How fast do you think a horse’s tail grows?
Various online sources (debatably credible) report that in ideal conditions (proper nutrition, low stress environment, etc.) a horse grows 1 cm of tail roughly every 15 days. Some quick calculations and conversions thus show a horse grows approximately 9 inches of tail every year. Now let’s say your horse has a luscious 4.5 foot tail… that means it took the horse roughly 6 years (or more) to grow the longest strands in his tail.
I’ll admit I used some broad calculations and generalizations to come to that conclusion, so don’t go quoting me in any scientific reports. But, the point I’m getting at, is that the bottom of that tail is six years old (at least).
What were you doing with your horse six years ago? That would have been 2016. I was still in college, Pilot was enjoying his second year in his retirement home at the youthful age of 27. It was the days before he was diagnosed with sidewinders syndrome and we would occasionally go for trail rides together when I was home on break.
The best view in the world was through Pilot’s ears. Solid, trustworthy, and game for absolutely anything. Pictures from 2016-2017.
What about two tail lengths of time ago? (12 years… so 2010) Seems like an eon ago.
Left: Circa 2009, one of our first photos together. Pilot decided to “smile” for the camera. Right: Circa 2012 on a trail adventure.
These days, it’s rare to meet a horse owner who has owned their horse since they were born or even since the horse was a yearling. I would venture that most horse owners have owned their horse for at most five years, maybe eight. And with the current popularity of equestrian sports during covid, I would ballpark that even more riders are in the leasing boat and have only known their horse for one year before they are onto the next partner.
I’m not here to comment on how horses are passed from one owner/trainer to the next. Rather, I’d like to highlight the need to recognize that every horse has a story that starts at birth, not when you signed the purchase papers. And all the characters throughout their lives have impacted how they understand and react to the world, just the same as humans. The obvious difference is horses can’t voice their traumas, their victories, their memories. Horses silently carry their complex stories in their hearts and can only share their past with us through their actions and reactions.
For various reasons, horses are typically not passed from owner to owner with past medical histories and training reports and birth certificates. Sure, we sometimes have breeding papers, USEF records, and past pre-purchase exams, but that still is incomplete. If I had it my way, I’d want each owner to write a chapter of that horse’s book and pass it to the next owner so a more holistic view of the horse could be shared.
Sunday was Pilot’s 33rd birthday. As much as he has been a part of my life for the past thirteen years (almost half my life), I have been present in his life for less than half of his life. He feels like my world, and yet I’m faced with the realization that he had a whole twenty years of adventures before I even met him.
Supposedly Pilot’s a true American Quarter Horse born in Kentucky on March 27, 1989. The only information I have after that is that at some point he moved to Texas (probably because a cowboy needed to redirect his spirited energy), then to New York, then to Massachusetts to the owner I leased him from in high school. That journey is only four stops, and yet still I have almost zero information about his life from 1989 to 2008. When I met him, he was a trail fanatic, put up with ring work if jumps were involved, and LOVED fox hunting. Was he particularly talented at jumping or chasing hounds through the woods? Not really – I mean let’s admit that he wasn’t graced with the most stunning conformation. BUT this horse tried his heart out and was determined to keep up and do what was asked. “Jump the stone wall? Sure thing! Let’s get to the other side!”
Pilot in his foxhunting days proving he’s made of solid grit and determination. (Left: full credit to Ruthworks, 2012).
Back to the point of all of this – I am not his story. I am not everything he knows. Maybe it’s self-centered to have ever had these thoughts, but when you are caring for a horse for so long and building a partnership with them, they really take over your life and it’s easy to assume you do the same for them. And while we’d like to think that most days they are waiting with baited breath for us to arrive at the barn, I think the reality is that we are just a part of their lives and a part of their days. Maybe sometimes we are the best part of their days and they really do look forward to seeing their person and going for a ride. Maybe sometimes they’d really just like to share with you their favorite muddy spot laced in thorn bushes because it has the best view of the pond. Maybe sometimes they’d really rather stand in the rain next to their favorite tree and just smell the soft wet earth.
For two years, I’ve had Jessica Duffy’s article from US Eventing open in my web browser. The article is about a spectacular off-the-track thoroughbred named Smokey that had a phenomenal eventing career after three years of racing. Smokey competed with Phillip Dutton at multiple international three-day competitions, including the four-star Kentucky Three-Day Event in 2000. He was then selected for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney as Dutton’s steed. He was incredibly athletic, agile, and talented at his job.
Knowing absolutely none of this, I met Smokey in the late 2000s (about the time I started riding Pilot) because my friend, Molly Micou, was leasing him and doing lower-level eventing with him. A local trainer (Adrienne Iorio) connected her with Smokey and it seemed like the perfect match for a schoolmaster horse and a budding eventer. To me, Smokey was a refined older gentleman who seemed very educated and very sweet. AND he let you pick out all four feet from just one side of his body! (Oh, how much I’ve learned since then!)
Molly went on to take him to college and I loved watching their successes; but to me, he was just Molly’s horse. A talented one, but it just didn’t occur to me that he could have lived the life he had. When this article was published, I was in awe of his past. Molly Micou shared the article on Facebook and commented, “All this time I thought he was a part of my life but really I was just a part of his.”
Those words have stuck in my heart ever since.
“All this time I thought he was a part of my life but really I was just a part of his.”
Molly Micou
We are writing chapters, not just in our books, but also in our horse’s book. Perhaps together you’re tackling the opening chapters and not sure where the story is headed. Perhaps you’re somewhere in the middle with your eye set on the climax. Or perhaps you’re carefully composing the final chapter where the beautiful journey ends and heavenly green pastures await in an epilogue.
Consider the whole story that your horse carries with them throughout their lives. Consider the knowns and the unknowns of the information you have. Consider your horse’s traumas and their victories that they hold silently in their hearts. Consider their mother and the friends they’ve left behind at the various barns they’ve lived at. Consider the miles their legs have carried them before your partnership began. Consider their whole tail.
