Noble extended his large, white, fuzzy head over the stall door and blew a frozen mist at me in greeting. It was a wet, cold afternoon in December of 2017 at the therapeutic riding Rising Tide barn, and a strong wind whipped down the aisle. Staff and volunteers from both Rising Tide and Misty Meadows were on hay bales and plastic chairs. The two programs were merging and decisions had to be made about which horses would move to the new facility and which horses needed new homes.
As an animal communicator, I had been invited to speak to each horse and get his or her opinion. I was in charge of asking how they were feeling and what they were still capable of doing. I could feel Noble’s warm, calm gaze and decided to start with him. I closed my eyes, made an intuitive connection with Noble, and asked his permission to speak with him on behalf of the group. To my surprise, the first words I heard were “I know you have a decision to make and I understand why and I’m OK with it. I know I need to leave this barn.” I continued to translate to the group, “I really miss being around children, especially the young ones, and I still have a lot of love to give. I’ve been trustworthy and I have a lot of pride in watching the children I have helped grow up.”
There was a decision to be made, and I asked him if he had an opinion about where he wanted to go or what he wanted to do. He said “I have never cared much about my surroundings or turnout but I care about the people. I still have a lot of love to give and would like you to find me somewhere that I can stand still and kids could pet me and gain confidence. I’m big but also very safe.” I asked him if there was anything else he wanted us to know, and he responded with this, “My heart is full and it’s been an honor to have worked at Rising Tide. I consider my life a success and I’m proud to have meant so much to so many people. My life has been fulfilling and I consider myself to be more a source of pleasure than worry. That makes me happy.” Finally I asked him how he was feeling physically. He told me his back felt brittle and therefore he didn’t want to be ridden a lot. He also had pain in his right front leg from his shoulder to his hoof, and his hind leg was feeling weak but it didn’t hurt. (It turns out he had had a shot for pain in that leg from the vet.)
After this conversation, his owner Susan Fieldsmith told me more about Noble’s story. He had arrived ten years earlier when he was in his late teens and was immediately trustworthy. Susan noticed right away that he had beautiful, clear eyes that were talking to you and made you feel completely connected to him. For ten years he was a dependable, lovable therapeutic riding horse. He was calm with people in wheelchairs, and he even gave a ride to a woman using an oxygen tank.
The next time I spoke to Noble, it was a warm August day in 2018, and he was grazing in a pasture at Misty Meadows. The first thing he said to me was “It’s been such a long road!“ I knew what he meant. After our December talk, Noble had moved to Misty for the winter, but since he wasn’t being ridden, in the spring he was moved to a private barn for some R&R. Within days of that move, he broke through his fence in the middle of the night and turned up seven miles across island bruised, smelly and exhausted. He had returned to Rising Tide! After much TLC and good food at that barn, the decision was made to return him to Misty Meadows as his forever home.
Noble had just arrived on a trailer and been reunited with his pasture buddies. First I asked him how he was feeling. “Achy, itchy, out of sorts, hot, and exhausted,” he said. Then he showed me that his left hind leg felt weak and tight and his right front leg hurt (A vet later confirmed this). He had a visible cut on his chest from breaking through a fence, but said the worst pain in his chest was deep like a bruise. He said his back no longer hurt him and that the medicine he was on for pain had been working very well, but he panicked when he saw the trailer and now everything felt awful. In addition he said he was thirsty. (It turns out he hadn’t had a drink because he was afraid of the electric fence, so one of the Misty Meadows staff brought him a bucket.)
Noble’s first question for me was “What is going to happen to me now? Who is going to take care of me?” I told him that Misty was going to be his forever home and that he would have several staff members and one of the volunteers devoted to his care. He asked me a follow-up question, “Why do I get to stay here when I have seen other horses come and go?“ I told him he had been given special status because he had helped so many people over the course of his life. As I said those words, I could feel Noble deeply relax as if he gave a huge sigh. He told me that when he was at the private barn, he was scared and lonely and desperate for the first time in his life. Since he had run away, he had been afraid he would have to go back. I repeated that he was never going anywhere again and that he would always be in a herd with his friends and cared for by many people.
Satisfied, Noble turned his attention to his future. He started listing what he could do! He said he was very photogenic and could be a “mascot” although he preferred “icon”. He said kids could paint him different colors because he’s white, he could pull a small cart with the dog in it, he could give pony rides, greet people as they arrived, and he actually said “I’ll pose“. He said he would be happy to be in parades with decorations on him including a stuffed animal in the saddle, and that he was happy to go to events to catch people’s attention and let them know about all the good things happening at Misty. Finally, he suggested that he could be let loose on the property to graze and welcome people. He was clearly eager to get involved!
The following day I visited Noble again. I immediately asked him how he was feeling. “I feel less anxious and less itchy and much calmer.” He still felt pain and pressure in his left hind leg and didn’t want to put too much weight on it but said it was getting better. He also said he had a little bit of a headache but that it was because of the stress of the day before.
I told him I was there to ask how he got from the private barn all the way back to Rising Tide. All of a sudden I had a vision of a big white horse walking up Arrowhead Road. Within seconds we were through many trees and arriving at Woodbe Farm. I could see Noble nuzzling a horse over an outdoor stall door. Soon after, I saw him wandering over to Wendy‘s adjacent barn and getting zapped by an electric fence or at least tripped up by one. At that point, Noble wandered up the hill at a faster pace, starting to feel nervous and tired. He encountered a skunk at the edge of the woods. This led him to start running through the woods, passing some houses and clattering across West Tisbury Road. Finally, I could see Blackthorn Farm, but Noble didn’t stop there. He cut through some of the properties to get to the Rising Tide road. He was so tired that he couldn’t get all the way to the barn. He just stopped partway. (I found out afterwards that he was found partway down the road.)
When I asked how he knew how to find his way, he said, “Horses can always find their way home. They just don’t always do it. Different parts of the island have vegetation that smell differently and have different pressure in the air. I went in the general direction of the smells I was looking for and the feelings.” At the end of the conversation, I asked him if there was anything else he wanted to say before I left. He said, “I want to be front and center, letting people know about the good work going on here at Misty that used to be happening at Rising Tide. It is going to get bigger and bigger.”