prospect of going over to see them when we were asked to visit, but I was always reluctant. Our relationship with him was almost non-existent.

  During our visits I remember him arriving home from work, eating dinner and sitting down in front of the television. He seemed emotionally detached from the family. I don’t remember him being affectionate, though he did try once, calling me over while he was watching television; I went over and sat stiffly with him while he patted my knee. Then I jumped off the first chance I got.

  There was another reason I felt uncomfortable around my father. At home in Darlington, we struggled financially. When Julie and I arrived in Sydney in our worn, hand-me-down clothes, we would be taken to Dad’s expensive house on the upper north shore, full of modern appliances and abundant food. My little half-sisters pottered around in spotless outfits and seemed to own endless stuff. Knowing that Dad didn’t even pay Mum maintenance I couldn’t help feeling hurt. Over time, my attitude towards him became almost belligerent and when I was old enough to say so, I refused to visit him, even though Julie continued to go.

  I had such mixed feelings about him. I always felt uncomfortable around him and I think he was uncomfortable around me. For many years I thought: ‘Why doesn’t he want us? Why did he leave? Why doesn’t he have anything to do with us?’ The end result of all this was that I thought, ‘Bugger you—I don’t want anything to do with you either.’ I understand the hurt that caused that feeling and I don’t blame myself for that.

  When Julie and I returned to Darlington, to Mum and the animals, I was happy. But other aspects of my life in Darlington weren’t going so well. Mum had seen how far behind academically Julie was when she started high school and she began to worry that I would have similar problems, so she pulled me out of Beenong for my last year of primary schooling. Up until then, I had always been to independent alternative schools which were friendly and casual. As unstable and insecure as my childhood had been, I’d had an awful lot of fun at both Beenong and Freewheels. Now, though, Mum enrolled me at a private school. Not only did I feel like a total misfit, I was bullied both emotionally and physically. I had never experienced anything like it before. On top of that, I found it strange and scary to be sitting in a class not being allowed to talk. The teacher wasn’t your friend; they didn’t come and say something nice to you when they walked in. They would say, ‘Sit down, Zelie, be quiet,’ and I used to think, ‘What have I done?’

  My unhappiness didn’t stop when the school day ended. Three boys in particular used to grab me on the way home and push me around, trying to intimidate me. Sometimes I tried to avoid them by taking the back way home, instead of walking down the main road, but somehow they always seemed to know which route I would take and would wait for me there. It was horrible. They used to say, ‘You tell anyone and we will say you are a liar.’ So I never told.

  I did tell Mum I hated the school, but rather than let me go back to Beenong, she sent me to Darlington state primary. I was horrified to think I would have to face the same kids who had taunted me as I rode past on Candy. To my surprise, though, Darlington Primary was a relief, because I didn’t get the same amount of physical bullying there. But I still hated it—I didn’t make any friends and I felt like I was different to everyone else.

  In my unhappiness, I again turned to my animals. People let me down; animals didn’t. Snoopy and Candy were my best friends and I thought they knew how I was feeling. I decided that you couldn’t trust people—they could be liars and bullies, and were frightening and unpredictable. With animals, I felt comfortable and peaceful. Animals made me happy.

  CHAPTER 2

  Beautiful friends

  I didn’t have many friends at school, but I did have my horsey friends. This was a small group of six or seven girls who lived in the area and went to pony club together. To get to the monthly pony club rallies, we would either ride the nine kilometres along the old railway line to Mahogany Creek very early in the morning, or get a lift with someone who had a float or trailer. The parents took turns to be the transport person for each rally, delivering a pile of halters as well as a bale of hay and buckets for water for the horses; they would also hand out our lunches.

  Our little group went everywhere on our ponies. Sometimes all of us met up, while at other times only two or three of us would ride together. On weekends, it wasn’t unusual to get up in the morning, ride bareback to whoever’s place we were meeting at and go for a ride. We would then rock up at someone else’s place for lunch, putting all of our ponies together in their paddock. We might go for a swim or jump on the trampoline or just play with the ponies. They were such fun days.

  I love the adventurous memories I have of that time. There were some hair-raising rides. I thought it was hilarious to pull the bridles off the other girls’ horses as we were cantering along—they would be left holding an awful lot of rein with only the bit pressing against their horse’s chest, which eventually slowed them down. Thankfully, all our horses were very docile, because they were being handled and ridden all the time. Still, the others would swear at me and ask me why I thought that was funny. In retaliation, they would try to get Candy’s bridle off, but no one ever did. I’d yell, ‘You can’t catch me!’ We found the steepest hills to go up and down, and jumped our horses over everything we could. I always wanted adventure.

