Whispering Back (15 page)

I’m a great believer in silver linings and although I was devastated by my mistake, the silver lining to this otherwise very cloudy episode was simple: while Misty had been frantically trying to escape from her horrific ordeal in the stable, she had put me on to her off-side. It had been a brief, panic-drenched moment, but somehow we had both survived the trauma, just. There had to be an altogether calmer way around the problem. She would have to make the decision to allow me into that space.

The solution turned out to be very simple, and it fully engaged her willingness to work on the problem, while allowing her to take it at her own pace. I thought of a way to make it worth her while to confront this fear. We were both inside the stable, and I stood by the open door. She was loose, and could position herself wherever she liked. If she wanted to go through the door, however, she would have to let me onto her off-side while she went through, for I was standing on that side of the doorway. For a moment or two, it looked like she was eyeing up this option. It was clear that if she went for it, it was going to be at a considerable speed. But I reckoned that if we were able to repeat the process often enough, she would begin to slow down. She never did take the option of shooting out of the stable past me, but she felt drawn to the open door, and would repeatedly approach.

So what I did was to start scratching her neck on the near-side, standing pretty much in front of her. Before I worked out the attraction of the open door, it wasn’t possible to be standing in front of her. The fact that it was spring and she was moulting made the scratching a particular pleasure for her. She was free to move away from me, or position herself so I was back on her near-side again. Every time she moved away, however, I stopped scratching her. Every time she moved back or allowed me to move into the position I wanted to be in, I started scratching her again. She very quickly learned that I would only do what she wanted me to do when she was standing where I wanted her to stand. Gradually, I moved my fingers under her neck until I actually had my hand on her off-side. I’d already been able to do this by putting my hand over her neck, but never when standing in front of her. I soon found myself standing just to the off-side of her, scratching the top of her neck. From time to time she would come to, realise where I was, and back away. If that was what she needed to do to feel safe, that was fine by me, but sooner or later the desire to be scratched would prevail, and she would come back to me.

This represented a major breakthrough in the whole issue. Little by little, day after day, she became happier with me on the off-side, and would let me further and further down her little body, until I could just about scratch the top of her tail from either side. Making headway in this one major area allowed the tangled string of her troubles to begin to unravel. In the course of this work, she also found a key to get me to pause any training session, giving her more control over the process, and added confidence. She taught me to hug her.

It first happened when I moved a little abruptly to get to her off-side. She swung her head around to put me back on her near-side, but didn’t swing it far enough, and ended up with it on my shoulder. I immediately stopped what I was doing, and quietly put my arms around her neck. The Misty hug was born, and she soon discovered that I found it so endearing that she could get me to stop whatever I was doing if she simply put her head on my shoulder. On the few occasions when I would continue with my task, she would dig her jaw hard into my collarbone as if to say, ‘Look, you idiot, I’m hugging you, so stop what you’re doing right now!’

Misty wasn’t just a sharp learning curve for me, she was an education. Picking up her feet, putting on a roller, saddle, bridle, riding her, leading her, especially from the off-side, taking her out for walks, and long-lining her all presented challenges at least as difficult as getting onto her off-side for the first time. We over-ran the projected duration of her stay by nearly three times, but in the end we achieved all the objectives, having long since stopped charging for her. The thought of her leaving us was simply unbearable, but Tina was thrilled with the changes we had made. Looking forward to having two ponies she could actually do things with, she also sent us Misty’s foal, Pearl. Completely untouched, she was wary, but infinitely easier than Misty had been, only having to deal with fear of the unknown rather than fear of the known. She had never been caught, but within a matter of days was more relaxed around us than Misty. I tried not to think about the fact that Pearl’s rapid progress meant that Misty would soon be leaving. As I updated Tina on the phone, I slipped in as casually as possible, a comment along the lines that, if she ever decided she didn’t want Misty any more, we would gladly keep her.

