AND ANOTHER THING
What would the horses say if only they could speak?
PAUL JOHNSON
What decent person does not admire horses? They are intelligent, sensitive, sometimes headstrong, very occasionally wicked, but on the whole overwhelmingly industrious, obedient, devoted creatures who for thousands of years have worked their bodies out for us, often without ade- quate appreciation. Horses can certainly feel intensely and, if they could speak, what tales could they not tell, of ill-treat- ment, ingratitude and miseries needlessly inflicted? In my part of Somerset there are many thousands of horses and often on my long walks I peer over gates to salute them in their fields. They scamper up, friendly and inquisitive, and I pause to rub their big, wise, sensible heads and exchange understanding noises. I sometimes ask, 'Are you all right? Do they treat you well?' Answer comes there none, but their eyes deliver cloudy messages. The vast majority of people who keep horses today look after them and in many cases love them. Yet the same could have been said of slaves in the old South, and we know what happened to those defenceless souls when they were sold off in markets and fell into bad hands. Horses are subject to the same uncertain fate. Owners die, adoring teenage girls grow up and move into town, or tastes, interests change, or poverty strikes, and for all these reasons horses are sold and go their owners know not whither. And horses grow old and past their work, and not all those who employ them can afford to put them out to grass, as they merit. They begin a long, sad journey into the unknown, and many changes of master, each (one fears) more degrading than the last, so that the eventual knacker's yard comes as a merciful release. I some- times wish there was a legal requirement for each horse to be provided with proper documentation, so that there is some record of what becomes of them and some check on their treatment. After all, we do• as much for a motor car, a mere inanimate object of unfeeling metal. It is always satisfying to hear of a great horse receiving generous treatment. Copenhagen, born in the year of Nelson's victory over the Danish navy, had an Arab dam and was grandson to the most famous of all racehorses, Eclipse — 'Eclipse first, the rest nowhere!' was Denis O'Kelly's memorable comment on the Queen's Plate at Winchester, 1769. Wellington bought Copenhagen in 1810, won victories on him, and rode him for many dangerous hours during the appalling slaughter of Waterloo. He revered the horse in his own unsentimental way, looked after him and, when Copenhagen finally died, paid a wor- thy tribute: 'There may have been many faster horses, no doubt many handsomer, but for bottom and endurance I never saw his fellow.' There is a clip from Copen- hagen's mane, preserved in a little glass case in the Cavalry Club. I have likewise seen the stuffed head and neck, attached to a wooden body, that belonged to the fine stallion the Earl of Cardigan rode when leading the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava. You can see it at Deene Park, the family seat of the Bru- denells, in Northamptonshire. It is gratifying to discover that, after Waterloo, when thousands of French wounded lay untended on the field, a group of London surgeons went out to treat them, saving many lives, and that they did not neglect the wounded horses either. The Scots surgeon, Charles Bell, worked on until 'his clothes were stiff with blood' and his arms 'powerless with the exertions of using the knife'. Later, the most famous surgeon of the age, Sir Astley Cooper, attended the sale of the wounded Waterloo horses, considered fit only for the knacker, bought 12 of the worst cases, took them to his Hertfordshire estate and began the sys- tematic extraction of bullets and grapeshot. He saved the lives of all of them and let them loose in his park. Then, 'one morning, to his great delight, he saw the noble ani- mals form in line, charge, and then retreat, and afterwards gallop about, appearing greatly contented with the lot that had befallen them'.
I was reminded of this episode when I saw a photograph of retired racehorses holding a competition among themselves, which apparently is their touching habit. The photo was taken at a racehorse rescue centre in Devon, which is short of money and may have to close down, in which case the 20 horses there will have to be shot. It came as a saddening surprise to me that even racehorses, finely bred as they are, and winners of famous trophies, who enrich their owners, can be heartlessly sold off and meet a fate as dreadful as any hack, cart- horse or child's neglected pony. But so it is. One of those who run the rescue centre says that of these former winners 'almost all came to us in a dreadful state. Nobody else would have them.' I shall think of this remark the next time I see a multimillion- aire owner of a classic winner proudly lead- ing in his horse and patting its rump, while the spotlights flash and the television cam- eras turn. There are so many areas of our national life, dark and dismal, where pub- licity never penetrates.
I suspect there will be a mass sale and perhaps a slaughter of horses if and when hunting is made unlawful by New Labour. It is not that, in west Somerset for instance, every one of the thousands who own horses necessarily hunts, though I think the major- ity of them do, from time to time at least. But hunting and ownership of horses are inextricably interwoven. If one is outlawed and collapses, the other will be dealt a fatal blow. Now that agriculture is wholly mecha- nised, the culture of the horse is sustained largely by hunting, more so even than by racing; for few aspire to the grandeur of owning and training a racehorse, while keeping a hunter is just within the means of many country people. As a result of this culture, the horse is still a familiar sight in large parts of Britain, in fields and woods, being ridden or led along country lanes and by-roads — or bridleways as we still call them in the Quantocks. The sound of hooves clopping gently along the tarmac in the morning, or thudding across the dewy greensward — I am sometimes woken by this comforting sound of early exercise as I lie in my warm bed — will be heard no more, and the slightly acrid whiff of horse sweat, or the scent of their dung (so useful, incidentally, in bringing out the wild mush- rooms in September), will slip into the oubliette of lost odours.
I have never hunted, or wished to hunt, and now I am old anyway, and increasing- ly detached from the things of this world, even the good ones. But people of my age with some knowledge of our history owe it to generations yet unborn not to allow thoughtless ideologues to destroy part of the national fabric, which our forebears passed to us in good faith, knowing that, once gone, there is no possibility of it being restored. We would not permit any- one to burn our Turners and Constables. Why, then, accept the torching of a vul- nerable part of our heritage which is still living?
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