"Dumb Animals"

It’s not something unique to have been obsessed with horses as a child.

Hell – even my younger sister was bitten by the bug, and now she rides competitively while I remain completely and utterly terrified of the beasts.

I am loathe to admit it, but I was one of those crazy “horse-girls.”

I never pretended to be a horse at school or whinnied at anyone, of course, but I did pretend to ride them whenever we went camping. I was so sold on my own fantasies that I became distraught when my grandfather cut down a branch of a tree that I was climbing because it was “the branch I tied my horses to, and now they have run away!” In hindsight, I can see that he was only trying to stop me from impaling myself on the branch, but after my imaginary horses had run away? Perhaps I wanted to be impaled on that branch.

But despite my fascination and love for “The Saddle Club,” and despite my constant request for Horseland gift-cards (even though I never had a horse to buy tack for, or the need to buy riding gear), the one thing that always stood out the most was my complete and utter fascination with Anna Sewell’s “Black Beauty.”

For the life of me, I cannot remember the first time that I read the book. I do have a vivid memory of re-reading a copy (a Scholastic Classics version, with a predominantly green cover and our beloved Black Jack galloping over rolling hills) and attempting to draw a horse myself. I had been very proud of myself for adding a new word to my vocabulary, and that ‘artwork’ included the word “liberty” in an overly ornate font of my own creation.

But as I said – this was only a re-reading.

The truth is, I have no way of knowing when I first read the book, or how many times I have read, heard, seen or experienced the story ‘Black Beauty.’ Whether abridged, adapted, illustrated – I have owned and consumed this singular story in such a myriad of forms, I’m not sure I can tell them apart anymore.

I have lost count of how many copies that I have owned, nor do I know how long it took for me to make the VHS of the film start to wear out. If I had to guess, I likely had three copies of picture books alone, and at least two abridged copies that I can immediately picture in my head. Thought honestly, I can’t say that I’ve changed – as an adult, I still have multiple copies and versions of my favourite books on my shelves.

But while I can’t say for certain how many times I have immersed myself in the story, what I do know is that my grandmother would sit on the side of my bed nearly every night to read it to me over and over again.

I can still see the illustrations of the barn fire clear in my mind, can still hear my grandmother comment about how the pony Merrylegs should have been on the inside of the turn rather than the outside because his legs were shorter, and even now my eyes still sting with tears when I think about Ginger.

Other than how much I liked horses at the time, I’m still not exactly sure why Black Beauty became such a hyper-focus for me.

As an adult, the themes and lessons within certainly resonate with me. There have been times where I could draw parallels between my life and Black’s, and times where I was sure that I would end up just like Ginger.

Perhaps it was Black’s resilience – his ability to always find a way back to a full belly and a soft hand after everything that he went through.

But I couldn’t have comprehended that as a kid.

There was no way I could have known how much my own life would reflect that of a fictional horse.

Perhaps it was the sense of adventure. Perhaps it was Black’s resilience after all.

Or perhaps it was simply because my grandmother loved me enough to read the same story night after night.

There are probably a million different reasons why Black Beauty played such a prominent role in my childhood, and I doubt that I’ll ever truly understand why.

But because of that hyper-focus, this story about a horse has a grip on me. And I didn’t realise how much of a grip it had on me until my younger cousin was born and I was able to share Black Beauty with him. And now that I’m all grown up and married and ready to start a family of my own, I’m looking forward to reading this story about tragedy and hope and survival and loss to my own children.