Two weeks ago in comments on “A Day in the Life of a Horse Farm,” Marie Brennan asked a very good question: “The fantasy trope of the horse that will only behave for their one rider, or whoever that rider has designated as ‘okay’ — how realistic and/or common is that? Usually it’s Our Hero’s highly-trained warhorse that will take the hand off anybody who touches him without approval, or something else in that vein, and we don’t have a lot of warhorses around anymore. But I’d be curious to know how much of the ‘one-rider horse’ thing is true, especially when it comes to that rider telling the horse to obey someone else.” I gave a short answer there, but promised a proper blog entry on the subject.
I have a somewhat unusual perspective on this question, because I raise and ride Lipizzans. This is a rare breed, best known for the Dancing White Horses of Vienna, the near-mythic white stallions of the Spanish Riding School. They are, by nature and design, war horses.
They are not the Great Horse of the medieval knight but the royal and noble charger of the Renaissance and the baroque period: relatively short, sturdy animals, long-lived and highly intelligent, with a particular talent for going airborne both with and without a rider.
What makes them relevant to Marie’s question is one particular trait for which they are famous, even notorious. They are in general, as a breed, one-man horses. This causes any amount of conflict among horse people who are not familiar with the breed, and who will not or cannot believe that such a thing can exist–because for the most part, as far as general horseman’s wisdom goes, a horse is a horse is a horse, and as long as you ride him right, he doesn’t really care who you are. This school of thought also tends to hold as dogma that a horse is not naturally inclined to be ridden or worked, he’d much rather be hanging in the pasture with his buddies, and he’s not really all that bright, either–he just reacts instinctively to stimuli. He certainly doesn’t have feelings, he doesn’t think as such, and humans are pretty much interchangeable, though he might, out of habit or food tropism, prefer the human who feeds him over a human who doesn’t.
In this world view, the Fantasy Warhorse is, well, fantasy.
I don’t live in that world. If I did, I’d crash and burn right quick with my herd of opinionated, hyperintelligent, super-people-focused equine oddballs. These are the models for Anne McCaffrey’s dragons–attitude, arrogance, and yes, Impression, too. When you meet “your” Lipizzan, you know it. So does everyone around you. There’s this feeling of, yes, this is right; this distinct click. And the horse looks at you. And that’s it.
What this means is pretty much what Marie describes. The horse is focused on you; other humans have greater or lesser existence in her world, depending on what’s in it for her: food, attention, training. In extreme cases, she doesn’t want anyone else to ride her. For the most part, luckily, she’s OK with being ridden as long as the rider does it right, but she’s quite likely to keep a significant portion of her attention on you if you’re in the area, and you may need to tell her, yes, it’s OK, she can do what Other Person is asking. Then as likely as not she’ll sigh and be long-suffering, but she’ll do her job. Because it’s her job. And because you asked.
These things have really happened:
A mare, separated from her rider on a long-distance ride, went to find him. She could have gone home to her pasture. She chose the human over grass and the herd.
A stallion, in his human’s absence, was supposed to be worked by the trainer whom he had known for years–but the human was not there, and he wasn’t having any. He was in a 16-by-24-foot stall. The trainer couldn’t catch him, though she tried for an hour. She had to give up and wait for the owner to come and tell him it was all right.
He wouldn’t let her ride him, either, for years. Every time she tried, he spun away from her and presented himself to his owner. She was allowed to get on him. Nobody else was.
A mare who was very good about giving lessons and letting various people ride her was, when with her owner, as protective as a guard dog. If someone else, even someone she knew well, made what she considered a threatening move toward her human, she would put herself between them and, if the other person persisted, show him with hooves and teeth that that was Not On.
Real life. Real stories. Real “fantasy” war horses.
There’s another thing a war horse does, too, that distinguishes him from the usual run of equines. A horse is a flight animal by nature. Predator threatens, he runs. But a war horse is more likely to run toward the threat.
There’s a story told about the filming of the Disney movie, The Miracle of the White Stallions. During one scene that required the horses to flee the bombing of Vienna, there was a problem. The first take or two, the horses shied and bolted as the director wanted them to. But after that, they had determined that the “bombs” were no threat, and were refusing to react. The director had to get permission to shoot off blanks practically under the horses’ feet in order to get usable footage.
