A chilled Filly

Monday 22 December 2014

Appreciation of beauty

Filly and I went for a nice walk yesterday. I decided time off from the school was a good idea and also she needs to walk on a variety of surfaces for the sake of her hooves.
It was a chilly but dry day and the track was reasonably dry. The odd muddy section but mostly firm and easy walking. It was noticeable that Filly seemed much much more comfortable walking on the varied terrain than in the past.

As we go up the track out of the yard we climb a short hill. At the top of the hill there is a path which goes off to the left. Filly had made it known in the past that she wanted to explore this track. Yesterday I let her. After just 20 yards or so we got to a gate to a field we could not go beyond. The views from there were lovely though. Now I don't know what horses know or feel about landscape beauty, to be honest I would have thought they couldn't care less. But Filly stood at that gate for a fair while just staring at the view. Not a frightened stare, she seemed very relaxed. When she was ready we continued with our walk. But everytime we came across what I consider to be a pretty view she insisted on stopping and looking for a while and resisted being asked to come along. Then after a minute or so she would look at me and we would carry on along our way with no fuss at all.

I would love to know what is going on in her mind at these moments. After all human experience of beauty in the landscape was only really acquired fairly recently. The Welsh mountains, which to my eyes are beautiful, were until recently considered by most as a wasteful landscape with no value whatsoever. So what, if any, is an animals experience of beauty ?

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