On the Hoof

Three of us were out for a ride across the common and through the woods on a beautiful sunny afternoon in early spring. After cantering along the wide central path, we slowed down and turned onto the narrow path that runs along the edge of the wood, which is bordered on the left by a long line of back gardens. The sunlight was filtering through the moving branches and playing tricks with our eyes. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a fox poke its nose through a hole at the bottom of a fence to my left, and I jumped: "Oh!" This, in turn, caused Artemis (my gelding) to jump, and he hopped to the right, tense and with his head held high. We recovered quickly, and I shared a laugh with Gwen, who was riding behind me, as she and I worked out that what I had seen was a shaft of light catching the edges of the revolving blades of a fan fitted at the bottom of the fence. A couple of minutes later, Havana, the warm-blood mare in the lead position, stopped dead in her tracks ...

A new brown mare is on the yard. She was pacing around her box and I thought, literally, "unsettled." Was it a signal that I read – or was it a "condition"?  She was put into a central pen while her stable was being cleaned, and tied by a halter rope attached to a string on the fence line. She was pacing back and forth on the end of the rope, which I found difficult to ignore.  I went and stood near her head. She was holding it high and looking around her. It was clear that the simple fact of my presence was not what she wanted, and she barely stopped what she was doing while I stood there. I began to walk around the outside of the small pen she was in, touching the posts and rails, checking the perimeter. This was something I used to do as a matter of course when I began my training as an equine facilitated psychotherapist (see earlier post, Klaus part 1 ). I suppose she noticed but I don't know what effect it had on her. Nevertheless, it gave me time to think....

  Horses have accompanied humans throughout history; they are part of our life and our memory. This image is from Chauvet Cave and is thought to be a drawing done 30,000 years ago. When two Kingsmead horses stepped out of a horsebox last month at the Bethlem Royal Hospital it might have been the first time in seventy-five years that hooves had trodden that turf.  Last week, John and I revisited the archive at the Bethlem Museum of the Mind to try to discover the date as precisely as we could. The archivist had kindly retrieved file HCQ-06 from the strongroom so that we could peruse the minutes of the Farm and Garden Committee from 1951 to 1975 (Bethlem).  As soon as we opened the manila folder the words from the very first page, dated December 1950, leapt out to meet our eyes. Item (f) “arrangements [to] be made for the old brown mare to be humanely slaughtered at the farm in the presence of the farm foreman.” A flush of emotion swept over us both at the stark dignit...

I walked around a corner into the main square of the stable yard and headed down one side and saw Nechta standing at the bar to her box facing me. She was looking at me, and as I approached she lowered her head, putting one front leg forward, then the other. She put her muzzle on one knee, and then on the other. I bent down to look and noticed some cuts just above the fetlock. I gently stroked down her left foreleg, holding my hand on her knee for a moment. I noticed her lips touch the top of my head and then my shoulder before moving to the nape of my neck. I looked up and saw that she had raised her head high and was looking across the yard. I stood next to her close to her shoulder and looked where she was looking across the corrals to the middle of the row of boxes at the top of the square, where a couple of ponies were standing at their stable doors. She showed white around her eye, as if in fear, then turned and withdrew into the shadow at the back of her box.  The excha...

  The 21st century is already witnessing a notable change in the way we use horses as our society changes and patriarchy gives way to new forms of families, social bonds and institutions. We are living in a time of radical transition, and we have the opportunity to participate in the invention of what is to come. I have a dream which is part of a new way of being with horses which I believe to be valuable, sustainable and ethical.  A first step to realising the dream is taking shape: to take two horses to the Bethlem Royal psychiatric hospital, where occupational therapists and some of their patients will be waiting to greet us. In a simple, sheltered space that is close to a walled garden and bordered by hedges and trees, we will bring something real – the possibility of equines to reignite the trust, consent and cohesion that is foundational to a social bond. Facilitated equine encounters uses the structure of the psychoanalytic discourse which allows us to hold humans and h...

  Where nothing happens, twice – this phrase was coined by Vivian Mercier in the Irish Times , 18 February 1956, when he reviewed Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Godot . The characters Estragon, Vladimir, Pozzo and Lucky have been reenacting these two moments of nothing in countless repetitions since Beckett finished writing them in January 1949. The truly astonishing power of the play led San Francisco Actors' Workshop director Herbert Blau to take it to the San Quentin prison in November 1957. The idea that the play (in which nothing happens twice) could be transformative had now crossed the Atlantic. Rick Cluchey, an inmate at the prison, was serving a life sentence when he heard it being performed over the loudspeaker system. The experience had such an effect on him that he went on to form a drama group with other inmates to stage the play. He eventually won a chance for parole and met Beckett. He continued this friendship and pursued a life anew in the arts. The story ...