The secret language of horses

‘Horses – beautiful, noble, intelligent creatures,’ said the neighbour I was having tea with.

‘There speaks someone who has never had to deal with them,’ I said, for I had been run ragged by our four horses since the builder boyfriend had left me at the house in West Cork and had gone to London to do a job.

‘Oh, but they’re so wonderful. I just love to be near them,’ said the lady, who has a left-leaning world view and takes on a faraway look in her eyes whenever animals are mentioned.

We were sitting on the patio close to where the horses were grazing. At that moment, one of the builder boyfriend’s cobs neighed a loud desperate neigh to the right of us and the sound of thundering hooves shook the ground as my mares began galloping the field to the left of us.