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  For all the horses

  all over the world

  who have carried me along

  on their great adventures

  And for a very special person,

  Diane Davidson,

  a great friend to me

  and to the ocean

  There is no limit to their treasures;

  their land is full of horses

  —Isaiah 2:7

  PROLOGUE: BACKYARD HORSE

  He trots the air;

  The earth sings when he touches it.

  The basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry V

  I used to have a little half-Morgan palomino whom I most certainly did not deserve. The horse was a gem, although I was too young and too ignorant to know that at the time. I took him for granted. Mornings I saddled my horse and rode him down our Vermont dirt road to the grade school where I taught piano. There my gelding would stand in his halter, trying desperately to grab bites of grass while the kids out for recess annoyed the poor thing, in a loving sort of way, endlessly.

  The kids were overjoyed to have a horse in their school field. I don’t believe Whisper shared in their pleasure. I suspect that to him the swarm of excited small children was somewhat akin to a plague of large horseflies—something to be patiently endured. Nevertheless, Whisper was unfailingly tolerant. He was the most polite horse I have ever had.

  In the winter, I tied small logs to the pommel of my Western saddle and had him pull them over the snow and through the woods to my house, where they were destined for the woodstove. Having seen such things on television, it seemed to me a romantic thing to do. Whisper, I am certain, did not share my sense of the exotic. I got the BTUs from those logs. He got the hard work. He was much put upon, but never once did he kick me or otherwise complain, although he certainly had a right to. I wish I could live my own life with as much dignified fortitude.

  Some people claim that horses, by accepting such behavior in humans, show their lack of intelligence. I don’t believe that. Whisper was a persistently pragmatic fellow who, if he couldn’t get what he wanted at the front door, would find a way to go around to the back. He was, by necessity, highly skilled at getting his own needs met. He was a mastermind, an equine Einstein, a street genius, and a determined survivor, as are so many horses cared for by humans who, like me, are basically clueless about their horses’ inner lives.

  * * *

  In my small Vermont hillside barn I had only two stalls and no running water. I usually carried the water buckets down the hill from the house’s outdoor spigot. This involved quite a bit of labor on my part. Once, rather than carry the full buckets all that way, I brought Whisper and his half-Percheron buddy Gray up the hill to drink from a bucket that sat under the outdoor faucet. I thought I’d had a brilliant flash of insight.

  But allowing Whisper in on the secret of where the water came from would turn out to be a serious mistake. Months later, I was out having way too much fun and returned quite late to feed and water. I felt uneasy about this, but, since I was only twenty-two, not all that uneasy. The horses wouldn’t die if their routine were delayed. What was the big deal?

  But as any barn hand knows, horses have a different point of view. The stamping and weaving and snorting and stall-chewing will start almost immediately after the appointed feeding time. Then the panic will escalate. Horses get anxious when their expectations are not met.

  Some horses resign themselves to a late feeding. Others do something about it.

  When I pulled into my driveway that night, a huge puddle filled my yard. I found my house’s outdoor spigot on full tilt. This seemed inept, even for me. Perhaps a friend had been by and watered for me. But I found no note. When I checked the barn, the water buckets were empty. The mystery heightened.

  After filling the buckets, I walked up from the barn, noting the winter weather. The sky was clear; my conscience—not so much. Callow and inexperienced as I was, I nevertheless realized I had failed to live up to my side of the horse-human partnership.

  One day a week later, I rose a little late. The thermometer registered minus ten. So perfect in the summertime, Vermont sure can be cold in the winter, I whined to myself. I needed, I was sure, a hot cup of coffee before I tackled the barn. Maybe even two.

  That was my point of view.

  Whisper felt differently. I looked out the kitchen window down the hill at the barn. I slowly sipped my coffee. Over the pasture fence came that little golden-coated horse. His knees were tucked up into his chest like a champion athlete taking on a Grand Prix course. It was such a big and perfectly executed jump that I was taken aback. I hadn’t known he could jump at all.

  A horse of hidden talents, I thought.

  Once clear of the fence (his soaring hoofs never touched it), my Morgan adopted a pleasant jog and headed himself straight to the water spigot.

  Wham, wham, wham.

  The water was on.

  Hoofs, I learned that day, have a variety of uses.

  Next Whisper stretched his lips out to make a kind of cup. This was also something I had never known a horse could do. He let the water cascade from the spigot into his mouth. Horses, it turns out, have highly sensitive and tactile lips that are much more agile than our own.

  Having gotten what he wanted, Whisper strolled back down to the barn and waited for breakfast.

  Horses can be quite ingenious when they’re motivated, and when it comes to water, their motivation is intense. But my Morgan’s cognitive genius was not limited to water witching. Clearly, Whisper could solve many kinds of problems—getting around an electric fence, for example, or opening his stall door. When he had specific goals in mind, he was a high achiever.