Not long after she had started working for me, Julia had one of those experiences that you wouldn’t wish on anyone. A visitor to the field had pulled the gate to as he left, but not closed the latch, and moments later Julia turned around just in time to see two grey tails disappearing around the corner. Misty and Pearl were in the front paddock so they could meet as many new people as possible, but clearly they felt it was time to extend their social circle. Not wishing to startle them, she followed them as quickly and quietly as she could, watching with dismay as they chose not to follow the underpass that would take them safely under the main road, but, being Welsh Mountain Ponies, to clamber up the steep slope and onto the tarmac. It was a long, straight, fast road, and the only consolation was that it had recently been opened, and traffic wasn’t yet heavy on it. At this point, Pearl, who had only been with us for a few days, had not yet had her first headcollar on, and Misty was not necessarily going to be easy to catch.

As Julia pondered what to do, a police car turned up. I was at work at the time, and her first thought was, Oh my God, Nicole can somehow see what I’m doing! She’s spying on me.

Had I been working on the radios that morning I might well have received a startling message: ‘Delta papa to delta alpha. Have just intercepted two loose ponies on H8 between Woolstone and Woughton. Will assist. Over.’ Luckily, I knew nothing about it until they were safely back in their field.

‘The police were fantastic,’ Julia said. ‘They stopped the traffic and that gave me a bit of space to work with Misty and Pearl. The best thing was they let me get on with it and didn’t interfere, or rush me. By this time, I think the ponies had decided that it wasn’t so much fun up on the road after all, and with more and more cars stacking up behind the police vehicles, they were getting a bit worried. I put a bit of pressure on them, and just sort of herded them back to the field. Luckily, once they got back to the field, they chose to go through the open gate. You can’t imagine how terrified I was, thinking I’d lost them. The prospect of phoning you up to tell you they were at large somewhere in Milton Keynes, rapidly reverting to their wild state, was not appealing!’

It was on 31 August 1997, the day Princess Diana died, that Misty and Pearl were due to go home. Tina came to pick them up in her trailer. Pearl bounced eagerly up the ramp, but Misty was very reluctant. I began half-heartedly to persuade her to load when Tina suddenly asked, ‘Did you really mean what you said about there always being a home for her here if I ever don’t want her any more?’

‘Of course,’ I replied, doubt creeping in as I remembered I hadn’t really spoken to Adam about it. I knew he was heart-broken about the prospect of her leaving, but did that necessarily mean he wanted us to keep her? He was off in France anyway, at a wedding, so I couldn’t get hold of him.

‘Well, why don’t you keep her here?’ Tina suggested. ‘I really wanted the foal more than anything, and I’m sure Misty would be a lot happier here with you.’

A surge of love welled up inside me as I looked at Misty. She stood looking dejected at the bottom of the ramp. I was sure that Tina and her family would look after her well and that she’d be happy. But the pony of my childhood dreams was mine for the asking and I couldn’t turn her down. I waived the rest of Pearl’s training fee, and Tina closed up the ramp and drove her away, leaving Misty and me hugging in the field.

Adam, of course, was delighted. And although she is never ridden, Misty has an important job that no other pony could do. She hugs us whenever we need it, and she constantly reminds us that whenever we think a horse’s problems are insurmountable, we only have to think them through and we’ll come up with the answers in the end. She set us on the path of helping traumatised and abused horses. Her courage in dealing with her terror remains a source of inspiration, and, tiny though she is, she exudes a sense of quiet wisdom and dignity that makes her a pleasure to have around. Knowing that she’s safe and happy now has made all those hours of painstaking work worthwhile.

Misty changed my life, too. It broke my heart to see that lovely little pony run to the back of her stable, shaking with fear, if I so much as stepped towards her from a distance of 30 feet. It would have been difficult to know where to start, if she hadn’t been impossible to catch. To lead her, even just to move around her, however slowly, to pick up her feet, put on a saddle, or ride her, all seemed utterly out of the question. And yet, day by day, Nicole dispelled her fear, won her trust and eventually overcame all these massive problems in the most impressive feat of horsemanship I have ever witnessed.

