Herds of wild horses have been known to attack people–would this herd be one those? I was alone in the Pyrenees mountains, quite out of my comfort zone. I had been hiking and climbing upwards for well over two hours to reach this remote spot, at about 2,500 meters of elevation, high above the tree level and I had no cellular phone coverage. I had been worried in places about falling and breaking something, but I didn’t imagine this situation and feeling this vulnerable and alone. I didn’t even mean to come this far. About a half hour earlier I had planned to turn around but, as I kept looking at a waterfall in the distance, about a hundred meters high, flowing over a ridge, I had the urge to keep on going. The view would be great from up there I thought.
The trail was dizzingly steep and slippery along the falls. I questioned my sanity in continuing. But as I crested the ridge, I saw the horses maybe twenty of them, about fifty metres away, on a ridge just slightly above where I was. They were not at all as delighted to see me as I was to see them. As I took photos, the horses glanced at me nervously, looked away, glance again, and stirred about nervously.
I was trembling with excitement and maybe a bit of fear as tried to get some photos of these beasts, with the mountain peaks behind them. I decided to put on a long telephoto lens so I could get some close ups of individual animals without upsetting them more. Unfortunately as I started changing lens, removing the current lens, one of the horses, a male and the most aggressive, started galloping back and forth in front of the herd. He had a shiny black coat and a shockingly long and messy mane that waved and flapped in the air as he moved. Blacky was the name of a neighbour’s horse when I was a kid, and so to me, this too was Blacky. He snorted, lay down on the ground and, while making grunting noises, almost as if laughing, he rolled back and forth on his back, with his feet in the air! Blacky got back upright, and bucked, causing a cloud of dust to explode off of his coat and mane…..I have never seen anything like this. It was so startling and comical, that I forgot I was holding a camera. If only I had video recorded it!
A raptor of some sort, maybe an eagle, screeched high above me. I turned and looked up and wondered if my telephoto lens would be adequate enough to photograph it? Suddenly I was aware of the sound of horse hooves racing toward me. As soon as I had looked away, four of the horses were charging, lead by Blacky. I put my camera down and turned to face them. They slowed to a stop just ten meters or so away. Blacky and the others moved forward a couple of steps. Waited. Then moved forward again. They then slowly moseyed up toward me. Blacky was looking at me carefully. His eyes dark. I was awestruck by how tall and massive the creature was. He was confident and intelligent in his bearing. I reached up with my hand to rub his forehead, wondering if he could sense my fear that he was going to bite me. His face was coated with flies. That’s why he was rolling in the dust I supposed, to get the flies off. I rubbed his forehead. As Blacky and his two buddies got comfortable with me, the whole herd came and surrounded me. I felt as if I had been adopted by the herd and, in my mind, I was being carried away with them.
There was a foal in the group that was black, so maybe he was the offspring of Blacky. He too was spunky and fearless. The foal, as I was told a few days later, was probably the reason why the herd was so aggressive toward me at first, wanting to protect this little guy. But at this moment, he didn’t see me as a threat at all. He was as mischievous as any bold little boy or girl. Whenever I had my back turned he would bite and pull at my camera bag, as if he was playing a trick on me…or because he could smell the crumbs and wrapper of an oatmeal energy bar I had eaten earlier?
