When he stands on your foot, you know you're not imagining him.

[truepenny]

First of all, go read Kij Johnson's excellent story, "Ponies." It won't take long, and I promise I'll be here when you get back.

---

Kij's story is not about real horses, as the story itself makes clear. It's about girls and cliques and about what we are and aren't willing to do to fit in. (I love poor doomed Sunny for saying no.) And it's about imaginary horses.

Many little girls love/are obsessed by horses. I was one of them. I went to a summer camp I hated for four years because they had horseback riding lessons. (Where by "lessons," I mean, "Here is a bored pony. He's going to walk in a circle for an hour with a bunch of other bored ponies while you sit on him. Try not to fall off.") I earned the Girl Scout horseback riding badge. I read the Black Stallion books and National Velvet and everything Marguerite Henry ever wrote. One of my early efforts at story-telling was imagining I had a unicorn friend who would run beside the school bus on long field trips. I had Breyer horses and Barbie horses and random model horses (one of whom had jointed legs--he was awesome). And I had My Little Ponies (which are clearly the ponies in Kij's story).

And none of this had a damn thing to do with real horses.

Let me be clear: as an adult, I love horses. I love my horse in particular, even though he's a complete nimrod. I also love the other horses at the barn, and the horses I see at Midwest Horse Fair, and the horses I only meet on the internet. But they're not the horses I dreamed about as a little girl.

Horses are large mammals. They sweat and slobber, and they poop a lot. They are prey animals, which means almost anything can potentially be perceived as a threat. (This week, Milo--who doesn't spook much, and certainly not at the things you would expect--was alarmed by the saddle fitter's parked car on Wednesday and by a pile of sawed up tree stumps on Thursday. To be fair, the car was parked where there usually is no car, but I'm still puzzled about why the tree stumps were a threat. I once saw his pasture mate, who is possibly the most phlegmatic horse on earth, spook at an abandoned tent. There's no rhyme or reason there that a human brain cam make sense of.) Many of them are greedy, many of them are lazy, and all of them are perverse. And while it is true that a horse and rider can work together beautifully and amazingly, this doesn't happen because the horse has a telepathic ability to know what the rider wants, or because the horse loves the rider so much that he'll do anything to please. It happens because the rider has taught the horse to obey her commands.

Dressage is not a girly sport. It is all about convincing an animal five to ten times your size that YOU are the boss mare. It requires muscle and focus and an iron determination to get what you want. It requires a tremendous amount of skill. And it requires a completely unromanticized view of the horse you're working with. No rose-scented breath or cotton-candy blood here.

Little girls dream about horses who understand them perfectly and love them completely and who carry them uncomplainingly on fabulous adventures. I get it. I still feel the draw, if I'm honest. But (and there's a whole parable about growing up here, and possibly in Kij's story as well) I treasure my real horse, and I treasure the work I do with him. It's a lot harder than what I imagined as a child, but I wouldn't trade it.

Comments

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

It sounds a lot like how some people handle relationship partners...

[alex51324.livejournal.com]

Yup. There's a reason for that awful thing adults say to horsy girls about "Wait until she discovers boys..." Fantasy horses are a lot like fantasy boyfriends--they understand what you're thinking without you having to say it, they always do what you want to do and like it, they love you and won't be, ahem, ridden by anyone else because you are Special, not having one is a tragedy of epic proportions, and having one makes all of your other problems insignificant. Whether it's horses or other human beings, you have to give up the fantasy before you can make the reality work. (And in reality you can have both.)

(And Truepenny, I had the same sort of thing as your unicorn, only mine was a black horse that could Travel Through Time.)

[topknot.livejournal.com]

Oh lord, this post resonated SOOO much with me. my sister and i were involved with the SPURS program (Special People Using Riding Skills) and taught younger girls about horses, care of tack, riding, cleaning, feeding, etc. We also had a TON of My Little Ponies and more Breyer horses than you could shake a stick at.

As far as the story, it's completely heart-breaking because of how gorram TRUE it is in many respects. That one's going to stay with me for a long time.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I have long felt that real horses are infinitely more _interesting_ than fantasy horses. More complicated, and more interesting.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes. INFINITELY more interesting. And I think more fun.

[aberrant1.livejournal.com]

This could explain my utter lack of interest in fantasy ponies as a child. My family had a big, stubborn, crotchety old draft pony, trained for pulling logs. He'd let you ride him until he got tired of it and then calmly walk under a low branch.

He was quite good at pulling things, but in no way resembled anyone's fantasy critter.

[dancing-crow.livejournal.com]

Precisely. Real horses are there, and they thwart you at every turn, and whinny at you only because you are bringing breakfast, and have a "I hate you, where's my carrot" face when you go to get them out of the pasture, and they smell fabulous, and when you go to ride, you end up coated with horse flavored dust and exhausted and exhilarated and on the verge of tears after a good lesson (and just on the verge of tears after a frustrating one) and they stand on your feet and breathe in your face and there is always an order of magnitude more poop involved that anyone ever told you about.

Marguerite Henry's book are maybe a little better than some, because all the kids have skills from practice, and all the books are (fundamentally) tragedies. I have them lined up on my shelf and I can't bear to reread them.