Misty was fragile and timid, but full of character. Although she was petrified of humans, her special personality began to emerge as her fear subsided. She wanted so much just to be loved, to be safe, to be accepted. She soon found that being near Nicole was a place of safety. But it was another matter to persuade her that I was trustworthy too. I found myself reduced to tears time and again, when, although I stood as passively as I could, Misty would falter, unable to approach me for what seemed like hours. She would stand hesitantly about 10 feet away, struggling to muster the confidence to approach, her wish to be with me battling against her fear. But, even with my unsure grasp of her language, she understood what I was trying to say. In the end, she was won over. So was I. When we were given her in exchange for the work we did on her filly, I was astonished to find that Nicole’s great childhood dream, of having a grey Welsh Mountain Pony called Misty, had become my own.

Monty came back to the UK several times, to meet every group taking the courses. This would generally be organised to coincide with a tour and Nicole was always on the UK touring team. I was left behind, then as now, to do the less glamorous jobs, such as cycling down to check horses at 11 p.m. But I took every opportunity to go and see Monty’s demos, surprised to discover there was nothing I would rather be doing. This would be followed by a long, lonely drive back and then checking horses at some ridiculous hour of the morning, when I would often spend time just holding Misty, scratching Sensi or simply taking in the beauty of the peace of the night, into which the horses fitted so naturally.

If I had any doubt that Monty’s methods worked, or that I could learn them and even adapt them, they were dispelled one day the next summer. By then I had done join-up with several horses, and had helped Nicole back Nessie and another youngster. But, at that point, I did not have much time to be with our horses, which was the main reason why our new pony, Finn, wouldn’t let me catch him.

Finn is an Exmoor pony, the closest surviving relation to the only species of truly wild horse left in the world, Przewalski’s horse, which come from Mongolia and look extraordinarily similar. Exmoors are incredibly compact and rugged, one of the very toughest breeds of horse, built to survive in the extreme conditions of the moor. Nicole had been hired to start him for someone’s daughter, but the daughter had lost interest so we ended up buying him, and used him for lessons. Except that, not being able to catch him, this was not exactly easy. He didn’t seem very scared, and Nicole could catch him easily. But he didn’t much like the look of me and used to saunter off, nonchalantly but deliberately, when I approached. It was as if he was sticking two fingers up as he went, emphasising the superiority of having four legs. This was a point I had to concede, especially in view of a double-barrelled kick I had seen him produce so readily for the other horses.

The way he interacted in the group made it clear he was a cheeky character. He would stand still and refuse to move when Sensi would tell him, with her most spectacular barracuda-face, to get lost. He wouldn’t even move when she gnawed on his rump, which seemed to be made of rhino hide. When chased in the field he would turn and lift his bum into the air, ready to kick, but as soon as the larger horses had started to graze again he would turn around, come up and bite them. His attitude to people was not dissimilar. I didn’t much like the fact that I was coming down in the middle of the night to check this little varmint of a pony and he wouldn’t even let me catch him. But due to the fact that I never had enough time, I didn’t do anything about it, and soon I was completely unable to get near the little bugger.

A couple of months after we’d bought him, I was on my summer holidays. One lovely morning, after breakfast, I went down to the field to see the horses and they were all happily grazing in the warm sun. I went up to each of them and gave them a scratch and check over. As I tried surreptitiously to edge my way closer to Finn, quietly working my way through the herd towards him, I could feel without looking that he already had his eye on me. I tried to pretend I was only interested in Sensi, who was standing next to him, but we both knew there was no way he would let me get near him. He started to meander over into the open, and when he felt at a safe distance, he went back to grazing, keeping his eye on me the whole time. I continued to tiptoe around for a time. But as soon as I made the slightest movement in his direction, he set off across the field.