I don’t want to start on the wrong foot, so let’s not talk about love at first sight, or any guff like that. Besides, it didn’t happen at first sight, and anyway, it wasn’t love. But in that first couple of hours of our lives together – and we have been together for all but 20 years – there was certainly something. There was a connection. Was it entirely one-way?

Well, let’s worry about that later. All I can say is that there was something. Her name was Dolly, and I thought it was a stupid name right from the first, and I’ve hardly ever used it since. It suited her not a bit. She was not a My Little Pony sort of a horse, not a dolly girl, not winsome and winning, not even terribly pretty. A stubby little mare, a bright bay with remarkably large ears. A white star in her forehead shaped like Madagascar. A huge arse, which is good, not bad, because that’s where the power comes from. Not a horse that would turn heads, no, just a very horse-like horse. She stood, quiet, docile, as I approached her. To tell the truth, I was a bit disappointed not to be offered something more lively. Ha. I placed a foot in the iron and swung on board… and in that single instant the horse came alive.

It was as if I had turned a key. All the lights came on, she started buzzing. To tell the truth, I was a little alarmed, a little intimidated. She was rather more horse than I was expecting. When you first touch the reins of a horse, there is an instant exchange of information. It flows both ways: now I’m quite certain about that. It’s probably true that in the first electric contact, the horse knows more about you than you know about the horse. The horse instantly learns something about your competence, balance, level of fear, whether you like to bully, whether you can be bullied, and perhaps, and most importantly, whether or not you are simpatico. But the rider certainly learns something, if not as much, about the horse, horses being more highly tuned than humans when it comes to picking up small nuances of mood. What I learnt in that first moment of contact was that I had something ever so slightly special. Not necessarily special for everybody, but definitely something special for me.

I rode her out with two or three others. The usual thing: a little road work, some bridleways, a place or two where you could kick on a bit. And I have a vivid memory of this, a strong physical memory, what psychologists call a psychokinetic memory, of the way the little mare moved. It’s a hard thing to explain, because the memory is all in my hands and my arse and my legs. She was so light, but with an altogether unexpected amount of power behind. I knew even then, before I even thought of trying her, that she could jump like a little stag. What I didn’t know was that the way she carried herself – light before, weight all behind – would come close to breaking my heart.

She was a handful all right, on that first ride, but she was not wicked, she was fun. That was quite definitely, incontrovertibly, a two-way thing: she loved to be out and active and given a licence to express herself. She hated to be fussed. She was looking to explode at any time: always eager to step up a pace, every walk edging towards a trot, every trot seeking to become a canter, every canter on the brink of a gallop. But she wasn’t pulling and fighting and straining. And I never even started looking for a fight myself: I found that, almost in spite of myself, I was relaxing, giving her a little more leeway than she was perhaps used to, telling her there was nothing to get tense about, that we would have our fun in due course. I discovered that if I sat back and deep, she would listen, and canter short and neat and clever with quite miraculous balance. It was a bit like driving a fast boat with an outboard engine: all the power behind you, the front end light and sketchy, and the sense of control ditto.

And that’s the memory of that first encounter. Not eyes meeting across a crowded room, nothing soppy. Just that connection: the physical memory of it. The exuberance was a shared thing. I really can still feel it: the infinite number of tiny adjustments, a small correction here, a generous relaxation of the reins there, a pat to tell her I was cool and so was she. It was not that there was something between us; it was almost as if there was nothing between us. I was for the most part sitting as deep as I knew how, in close contact, trying to sit as if I had been glued on. And there was a fusion between our two minds: I was tuned into her, I understood something of her. And perhaps I was understood, who knows? So I got off her and resolved to have nothing more to do with her.

* * * *

I rode her again, we had a ball. It was better, if anything. I knew she was a wild little thing, but I also knew by then that she wasn’t crazy. I also knew she was for sale. I had decided to buy a horse. But not that one. She was too good for me.

Cindy, my wife, knows a few things about horses, and a few more things about me. “Do you mean you can’t ride her? She’s too much for you?” “No, not at all. I mean, I have to be at my best, but that’s good. She’s great.” “You’re not scared of her?”

A fair question. Anyone is entitled to be frightened of any horse: anyone can lose his nerve at any time. But I wasn’t frightened. I was genuinely excited by the challenges she had for me. Already, she was bringing from me things I didn’t know I possessed, and their discovery was enthralling. But I was still determined not to buy her.

“But why not?”

“She could compete at a much higher level than I could ever take her to. It would be a waste.” It was a kind of guilt. It is obviously a horseman’s duty to bring out the full competitive potential of a horse. Isn’t it? I mean, if I only pottered about doing local shows, it would be unfair, wouldn’t it? Unfair to the horse, that is.