  This was all very nice for Whisper, but I didn’t necessarily want him meeting his own needs by running all over the countryside. My neighbor with a splendid front lawn of luscious grass had already told me that horses frightened him.

  Of course, motivation varies from individual to individual. Some horses are better than others at perfecting basic survival skills. My workhorse, Gray, rarely innovated. After Whisper jumped the fence and drank his fill from my water spigot, I threw on my jacket and made my way down to the barn. Gray was standing stolidly in his stall, waiting for me. Whisper’s stall door stood wide open. Looking in, I saw the problem: both water buckets were full (I had at least learned that much), but the water was frozen solid. The workhorse had expected me to solve the problem for him. The Morgan had solved it for himself.

  Just how clever was my half-ton imp of a horse? I wondered. And how did Whisper’s inventive mind compare to Gray’s? I designed an experiment. I left several apples just out of reach while both horses stood in their stalls with the latches fastened. Both could reach their heads over the half doors but—theoretically—would remain where they were until some human lifted the latch.

  I s
tood and watched. Both horses eyed the apples. Neither took decisive action. Then I left the barn and acted as though I was heading up to the house. But once out of their sight, I stopped and spied on both through a barn window. With no hesitation at all, Whisper reached over and shifted the latch with his all-too-nimble lips. He pushed open the stall door, walked out, and enjoyed both apples. Gray just watched. Now I knew for sure what I had earlier just suspected: Whisper was free to come and go from his stall whenever he chose.

  And even more important, not only was Whisper clever enough to get the apples, but he was also clever enough to hide his knowledge from me. What goes on in the world of horses when no one is looking is often different from what goes on when we’re around. Horses can be quite secretive. They are well aware that rules made by humans can be broken when the humans are no longer in the barn.

  I had a lot of questions. How did Whisper formulate his plans? Did he have any “plan” at all? Was he conscious? Could he think? Did he have what scientists call “theory of mind”—an ability that, among other things, lets us discern what others may be thinking—as his sneaking of the apples implies? Many of us, myself included, were raised to think of horses as simple automatons that we human beings, as masters, must dominate, direct, and control. Indeed, we often work with horses in terms of very simplistic behaviorism—reward and punishment.

  But horses are much more complicated than that. After 56 million years of evolution, after surviving planetary deluges and repeated ice ages, why wouldn’t they be? Whisper taught me how very wrong my early education had been. He was far from a machine; he was a living being with ideas of his own and with obvious decision-making abilities. But how did he make those decisions? What were his criteria? Did he enjoy some sense of himself? It certainly seemed so.

  I don’t mean to imply that horses are just like humans. I’m fairly sure that Whisper did not think to himself: “Mmmm … apples … I’ll just wait until she leaves. Then I’ll lift the latch and head right over. No need to worry about that old workhorse. He’s not smart enough to get there first.”

  Instead, he had his own integrity, a unique outlook based on having four legs, a pretty good brain, a liking for grass, a need for water, and a dislike of novelty. He certainly had some kind of organized approach to problem solving, coupled with strong motivation and lots of curiosity. Of course, food can be a terrific motivator. Anyone who has ever watched a pastured horse reach persistently for the greener grass that’s perpetually on the wrong side of the fence will know that.

  * * *

  The more I thought about Whisper, the longer my list of questions grew. Where do horses come from? Why do they have hoofs and not, like us, fingers and toes? Why are they willing to share their lives with us? What biological roots, laid down in deep time, created the foundation for our mutual partnership? How does this shared ancestry allow us to understand each other? Dogs and humans can read each other’s body language. Can horses read each other’s body language? Can they read ours? Do they even bother to try? My list of questions was endless. The more I learned, it seemed, the more I wanted to know.

  We are, like horses, children of the savanna, offspring of the wind and the sun and the pelting rain. This is more than just a romantic idea. In the last few decades, science has corroborated the romance with a growing body of research. This science is helping inform us about how to treat a horse well in the modern world, about the hidden emotional lives of horses, about whether they’d be happier living “free” out on the open plain or whether they prefer the safe haven of a barn and regular mealtimes, and even about their social and cognitive requirements.

  In the days when I looked after Whisper and Gray, I never thought about such matters. My main objective was to figure out how to keep the Daring Duo safely in their stalls and in their pasture and off my frightened neighbor’s delicious lawn and out of the grain bin, which Whisper had also learned how to open.

  I wasn’t alone in failing to consider the horse’s basic needs, other than food and water. As I’ll explain, horses were integral to our existence long before we had advanced culture. You might even say they gave us human civilization. Nevertheless, although they’ve been domesticated for more than six thousand years (no one knows exactly how long), it’s only recently that we have come to see them as sentient beings with finely nuanced minds. What took us so long?

