from the horse's mouth - Brief Article

An accident would change the way they communicated forever

Harley has always spoken to me, and I don't just mean in the metaphorical sense. When we are riding, my 13-year-old Thoroughbred always seems to be giving me a running commentary: "Hey, ease up on that right rein!" or "I'm feeling a little nervous about the show today." And forget Mr. Ed--Harley is an equine Adam Sandier. He's not above sticking out his tongue or nipping at girls' riding breeches as they pass.

But two years ago, what we experienced was no laughing matter. It would change me forever and define a language that I had always felt was between us.

One day in a canyon, in a freak trail-riding accident, Harley ended up trampling me. His rear hoof cut through my left shin, severing the leg except for a grisly hinge of calf muscle. As I lay in the dirt, blood pooling around me, he came up and pressed his big nose to my face with a look that seemed to say, What are you doing down there?

"Go on, get," I shouted, feebly brushing his nose away, feeling afraid of him for the first time ever. "You'll step on me again, you clod." That was the last thing I said to him before help miraculously arrived.

Paramedics carried me out of the canyon into a waiting medevac chopper, which whisked me to a hospital, where I would undergo three surgeries in the first week alone.

Lying in my hospital bed, I fretted about him. For years he had seen me every day. As an ex-racehorse, Harley still bears ugly scars from being beaten and abused, then sold for slaughter. Luckily, he was rescued by a woman who then gave him to me. I worried that he would associate the drama of our parting and my absence with being punished. "Don't be silly," friends assured me. "That horse is fine. You just concentrate on getting well."

Months passed. Finally, when I was strong enough to get around with the help of a walker, I made a plan. I decided to go see Harley for myself, despite the fact that my doctors, worried about infection in my reattached leg, didn't want me near a place so "unsanitary." When I got there, he stood in his stall with his head down. I tried to whistle for him, but it took too much breath. Then I called his name, but instead of the shrill whinny that had always been his greeting, there was only silence.

Someone offered to turn him out in a paddock for me. We stood in the ring, awkward as kids at a junior high dance, until I pulled out the carrot I had brought as an offering. "C'mon boy," I said. "Do you remember our trick?"

Harley knows one stupid pet trick, a bow where he stretches his head between his front hooves. He would grudgingly perform it for visitors only if I plied him with enough treats to make it worth his while. But this day he stretched down into a perfect bow, then politely took the carrot.

Happy but exhausted, I started to make my way out of the paddock. Harley followed the walker like a puppy, and began pawing the ground. I expected him to nuzzle my pockets for more bounty, but instead he stepped away. Without any prompting or bribes, he went into a bow. I laughed and patted him, then turned to go. But again he pawed the ground, and again, he bowed. Each move to go produced a bow.

Tears ran down my cheeks, I could taste the salt of them on my lips. I heard what he was saying, loud and clear. I rested my head against his massive shoulder, leaning into him for support. "It's okay, Harley," I told him, "I'm not going anywhere."

SAMANTHA DUNN, a California-based writer, is the author of Failing Paris (Toby Press, 1999) and is working on a nonfiction book about her accident for Henry Holt and Co.

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