  One day two trainers came to our pony club to perform a vaulting display with their horses. They were from El Caballo Blanco, a centre that had been opened in Perth a few years before by a Spanish classical rider, who had imported several Andalusian horses from Spain, and whose intention was to showcase the first classical dancing horses in the southern hemisphere. I was in total awe of their skills that day at pony club and thought, ‘I want to do that!’

  Vaulting can best be described as ballet on horseback. It is typically performed on a big solid horse with a slow, smooth rocking-horse canter, moving in a circle of twenty metres diameter. The horse is ‘lunged’, meaning someone stands in the middle of the circle holding a long lead line, and the rider or riders perform a series of acrobatic manoeuvres on the horse’s back. It is athletic and beautiful to watch. It can involve jumping on and off the horse as it moves along, as well as holding various positions, including sitting backwards and standing in arabesque poses on the horse’s big strong hindquarters or back. It is thought to originate from Roman times and was often seen in circus rings throughout Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and is still se
en today in some of the top circuses around the world.

  Afterwards the trainers taught us some basic vaulting moves, and we were then allowed to practise on their beautiful Andalusian horse as he walked around in a circle. I was captivated—riding home that day along the bridle trail, I started jumping on and off my own pony, trying to mimic what I had just seen.

  From then on, I used to try all those vaulting moves on Candy as we rode along. Of course, more often than not I would hit the ground with a thump rather than land safely back in the saddle. Candy would often unseat me and trot off to munch on the nearest patch of grass, waiting for me to dust myself off and hop back on. I was no gymnast, but I would just try my best and see what happened. Sometimes I would just sit in my saddle facing backwards for a while as we rode along—anything for a bit of fun. I couldn’t recall all of the vaulting moves we’d been shown, but I practised what I did remember and often just made up stuff that I thought might look good, showing off to my riding buddies.

  We were a very close little gang of friends. Even when we started to grow up and got interested in boys and going out, horses continued to be a massive part of our lives.

  There was not enough land to constantly graze Candy at our place, so she lived with a dozen or so other horses at Tisa Lawrence’s property, about a kilometre down the road. I couldn’t afford to pay Tisa agistment, so I would scoop up horse poo, muck out the stables or clean her show tack, all of which I was happy to do.

  By the time I was fourteen, I was too big for Candy, so, with Tisa’s help, I started looking around for a larger horse. We found a beautiful Arab cross chestnut mare called Angel’s Glory.

  Angel was a very special horse to me. Aside from the fact that I fell in love with her, as I do with most of my animals, I also learnt a lot from her. I think she was the first horse with whom I had a relationship of mutual respect.

  Candy had been my first pony and I’d fallen off her every day until I learnt to hang on. Basically she did what she wanted and I was happy just to go along with it and simply be with her. Like my dog Snoopy, she was my friend. But by the time Angel came along I knew a bit more about horses and how to handle them.

  Angel was a bit sour at first, pinning her ears back at me and with a bad attitude. I felt she was being rude, and I thought, ‘Hang on, I’ve just paid money for you and you’re being mean to me.’ I quickly let her know I wasn’t taking any bad attitude from her. It was weird, because I didn’t really understand the concept of what I was doing. But during the first few months, my relationship with Angel turned into a very respectful one; as a result, I felt that she enjoyed my company and wanted to be with me.

  At Tisa’s I would watch the relationships between the horses in the paddock—which pony was boss over who, and where they all fitted within the herd. I was really interested in their social network and I felt like I wanted to be a part of it. Like them, I needed to find where I belonged in the herd.

  Understanding animals’ natural instincts and interactions is an important part of training animals, and I was learning this at a rapid rate, just by being with them every moment I could. For example, a dog wants to please you, and even birds need to feel that you are ‘family’ and safe if you want to work with them or be around them. Candy had probably seen me as beneath her, but I didn’t mind that, because I was inexperienced and just enjoyed having her as my friend. But my relationship with Angel showed me that horses can like being with you even if they are not in the dominant position. If I called out to Angel in the paddock, she would call back to me and come to the fence; once she was caught, she would listen to me. This discipline was very different to what I had had before; I was always relieved if I actually managed to catch Candy. What I learnt from Angel was invaluable.

  Even now, with any animal I train or bring into our family or ‘herd’, I realise the importance of them feeling happy with me and comfortable with their place within the group. And, as in any family situation, it is always difficult when the time comes for me to separate from an animal I have trained, because of the rapport and understanding that has been created between us.

  By now I was a teenager, and I had begun to ask Mum for some boundaries, just as Angel wanted to know hers. But when I asked Mum for some rules she said, ‘What for?’ I tried to explain that I needed some chores or responsibilities—other kids had jobs, like taking out the rubbish. So she replied, ‘OK then, take out the rubbish.’ I couldn’t get her to understand that I needed her to tell me on rubbish day that I needed to do that job.

