White Horses

Ears flat, the pink of the inside of his exploding nostrils spluttering like a seashell, he was drowning.

What would we do? Wait for the body to wash ashore or would it just sink, and how would I explain a missing horse? Mouse was floundering in the surf, as waves churned foam in his eyes.

Then he started to swim. Pounding the water, gripping with teach and muscle and fear to life. I would feel the push and surge of the dark water pass me as we both started to cut through the sea.

We were headed out, away from land.

‘Help me’ as I held on to a frantic Mouse.

I had to turn him into shore. I pulled on the rein; the pressure turned the pounding barrel of the swimming horse. But as a wave swung over us slowly, like a sailboat at summer camp, Mouse began to capsize.

He started to slip to the right. With no yaw in his leg movements, and his rotund body, Mouse was tipping over like timber.

Terror in his eyes and another wave coming, my cold skin prickled with fear, I had to do something. Why shouldn’t a horse work like a small sailboat? So I slipped of the left hand side of him, holding onto his straggled mane and using my weight, I pulled him straight as he completed the turn.

Now, faced directly to shore, he focused. He pounded for his life out of this water. I held onto him like he was an orca whale, slipping through the surf.