Women and their Horses II
October 19th 2006 11:39
Women are attracted to one animal above all others, the horse. The majority of horse owners in Sydney are women and riding is the number one participant sport in America for girls between the ages of 10 and 14. In 2000, author Melissa Holbrook Pierson published a book called Dark Horses and Black Beauties: Animals, Women, A Passion. In it she discusses the electricity between the female and her horse and gives the horsewoman her own life in hardback;
She [speaks] of riding as a path to illumination, the way to attaining a moment of limpidity: leaving confusion behind. You simply can’t be confused on a horse, or it all goes to shit. Amazingly fast. They can hear you breathing. They know your mind...
Holbrook Pierson writes that nothing resembles being in tune with a horse, that it is one of life’s greatest pleasures. She adds that the woman on horseback presents a picture of power over-ruled by gentleness, and this Bo Derek knows. Derek has been an equestrian most of her life. Her book Riding Lessons is a bland story but the photographs are wonderful, pages of wild hair flowing on equally wild horses that are in truth flawlessly educated and of Spanish origin. For a woman to ride a horse naked and be photographed, the horse must be magnificent. It must be high-stepping, naturally uphill and on the bit – all the technical elements that dressage demands. The horse must be overwhelming.
Dark Horses and Black Beauties: Animals, Women, A Passion by Melissa Holbrook Pierson is available through Amazon, published by Granta Books 2001
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Comment by Ange Bell