The Tack Room - A City of Horses

You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl. I have brought the country to the city with a hot stable, the sweet smell of straw and molasses, and horse ownership in a concrete forest. This is horses in Sydney’s CBD, so welcome to The Tack Room...

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The Man and the Horse

October 26th 2006 14:31

A wise man of Hibernia once wrote that there are three things a man never forgets – the girl of his early youth, a devoted teacher, and a great horse. The sage must have written through generations when men were heavily exposed to horses because these days, men are not typically exposed to great horses. And especially not in Sydney.

In the equestrian circles of Sydney the man does not seem as comfortable as the woman. Numbers of women horse owners and women riders outweigh those of men heavily. The pages of saddlery catalogues are filled with images of women and accessories targeted at female riders. Jodphurs and breeches by their very nature seem designed to look better on women, while female riders cumulate over 80 percent of buyers of equestrian publications.

But hold for just a second… On the international circles of showjumping and eventing, men equal or exceed the tallies of their opposing sex. Jockeys are usually male, as are trainers. On the country circuits of reining, cutting and rodeo, men overpopulate women completely. So is it the city that soaks men away from the stables? And when did horse ownership and horse-related activities become so feminine?

Awkward, or just seems that way?

The relationship between the male and the horse has always been partnership, through war and labour, and while man writes about the horse through history as the greatest of allies there is an ensuing power struggle that is almost unnoticeable. A woman’s horse is an extension of her femininity while a man’s horse often seems like an extension of his power. Rudyard Kipling wrote in The Ballad of the King’s Jest over a century ago that “Four things greater than all things are, -- Women and Horses and Power and War”. If a woman wrote this the four things would be very different!

It is rare to see a quiet moment between a man and his horse, almost as it common to see one between a woman and her horse. The new ways of natural horsemanship have been purported across the world by men like Monty Roberts and Pat Parelli. But will that make riding more appealing to men in Sydney? Does the dress code have to change? Is the stigma firmly stuck?

The battle of the sexes is long and it is unnecessary. Do women make better riders? Do men make better masters? The connection between a horse and its human depends entirely on the partnership, and each one is different. It is unquestionable though that the horse to both man and woman is an object of desire, of connection, of fascination, and that is merely expressed differently between the sexes.

"I saw a child who couldn’t walk, sit on a horse, laugh and talk… I saw a child who could only crawl, mount a horse and sit up tall. I saw a child born into strife, take up and hold the reins of life. And that same child was heard to say, Thank God for showing me the way".

-John Anthony Davis

This photograph was taken on the morning of the 1977 Melbourne Cup. It shows Tommy Woodcock with Reckless, a four year old stallion when this photo was taken for a Fairfax newspaper. Reckless ran second in the Cup later that afternoon, and Woodcock, whose relationship with the horse was exceptional, thought no differently of his champion.

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Comment by Mark Whitney

January 18th 2011 20:34

So, you horsewomen want to know where all the horsemen are? Well, we are where we have always been, out riding, working, and yes playing with our horses! We tend to be rather quiet and shy, and we don't hang around the barn much. Most of us aren't into the show circuit, but there are a few older riders like me who will go to a private cross-country course and do some jumping now and then. There are a fair number of us who have regularly scheduled lessons in the horsemanship area we are interested in, but the lessons tend to be private, not group, and held outdoors away from a busy show ring. We often quietly, without being asked, do little chores around the barn - I often clean up the student tack - but until we stop doing it, no one notices. Our instructors, male and female, often become close friends over the years, and sometimes we will be asked to work with them on a "problem horse" they have picked up - but again that isn't work you do in a busy show ring. We are very patient and deliberate in training our horses, so even though we don't overtly display wild affection for our mounts, when the chips are down on the table and the stakes are high, our horses draw a calm and deep courage and focus from us. We become the eye of the storm, and then mounted on our companions, we go do the impossible. So we horsemen are around, it is just the majority of horsewomen don't really look for us, or even see us. Pity, most of us are real easy to find on Facebook!

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