Whispering Back Read online

  I’d never before dealt with a horse who had a specific, deeply ingrained phobia about tarpaulin. I wasn’t exactly sure what my plan should be, but I knew that in the end, it would have to be Rupert’s choice. If he just couldn’t deal with it, and was getting more traumatised, I would have to stop, and leave him to live out his days without ever coming to terms with his fear, and the great injustice that had been done to him so long ago. I assured Linda that I felt exactly the same way as she did and would stop immediately if she wanted me to.

  Colin and Linda had just constructed a huge outdoor arena, which was magnificent. Built of sand and rubber, it was perfectly flat and was surrounded by a high post and rail fence. They stood near the gate and Colin hid the tarpaulin I had brought with me while I led Rupert in. He was a handsome bay, about 15.2 hands high, with a kind eye. He seemed very relaxed and happy to be handled by a stranger, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He had never been in the arena before, and although it had materialised right next to his paddock only a week or so before, he didn’t bat an eyelid as he walked in confidently, hardly bothering to sniff the ground. Obviously he had been in a few schools in his time, and knew the firm, crunchy sand was not, unfortunately, raw cane sugar. Even so, I walked him around it for a few minutes.

  I was planning to do join-up, the method discovered by Monty Roberts, which uses body movements to communicate with a horse in his own language. The starting point is to give the horse the choice to stay with you or to move away. I let Rupert loose and walked away, inviting him to follow me. He broke away immediately and cantered off to the far side, hoping to find a way to get back to his friends in the adjoining field.

  I was instantly reminded of why it is easier to do join-up in a 50-foot round pen than an Olympic-sized school, for within seconds Rupert seemed like a dot on the horizon, but as I had been trained to do, I sprinted after him, using assertive body language to tell him to keep moving away, since that was where he had decided to go. Leaving a trail of deep holes in the surface as he went, he reached the far corner of the school well before me and stopped briefly to tear a few chunks out of the pristine fence. I glanced across at Colin and Linda, whose faces bore a look of resigned stoicism. They’d known their new school wouldn’t stay perfect for ever, but perhaps they’d hoped it would last longer than two minutes!

  Rupert was clearly determined to make me work hard for my money. Although, at the age of twenty-seven, he was old for a horse, he seemed to want to prove that he was still a few years younger than me. Not being outstandingly fit, I was soon out of breath, but Rupert was also beginning to have second thoughts about the wisdom of his policy of flight, as he was doing a lot more running than me, and it was only bringing more pursuit. Despite his attempts to evade me, he could not pretend I wasn’t there, for as far as I could in such a large space, I was asserting my authority over him by making him move in the direction I chose. As he ran up and down the fence I would sometimes block his movement and keep him away from the field, which seemed to make him focus on me a little. Then I began to see signs that he was starting to change his mind. First his inside ear began to flick towards me, as if to say, ‘I don’t know who you are but you’re clearly after me for something.’

  He began to slow down, and seemed more regular in his movements, breaking into a canter less frequently and then settling down into a trot, which became increasingly steady. His flight instinct was beginning to subside and his head began to come down, as his adrenaline lowered. Finally he was walking, licking and chewing as his anxiety receded, so I changed my body language to mirror his. It was as if he was saying, ‘OK, I give up. Let’s just stop and eat, shall we?’ Or in Monty Roberts’s words, ‘If we could have a meeting to renegotiate this deal, I’d let you be the chairman.’ With his attention fully on me, I moved away from him, dropping my eyes and changing my stance completely, showing him my shoulder, to invite him to come over and join-up with me. He stopped, and it seemed as though the world stopped with him.

  But off he went again, obviously thinking that was enough of a meeting. He’d still rather consult with his mates, although they hadn’t done much to help him, having continued to munch the grass on the other side of the fence, with only the occasional bored glance in our direction. OK, I thought, setting off after him again, with Monty’s words again ringing in my ears: ‘If you want to go away, then go away, that’s fine. But don’t go away a little. Go away a lot.’ I sent him off round the school for another minute or two. He was soon showing signs of regretting his decision and the moment he made the slightest effort to change his mind, I went back to my passive stance, looking down at the ground near him so I could still see what he was doing.

