Celebrating Fly In Johnny

The Ex-Racehorse Giving Veterans a Second Chance Behind Prison Walls

Johnny is a sensitive ex-racing Thoroughbred who has found a very different purpose in

life. Through our Behind the Wire Programme, funded by AFEC, he works with military veterans in prison, and over time we have watched him form extraordinary connections with men who have often become disconnected from themselves, from other people and from any real sense of what comes next.

One of those men had already given us one of the most powerful pieces of feedback we have ever received. After working with Johnny, he wrote: “I had lost myself and the true meaning of life. I now feel you have returned my way of thinking back to the way it was before entering the prison system.” He also told us, simply, “I am proud to be me again.”

At the time, that felt like the story. Johnny had helped a man who felt he had lost himself begin to find his way back.

We now know there was much more to it.

During the programme, Johnny became particularly interested in the man’s lower back and around the side of his ribcage. He spent time standing there and breathing heavily over that area. The man was also quite unsteady on one leg and, as he moved, Johnny repeatedly positioned himself on that side, almost as though he was supporting him.

I asked whether Johnny’s interest in that area meant anything to him. He said he thought he had a hernia, and that his back was painful and causing what he believed to be sciatica down his leg. At that point, all we had was an observation: Johnny was repeatedly drawn to an area the man was already experiencing problems with.

What we later learned was that Johnny’s repeated interest in that part of his body had stayed with him. He had already been due to have medical investigations, but because of what had happened with Johnny he brought them forward. The diagnosis was devastating, - he had cancer of the spine. It was the tumour causing the pain, the weakness and instability in his leg.

At first, the medical team were not able to give him much hope for the future.

But. he has since undergone surgery to remove the tumour and the outlook has changed dramatically. He has now been told that, unless the cancer returns, he should make a full recovery.

When members of the prison mentoring team visited him afterwards, they told me he became very emotional when he spoke about Johnny. He now says that Johnny saved his life and is writing a book about his experience with our lovely ex-racehorse. Fly In Johnny has saved another life of a veteran behind the wire.

I would never suggest that Johnny diagnosed cancer, or that horses should somehow be treated as medical tools. All we can say is what we saw - Johnny repeatedly focused on an area of this man’s body where something was wrong, and his behaviour became part of a much bigger story that none of us understood at the time.

For me, that is what makes this so extraordinary. Horses experience the world very differently from us. They notice tiny changes in movement, balance, breathing, smell, tension and physiology that may pass us by completely. We may never know exactly what Johnny perceived, but stories like these make it very difficult not to wonder how much horses are noticing all the time, and how much we miss.

Perhaps part of the reason Johnny is so good at this work lies in his own history. He spent his early life within the racing system, where almost every part of his day would have been decided for him — where he lived, when he ate, when he worked, who handled him, where he went and what was expected of him. I sometimes wonder whether, in his own way, Johnny understands something about what it is to live inside an institution.

I am not comparing racing with prison, but there is something about a life shaped by routine, expectation and limited choice that may matter here. Johnny knows what it is to have a role assigned to him and knows what it is to live within a system.

Life has changed for Johnny at Horserenity, he has choice, relationships, a herd and the freedom to express himself. In our Behind the Wire Programme he is not there to perform a task or manufacture an outcome. He can move towards someone, move away, investigate, stand quietly or simply choose not to engage. We create the space and pay attention to what happens.

There is something deeply moving in watching a horse who once lived a highly prescribed life help men begin to rediscover who they are beneath theirs. Johnny has not simply left racing behind; he has found a purpose in which the very sensitivity that may once have made life within that system difficult, has become one of his greatest strengths.

We see the difference in him too. Whenever Johnny comes home from Behind the Wire, he looks a couple of inches taller. He shines, and there is a glint in his eye and a presence about him that is unmistakable to those of us who know him. We often joke that he comes home looking as though he knows he “did a thing.”

With this particular man, we thought Johnny had helped him rediscover something he had lost in himself. We thought the words “I am proud to be me again” were the feature of this story, but we know now that, during that same period, Johnny had also been repeatedly drawn to the part of his body where a serious illness was later discovered.

A sensitive ex-racehorse who was once defined by the job he was bred to do has found a new purpose of his own: helping military veterans behind prison walls rediscover theirs — and, in two extraordinary cases, becoming part of stories those men now describe as life-saving.