And Another Thing | 12 July 2008

One of the most moving stories in the history of animal life is the racing career of Red Rum. This little horse won the Grand National in 1973 and 1974, came second the next two years and then, amazingly, won it again in 1977. This third victory, the only such in the history of the race, left the hard-bitten racing crowd in tears. The horse had a proud habit of cocking his ears as he passed the winning post ahead of the field — he knew he had won. He lived to the ripe old age of 30 and is buried beside the starting gate at Aintree.

No one can quite explain why certain animals make huge efforts to achieve distinction which in a human context we would call heroic. My view is that such endeavours are attempts, part instinctive but also perhaps part conscious, to escape from the fatalism which surrounds all animal life. A horse is born, lives, usually in some kind of servitude to humans, breeds and dies. There is nothing he can do about his fate but accept it. Animals in the wild are no less imprisoned by their environment. Yet animals, occasionally, perform extraordinary feats of courage and endurance, sometimes with what we can only call a moral object. There are many well-documented instances of dogs risking their lives to save their master’s. Such creatures exhibit an altruism they are not supposed to possess and, even more important, appear to be fighting against fate, to achieve a kind of freedom of the will — over events, and over their own frail bodies. This is quite different from, and superior to, the freedom to roam — much closer to what St Paul meant when he wrote of the freedom we find in Christ.