  This time he did not run off, but stood and looked at me for a second before turning back towards his friends. When he did I immediately turned to him again, looking him in the eye and making a ‘tscch’ noise, which startled him and brought his attention back to me. Before he had even finished turning his head to look at me, I had already dropped my stance back to passive, in a much-practised move. He stared at me, responding as if caught by the hypnotic rhythm of an inaudible tune. I began to move in an arc around him, and he followed me with his head, looking at me with both eyes, until his feet finally had to move towards me. A tentative step or two in my direction, but then he moved off, and once again I explained my position: ‘Everything’s nice when you’re with me, everything’s tough when you go away.’ Finally he seemed to conclude that although I looked like a human, I was acting like a horse, communicating in the same way a horse would, and using exactly the same method another horse would to get him to accept me as his leader. He took another, hesitant step towards me and I rewarded him by remaining absolutely still for a moment, and then moving around him in a series of curves, gradually decreasing the distance between us until I was close enough to touch him. I gave him a gentle rub on the forehead and he relaxed further, licking and chewing, showing that he was happy to be with me of his own choice.

  We had formed the basis of a new relationship, the bond that was essential if he was to trust me sufficiently when it came to the tarpaulin. While I had not run him around to anything like the point of exhaustion, the fact that he had already been through his adrenaline reaction and flight instinct meant he would be calmer and better able to deal with his fear.

  When I moved away from him, he followed me as if on an invisible lead rope, turning sharply when I did, stopping with me, showing no further inclination to leave. We walked together all around the arena, his head by my shoulder, and came to a rest in the middle of the school. Still with nothing attached to his headcollar, I spent a few minutes just touching him all over to reassure him that I had no intention of hurting him. I also picked up each of his feet, for although this had been done to him thousands of times before, it would remind him that it was safe to trust me to hold the tools that were the key to his only real means of defence – flight. As we stood together, the contrast between fleeing away from me (and having to work hard), and standing quietly if he chose to stay with me, made it clear that I could be a safety zone for him. He relaxed further and I spent a few more minutes enhancing his appreciation of this with more ‘follow-up’.

  As we marched along the other side of the school, I asked Colin to set out the tarpaulin on the ground close to where they were standing. At the sound of it, Rupert’s head shot up and he broke away, rushing to the far corner of the school, where he stuck his head out over the fence in a last, feeble effort to get away. I followed him over and looked directly at him, before lifting my hand and rustling my fingers, until he looked at me again. This time when I turned passive, he couldn’t manage a step towards me, but I sidled up to him, and gave him a stroke on the forehead, murmuring to him, ‘It’s all right, it won’t be so bad. You don’t have to do it. Let’s just see if you can.’ I knew he didn’t understand my words, and that really I was saying them to myself. Rupert was staring past me at the plastic sheet. Although Colin had put sand
along the edges to hold it down, and folded it to make it narrower, there was no way Rupert would fail to recognise what it was. The sun reflected brightly off the blue material, making strange ripples of light.

  On the other side of the fence, Linda was holding her hand to her mouth. Colin put his arm around her, but his expression was full of doubt. I couldn’t help thinking that Rupert immediately knew what this was all about. His head was raised and I could hear his breathing was shallower and more rapid. Although I had a headcollar on him, I decided not to use it, as I wanted him to be free to express his fear if he needed to run away, without feeling under any pressure. I reminded myself that I had to work with his consent, that there was no way I could force him towards the tarpaulin without triggering all the bad memories he had of being bullied in the past. Keeping Rupert’s attention on me as best I could, I approached the area in a roundabout way, while he continued to follow me without a lead rope. He had so much confidence in me already after our join-up that he went quite close to the tarp, and I rewarded him by asking him to follow me away from it every time he made any effort. It was as if you could see that in his heart, he really wanted to face this fear. All I needed to do was to help him.

