HUMANS shape the lives of horses. Yet horses, too, guide the lives of people towards triumph, enlightenment and, sometimes, tragedy. No animal has been more influential outside its own realm than the racehorse, workhorse or equine messenger in popular entertainment.
In a new book—Nicky Henderson: My Life in 12 Horses—the author Kate Johnson describes in intimate detail one of the great National Hunt trainers and his relationship with some of his sport’s finest champions. Jockeys, stable staff, owners and friends reveal the interactions that turn horses into winners. At the heart of the tale beats Mr Henderson's intuitive understanding of the animals in his care and what it takes to make them want to race. A horse can’t talk, but he gives you a signal and signs a horseman can read that other people can’t, jockey Eddie Ahern tells Miss Johnson. Mr Henderson is a master of this psychology.
However, in the stories of transformational horses, some break free of their human controllers and convey a bigger message about Nature, war, friendship, love and loss. For that reason, Black Beauty, The Pie and Joey (the War Horse’) are included in this list of 12 horses that changed lives, society or mass opinion. They are a distinguished dozen.
See You Then
The Cheltenham Festival-winner factory that is Mr Henderson’s Lambourn yard opened for business with a horse whose box people entered with trepidation. He’d grab you and while you were turning to get out of his way, he’d kick you!’ Mr Henderson writes.
See You Then was anti-social—but, once he left his box, his domineering nature had another use. In 1985, he was the first of the trainer’s 72 Festival winners in later years and is one of only five horses to win three Champion Hurdles. Mr Henderson calls him the horse who put me on the Cheltenham map’.
Denne historien er fra January 24, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra January 24, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