  The Horse is a scientific travelogue, a biography of the horse, and a worldwide investigation into the bond that unites horses and humans. By visiting and talking with scores of scientists from all over the world, in places like Mongolia and Galicia (in the northwest corner of Spain), with archaeologists studying prehistoric sites in France and the Basque country, with paleontologists in Wyoming and Germany and even downtown Los Angeles, I uncover the shared journey of horses and humans over time, examine our biological affinities and differences, and discuss the future of horses in a world filled with people.

  This is also my belated ode to Whisper, and to his buddy Gray, and to all the other horses I’ve encountered in my life who have so kindly and patiently carried me over the Rocky Mountains and into the Sahara Desert, who have joined me in my meandering along the overgrown dirt roads of Vermont, who have walked me safely past crocodiles and hippos and grizzly bears—all of whom have taught me a whole lot more than the fact that water in buckets freezes in the wintertime.

  Last but not least, The Horse is an ode to all the horses who have for many thousands of years helped make human life so much better. As George Gaylord Simpson, a renowned expert in horse evolution, once wrote, “From horses we may learn not only about the horse itself but also about animals in general, indeed about ourselves and about life as a whole.”

  1

  WATCHING WILD HORSES

  There is no doubt that horses will exist as long as the human race, and that is well, for we still have so much to learn about them.

  —C. WILLIAM BEEBE, naturalist

  Sometime around thirty-five thousand years ago, when much of Europe was locked up in sheets of ice that pulsated sluggishly over the land like frozen heartbeats, an unknown artist acquired a bit of mammoth ivory. Perhaps he found the ivory lying on the ground. Or maybe a group of hunters brought it to him as an offering.

  This mysterious craftsman possessed phenomenal skill. Wielding with great precision a set of exquisitely honed stone tools, he began carving a masterpiece. A magnificently arched stallion’s neck appeared, breathtaking in its extraordinary combination of muscular potency and simple natural grace.

  The earliest example of an archetype that has since then appeared in art worldwide, this horse embodies the essence of majesty. He is the supreme example of Platonic form, “an abstraction of the graceful essence of the horse,” in the words of the anthropologist Ian Tattersall, or, more simply, the rasa of horse, to use a Sanskrit term. The curvaceous line of his head and neck flows smoothly into his withers and backline, creating an elegant S curve that finishes just below the hindquarters. The head, slightly cocked, gives the animal an air of fortitude and deep contemplation.

  When we see him, we love him. And we recognize him: This sculpture could have been carved only yesterday. Across thirty-five millennia, you can almost hear him snort and see him toss his head, warning encroaching stallions to take care. Called “esthetically perfect” by his current curator, Harald Floss of Germany’s University of Tübingen, this two-inch-long marvel, standing only about an inch high, is known as the Vogelherd horse, in honor of the cave in southern Germany in which it was discovered.

  The 35,000-year-old Vogelherd horse, the oldest known horse sculpture, carved of mammoth ivory (Museum der Universität Tübingen)

  The carving provides evidence that the emotional bond between horses and humans began long, long ago—tens of thousands of years before human civilization began, well before horses became domesticated, well before we kept horses in our barns and in our fields to be used as tools. We have no idea who created this tour de force, but we do kno
w one thing: this ivory carver spent a lot of time watching wild horses, studying their social interactions and learning their body language. He carved his subject confidently, with a sure hand.

  We also know that the artist was a member of the first group of thoroughly modern humans to create a substantial presence in Europe. These people, Aurignacians, revered not just horses but many animals. Their art is exquisite—but it’s so much more than that. It’s a scientifically valuable body of evidence that provides us with precious data, including a record of the wildlife with which early humans shared Ice Age Europe’s river valleys, marshlands, and open plains. This record consists of an endless array of painted caves, countless bas-relief sculptures, sketches and etchings, and many, many more carvings—all of which depict, sometimes in great detail, the strange animals like woolly rhinoceroses living in Pleistocene Europe.

  Some of these creations are of impressively high quality—and yet, the art is far from rare. In fact, it’s curiously omnipresent. Archaeological sites containing art from this time have been found in western Spain, in Italy, and in France, and all the way east into Russia. A modern admirer could easily set aside a whole summer to study them and still have seen only a small portion. Nevertheless, common as this art is, its mere existence is almost miraculous: Aurignacian art appears in the European archaeological record seemingly quite suddenly, as though a genie waved a hand and humans became creative. There are no obvious precursors, no clear antecedents that show any kind of learning curve. Of course, archaeologists say, this could not be literally true. There must have been some learning period, complete with an upward-moving arc of acquired skills, but, as of now, almost no evidence of this arc has been discovered.

  The phenomenon is so remarkable that some researchers once suggested that the Homo sapiens brain, already around for well over a hundred thousand years, may have undergone a sudden neurological advance—some shift in the human psyche that brought about the creative impulse. That theory is no longer in vogue, but it is clear that something monumental had occurred. Otherwise, scientists are at a loss to explain the ivory carver’s tiny talisman.