(c) Lynne Glazer
Interesting. So presumably in a situation where the horse has been trained to fight (biting people, kicking them, trampling them, etc), it would be quite believable that Our Hero’s horse would make a red smear out of anyone who touched him without Our Hero first indicating that it was okay. (Except maybe Our Heroine, who of course has such a magical way with horses that she is discovered petting his velvety nose while she feeds him apples. Or some less Mary-Sue-tastic equivalent.)
Yeah. I have run into the one-person horse phenomenon with my first Shetland pony (I had him from when he was a yearling and I was eight years old until he died at the age of nine). Cowhorses also have a similar mindset with their Particular Person. There’s the classic Smoky story by Will James (and James writes about several others of that ilk), but there are also real-life stories circulating in the Quarter Horse world. James asserted that Smoky had been made to be a one-man horse, but I think any smart working or performance horse is much the same way when handled regularly by the same person. These horses may be perfectly docile, at least on the ground, but under saddle, while beginner safe, are still Not! Beginner! Horses!
My girl is pretty much a one-person horse. She was imprinted as a foal by the trainer’s wife, and still remembers her well, and Trainer is a special person, but I’m the number one person. She likes to work (also a cowhorse-bred trait) and will work for anyone with the right skills, but it’s pretty much Trainer and me that she’ll put it out for (she was His Horse first, and now she’s mine).
Marie, my real-life experience is that anyone other than the One Person handling the horse might not end up as a red smear (unless they fit the profile of Someone Who Hurt Me), but the resistances would be more along the line of what Judith describes. BTDT. What would be less dramatic, but more realistic, is that instead of the horse dully ignoring or resisting Our Heroine, the horse actively greets and solicits the attention of Our Heroine when she comes near (I could think of some interesting story twists that could be made sufficiently dramatic without the cliche of the Red Smear. For that matter, take a look at how Walter Farley handled it in The Black Stallion and the Girl).
Oh yes. Even a horse who has not been trained for war can be dangerous if startled or angry or in the grip of hormones. Train him to defend his rider, and he won’t be a horse you’ll want to just walk up to and say Howdy.
Or her. Stallions have traditionally been the mounts of knights and Heroes, what with the whole macho thing, unless he’s an Arab, in which case it’s mares all the way, baby. Stallions will tend to be extremely touchy when in the throes of testosterone poisoning–biting, kicking, charging–but a smart, bitchy mare is hell on wheels. She will be more inclined to kick than bite, as mares have a slight tropism toward using the rear cannon; stallions are a bit more likely to attack with teeth and hammering forefeet. But that’s by no means a hard-and-fast rule.
Things that any horse will do if startled or angry, even to a person she knows or is devoted to:
Person walks up silently from behind: Kick with both barrels. Flatten person. Bonus points if you keep kicking once the intruder is down.
Person walks up to you with hand outstretched: Lunge and grab hand. It is possible, easily, for a horse to rip a human’s arm off. Horses are awesomely strong. And fast.
Person gets in your face: Bite his face.
Person gets in your space, especially if chosen human is there, with extra bonus if your human is down or injured: Turn into whirling nightmare of hooves and teeth.
And yet, yes, if someone shows up who is gentle, quiet, and calm, or else so clueless she doesn’t realize there’s any danger, she may be perfectly safe. Horses can show a remarkable tendency to be gentle with innocents, and a very spirited or challenging animal can amaze you by being utterly indulgent with your child or your sweetie. Not invariably, and ye gods in real life be careful, but it is by no means impossible.
This is fascinating! Thanks!!!
And relevant to a backburner project I have….
Excellent article. My mare, whom I’ve had all of her life, gets jealous of other horses when I’m around. I had better not even look at another horse unless I have duly worshipped her first.
One question related to the fantasy war horse… When the Hero is out on the Quest, what would the daily care and feeding be? How often would the Hero have to realistically stop and care for the horse? Would they be able to cover 25 miles per day? These are details that seem to be missing. The horse is just there for the Hero and magically never seems to need food, grooming, or shoeing.
I wonder what Lipizzans do if the person they’re attached to dies… or just stops working with them?
If the person is still around, they’re fine with it. If they’re deliberately abandoned, they can become frustrated, then angry, then even violent. If the person dies, generally they move on to someone else. Or not. Then they just sort of exist, the way horses do.