  He got close enough to sniff it, tentatively lowered his head towards it, then couldn’t cope any more and broke away from me. I turned and looked towards him. He stood anxiously in the furthest corner, shifting his weight from foot to foot, taking another chunk out of the new fence. I approached him, took him by the headcollar and turned him towards me, then immediately walked away, listening to him follow. A moment later, we were back at the tarpaulin, and this time he stopped. It seemed as though he was willing, but couldn’t summon up the courage. I asked for a rope.

  Attaching it to his headcollar, I led him around on a loose rope for a moment before approaching the tarpaulin. But every time I went directly towards it I could feel the fear rising in him, so I would change course, leading him around or away, gradually asking for a little more effort until after a few minutes he could walk past it quite calmly. Finally, giving him a rub on the neck, I turned directly to it, stepping on to the crisp sheet. At the noise he jerked his head away, but did not make a serious attempt to escape. He stopped dead in front of it, while I walked to the other side. Gently tugging on the lead rope, I tried to invite him forwards but he pulled away. I held on when he pulled against me, but when he made the slightest movement towards me, I released all the pressure, gave him another rub on his forehead and led him away. The next time we came to the tarpaulin, he hesitated for a moment, and then, without any contact from the lead rope at all, he stepped forward, onto the bright blue sheet. His eyes showing white and bulging with fear, in a sudden rush, he was across.

  Linda gasped with amazement and broke into tears. Colin beamed. Even I couldn’t believe what I had just seen. Rupert seemed so pleased with himself, arching his old neck proudly as he came back down to a walk. I gave him another lovely rub and rewarded him in the best way I possibly could, by taking him right away from the tarpaulin and allowing him to rest for a moment while I somehow kept myself from following Linda’s example. I took him over to the fence and we all made a big fuss of him. As we approached the tarpaulin again, I wondered how Rupert would react. Would he feel he’d done enough by going over it once? Sometimes the second time is harder than the first. But this time he crossed it almost without hesitation, and much more slowly. We practised it again a few more times, and then I undipped the headcollar. If he really didn’t want to go over it, there would be nothing to make him. We walked forward and I crossed it confidently.

  For a moment he stopped. He knew he was loose, and looked away at the other horses as if to check whether they were looking at him, thinking he must be mad to go anywhere near one of those blue things where humans beat you up. I went back and stroked his head, then, gently pulling his headcollar to get his attention, walked away. We went in a small circle and came back to the tarpaulin. This time, he hesitated, but then put one hoof deliberately on it, and came over to me, with only a shadow of the fear he had shown before. Within minutes I had unfurled the tarpaulin to its full size, and he was standing calmly in the middle all by himself.

  I invited Linda to come over and see if he would follow her. At first she was reluctant, fearing that she would make a mistake and undo my work. I reassured her that if she just walked at full speed, turning in arcs as I had done, he would confidently follow her in the same way. So she set off around the arena while Rupert happily walked after her, without a lead rope, as if he had been doing this all his life. When they came to the tarpaulin he walked straight over it, completely trusting her leadership just as he had trusted mine, in spite of the fact that she could hardly see for the tears in her eyes.

  ‘Why don’t you see if you can ride him over it?’ I suggested after they had gone over together a couple more times.

  ‘You must be joking!’ Linda began, before reminding me of Rupert’s last negative experience, when her previous riding instructor had tried to ride him over a tarpaulin. She was worried that if she didn’t ride well enough, his fear might return. She also hadn’t ridden him for a while and, she protested, he was supposed to be retired.

  ‘If he doesn’t want to do it, we won’t make him,’ I reassured her. ‘But wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing to do the last time you ever ride him?’