  It took me many years to see the similarities, but just like teenagers, animals need to know their boundaries so they can feel comfortable. Angel and I were looking for ours at the same time.

  Once she knew what I expected of her and what I would accept, Angel was a very easy horse to train. When I was fifteen I taught her to rear on cue—well, most of the time! At first we were just playing together. She was an excitable Arab cross mare, and when I stirred her up she would often squeal and lift her front feet a foot or so off the ground and hop back on her back legs, using her body language, her ears and eyes to communicate her joy and excitement. Whenever she did this I praised her. Then I started to add a cue to the routine: I’d raise my arm and she would rear up onto her back legs. However, I very much doubt I could have got her to do this if we had been under pressure or on a movie set where she could have been distracted by a foreign environment. And it is not something I would encourage inexperienced people to try, because reading an animal’s body language incorrectly can be dangerous. Animals react quickly, often instinctively; a situation can turn nasty very easily.

  Over time I also taught Angel to bow and to lie down. But I wasn’t just teaching her—I was hanging out with her and enjoying her company, having fun, and training her came naturally out of that pleasure. Even today, I still get a kick out of communicating with animals, out of knowing that we understand each other. I really enjoy spending time with a new animal and seeing them begin to trust me and want to be with me. As with Angel, whenever I am working or just hanging out with my animals, I feel comfortable and I often don’t notice what else is going on around me.

  CHAPTER 3

  Fancy Pants

  Ever since I first started looking after animals, I have wanted to provide a nice environment for them. I will happily wash out a water trough, clean up poo, pull out weeds, clean tack, anything that makes it more comfortable for them. As a child I thought these things were all part of the fun of riding and being with the animals; it wasn’t until I was older that I realised that many people saw only the riding as fun, not being with the animals and caring for them.

  One day in 1985 Julie’s then boyfriend rang me at home and told me that some land nearby was being sold. The lady who owned it had dementia and she had a paddockful of skinny little ponies who hadn’t been well cared for. The RSPCA had been called in and the ponies were in need of rescuing—would I be interested in taking one? I thought, ‘Wow, that would be so cool. But I’ve got two horses—I can’t be having another pony, can I?’

  I called the RSPCA and asked them how much it would cost. They told me they were just looking for good homes for them; if I could take one, it would be free. I instantly agreed to take one; not long after, this tiny grey pony arrived. I called her Fancy Pants, because of the way she acted when I first put her out in the paddock with the other horses at Tisa’s—she went crazy, prancing around and carrying on. She was a very pretty little thing, but she was half wild, so I had a pile of fun taming her.

  I’d had her delivered to Tisa’s thinking that she could just slot into the free agistment arrangement I had going. But Tisa brought me right back down to earth—there were no more hours in the day when I could pick up poo, so I would need to pay for my new pony’s feed. The stark reality was that I simply did not have that kind of money. I’d thought that I could rescue Fancy Pants, but that dream was fast dissolving.

  However, I knew Dad had money. I had never before asked him
for anything, but now, desperate to keep Fancy Pants, I wrote him a letter. I told him as briefly as I could about the situation I found myself in. I explained that I still had my first pony, Candy, whom I would never sell and Mum had promised I never would have to, but that I had grown out of her and bought another horse, Angel, whom I wanted to do some eventing with. Then I had been given the opportunity to save a little pony from the RSPCA; but in all of this, I hadn’t really thought through how I could afford it. Would he be able to help me?

  He said yes, and every fortnight for a year he sent me a cheque for thirty dollars. The first couple of cheques came with a little note which said Love, Dad, but after that he must have organised it with his secretary because the accompanying envelopes were written out in a lady’s handwriting, with only a cheque inside and no note.

  Those cheques helped me look after the horses, and with lots of other things too. I thought, ‘Wow, what do you know? You don’t know what you can get until you ask.’ I was really glad for that and I felt grateful. If he ever asked to see me again I realised I would need to make an effort to.

  When I told Mum that I had written to Dad and he had sent me a cheque she just said, ‘So he bloody well should.’

  So I was able to keep Fancy Pants. I knew she was unbroken and I had never seen anyone break in a horse from start to finish.

  I had never mouthed a horse—teaching it to respond to having a bit in its mouth—but I had used my intuition and instinct to quieten horses and build a bond between them and myself. I would run my hand down a horse’s leg and teach it to pick up its foot as a response to touch, and get it used to being handled all over. I had taught Angel to have some manners and some respect for my personal space.