Horse Before US

For quite a long time, I have been quietly writing a book.

It has changed shape more than once. Chapters have moved, stories have come to the centre that I thought would sit at the edges, and the title itself has changed as I swallowed my pride and went with the better suggestion from Dan.

So, I'd like to introduce Horse Before Us.

The title has come to mean several things to me. It is about questioning what might happen if we put the horse before the other 'stuff': the outcome, the competition, the clock or the task. But it is also about remembering the horse who came before us — an animal with millions of years of evolution, its own intelligence, relationships and ways of knowing and feeling the world.

We have become extraordinarily good at doing things with horses. We have developed methods, equipment, disciplines and whole industries around them, and sometimes I wonder whether, in mastering the tools, we have lost some of the conversation.

Horse Before Us is told through stories of the horses who have changed the way I see things: Poppy and what happened amongst the herd when she died at the farm; Johnny saving lives behind prison walls; Texas standing proud and sharing his soul with military veterans; Peter Pony, Shadow, Chic, Milan and others who have made me stop, question what I thought I knew, and look again.

This is not a book about giving up riding or competition. I still ride. I still compete (ish). It is about keeping the horse in the conversation.......... at the centre of the conversation. Because the more time I spend with them, the more moved I have become in what becomes possible when we really notice who is standing in front of us, and honour that.

After a great deal of writing, rewriting and questioning, Horse Before Us is beginning to feel like a real book. To my suprise, I've been told by a publisher and agent that it's a book worth reading. So far, I've only read extracts to the team at Horserenity and, of course, my muse Texas Jackpot - he didn't wander off so I hope that he heard some of what he has inspired in me.

My hope is that the stories held within these pages will touch those who read them and bring us a little closer to the heart of the horses beside us. That, by the time you reach the final page, you might never look at a horse in the same way again.