I’ve had some that hadn’t yet found their human. Either they were highly frustrated and took it out on me (by being difficult to ride or handle), or they carried on in waiting mode–nice to be around, friendly, pleasant, but not deeply engaged. Those have always changed when they chose a person–become much mellower and happier, and more willing (or able?) to interact with me on more than a “feed me and leave me alone” level.
I had one choose me over the boarder who had bought her. She was dangerous for the boarder to handle–wildly reactive, shying off the person, hyperventilating when forced to work with her. But if I was with the mare, she was a completely different animal. The person was terrified of her, which fed the whole problem. I ended up trading a horse who did like and enjoy this person, and who made the person happy, and keeping the one who had, from the moment she arrived on the property, informed me that I was HERS.
To the other commenters: Glad this is useful or enjoyable for you. And Joyce, you always have great things to add. Do you get any crap about “QH’s aren’t like this, you’re making it up”?
Ceffyl, no kidding. Horses as motorcycles. Aarrgh.
There’s an excellent book on endurance riding in our local library (Klamath Falls), and if I were not at work, I could check the library catalog to give exact title and author(s). These are people who ride/walk a horse for a hundred miles with various stops to massage the horse’s legs and whatnot (you are on your own), but after that you’re both going to be done for Quite a While. At least that’s the impression that I got from the book. Must look up that book once at home and see if I can find a copy online–it’ll go right next to my Junior Golden Book of Sailing as a valuable reference item. (Don’t laugh–childrens’ departments are a Godsend for those of us starting at the very beginning on a technical subject. Besides, they have lots of pictures, which I find helpful). Hope this is helpful.
@Ceffyl and Jean Lamb:
If you check the Horses Tag here on the blog, you’ll see that Judith already addressed lots of these questions in her series of horse posts before.
http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2009/11/09/about-that-mounted-expedition/
I guess the series really needs an index by now…
Oh, yes — I said “he” in referring to the horse because I think every instance I’ve seen of this trope has involved Our Manly Hero and His Stallion, but there are non-cliche ways of deploying it, and among other things they would involve recognizing that mares can be just as dangerous if they want to be.
Judy–I don’t get a lot of that trope unless I venture out to a barn that is heavily Warmblood, TB, or hunt/jump/dressage with minimal exposure to QHs. OTOH, my connections are such that I can trump most of it, because of my trainer and his ties (his brother is a Big Name Clinician and Trainer is a major Western judge/clinician in his own right). He and I talk a lot about this sort of thing. He also has his judge’s card for a number of breeds besides QH, and spent a significant amount of time in his younger days showing/training Arabs and Appaloosas as well (all mostly Western, though he has a funny story about he and his brother and a horse one of them traded George Morris for).
His bias is strongly toward performance QH, whether Western Pleasure or reining. The reigning Barn Queen is a solidly WP-bred mare who I wouldn’t mind seeing set foot in a dressage arena–big girl, elegant movement, can go slow or fast, nice impulsion. She has Presence, in spades.
I also know a lady in the eventing circles back East whose foundation breeding is based on Appendix-type QHs–one of her competition mares is QH-Cleveland Bay, an up and coming one is QH-Irish Draught, and a baby is TB-Irish Draught.
OTOH, when I used to ride in a solidly English, British Horse Society barn in Florida during vacations, those folks had a solid appreciation of what QHs were and what they could do. They had a lovely QH-Lippizan cross mare who was Very Opinionated–lovely gaits, very smart–if you cross QH and Lipp, though, you need to be Very Careful because you will get a smart and athletic horse. Mocha on a Lipp would be Scary.
Fascinating! I’ve noticed this casually just being around horses and horse people occasionally — some horses only like one person, or only men, or only women. I’ve also read that Arabians, like Lipizzaners, are among the smartest breeds and can get extremely attached to a certain person. The one time I got to see the Dancing White Stallions, there was also an exquisite little bay Arabian in the show, performing his own style of tricks.
A lot depends on the horse and the person. If you think of horses as dumb animals, that’s all you’re likely to meet, unless one of them decides to try kicking some sense into you. Some of them are just really clever — able to untie ropes, open latches, and solve other simple problems. Don’t assume a given horse is a genius or an idiot: watch the horse.