Mark the Horse

Meet Mark. I know he looks cuddly, and he is. If you’re not a horseperson, then yes, that is how a horse’s mane is supposed to look. If you are a horseperson, judge not, lest ye be judged. I don’t have time to mess with that mane right now. Mark will be sporting his mullet at least until my book comes out.

Mark has an interesting history. He was born approximately twelve years ago, on the wrong side of a fence. His mother, lacking foresight, chose to lie down next to a fence during her labor. Mark was born and then, when he managed to stand, he was on one side of the fence, and his mom was on the other. Horses are herd animals and the foals “imprint” on their mothers immediately after birth. The mare’s scent, her distinct vocalizations, her gait – the foal absorbs it all, commits it to memory, and then is able to pick her from any number of other mothers in the herd.

It has long been a notion among cowboys and others, that human “imprinting” of a foal can help it get over it’s innate fear of humans. When a foal is born, it’s important to touch him, have him smell you and hopefully he will associate humans with the world in which he finds himself. Unfortunately, many foals choose to be born at night and by the time a human has found him, he has imprinted on the mother and is about as receptive to the human touch as a wild deer.

Mark, however, spent his first night wobbling around in a cold, dark field, hungry and alone, listening to his mother’s frantic whinnies. In the morning when the mare’s owner discovered him, she helped him through the gate to the flank of his desperate mother. So Mark’s first touch was a human touch, and it was a human’s hands that guided him to the warm milk that filled his empty belly and that auspicious beginning made Mark a bit of a human lover.

Now, if you approach our horse field, Mark will come trotting over to meet you. When somebody forgets to close a gate and the horses get loose, Mark gallops down to our house and peers in our windows. Mark is a clown and a coward which makes him my soulmate. We have foxhunted together, competed in hunter paces (a pace is a cross-country race over hunt-field style jumps) and hunter trials. Here we are at the Golden’s Bridge Hunter Trials:

If you’re not a horse person, then what you are seeing is perfect jumping form by horse and rider. If you are a horseperson, give me a break. We were in a field. He was galloping. You can see it’s a drop jump, I had to brace myself against his neck like that…