  She nodded and started to lead him off to the stable to put on his saddle and bridle. ‘Why don’t we just go bareback?’ I suggested. ‘You must have ridden him without a saddle before.’

  She agreed. ‘I think he’ll be fine.’

  I gave her a hug and she put on her hat. We tied two lead ropes on to the headcollar to use as reins, and I gave her a leg-up. She settled herself onto his back, and held on to his mane as we set off around the school again, with him following me loose.

  As we approached the tarpaulin, I could hear her holding her breath, and for a moment, a doubt crossed my mind. But Rupert was following me bravely and continued to walk straight over it. Linda couldn’t believe it, and burst into tears again as she leant down and hugged him around the neck. We walked around and crossed another time.

  ‘Would you like to try by yourself?’ I asked her. ‘Just trust him, he won’t let you down now. Don’t bother using your leg much, just point him at the tarpaulin, look up ahead and see what he wants to do.’ She took a deep breath as they approached it. He looked down for a second, then walked over it as though he had never been the slightest bit worried. He tried to look as if he couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about as we all gathered round, patting and congratulating him. It was an unforgettable moment. The whole session had taken less than an hour.

  As Linda dismounted from him for the last time, she gave me a long hug. Her voice was breaking. ‘You know, I can’t believe it, I never thought he would get over it. I am just so happy that I’ve made it up to him, paid him back for all the pleasure he’s given me over so many years. He will not go to his grave carrying that fear, which he has held inside for so long. Thank you so much for helping him to come to terms with it. That was amazing.’

  Rupert was amazing. But I was just putting into practice principles I learned from a man who has turned the violence meted out to him in childhood by his father into something really special, a mission to show the world that violence and fear are tools we must leave behind if we are to forge the only bond that is worth having – one of trust and love.

  What was perhaps most amazing was that I had ever met this man at all. For Monty Roberts comes from a world so different from my own, a world of cowboys and cattle, ranches and rodeos. After almost a lifetime of rejection and ridicule, he has travelled halfway around the world to show people how to listen to horses. As a result, I now had the chance to help horses like Rupert to overcome terrible problems. As we shared the moment and a cup of tea afterwards, I could not help but send a silent message of thanks to Monty for giving me this wonderful opportunity.

  One of M
onty’s sayings is there’s no such thing as luck, but I can’t think of any other word to describe how I came to be doing this work. As a child, I lived in cities all over the world, being the son of a diplomat, and I only rode a horse once. I was about five years old but I still remember what a sense of achievement it gave, for I managed to get this old black riding school horse to take a few strides of canter, in spite of his being absolutely enormous, at least to my young eyes. My little legs flapping furiously against the saddle as he lumbered down a country bridleway, his bouncing, banging trot gave way to a few wonderful, smooth strides of canter. This was my only equestrian accomplishment by the time I met Nicole in 1988 at university. The fact that, against all logic and her better judgement, she then fell in love with me, made me the luckiest man in the world.

  Nicole had spent her childhood cleaning out stables in her home town of Milton Keynes, looking forward to her weekly riding lessons and endlessly re-reading Black Beauty and other horse books to fuel her limitless enthusiasm. But her childhood was unfulfilled in this sense, for although they loved and supported her in every way, her parents never bought her the one thing she wanted: a pony. Her dream was to own a grey Welsh Mountain pony, whom she would call Misty, but a blind, three-legged pony named Buck would have done.

  When we first met, I had no idea that Nicole’s childhood passion, which seemed to have waned at that point in her life, would turn into a full-blown adult obsession that would later overcome even me, for she only spoke of horses once in the first year of our relationship.

  ‘It’s Badminton this weekend,’ she said on this occasion.

  ‘We’re playing badminton?’ I muttered incredulously, wondering what this could possibly have to do with my preoccupations at the time, which could neatly be described in the words of a famous Ian Dury song. Perhaps she had arranged a new drinking game in keeping with the general debauchery of the times?