THE ARAB AS I KNOW HIM
By Lady Kitty Ritson
Continued
Arabs are supposed to be incapable of jumping, but I know that MR JOSEPH carried me over innumerable ditches and crawled up and down nullahs as cleverly as a cat. I grew so used to Arabs in India that the ordinary English horse was a revelation and an unpleasant one at that. During the war I had little chance of riding, except remounts in the park, but when I began again I was astonished at the English horses’ foolish ways. I tried to ride astride about two years ago, and I was always being deposited with more or less violence on the ground, because a thoroughbred shied at nothing at all or a singing bird, or something equally harmless. I wanted to go into the boxes and play about in the way I was accustomed to, but I found the average English horse thought that I was “taking liberties.”
Arab horses are terribly expensive in this country, so I took what I could get – a barb – and bless him! He is the joy of my life, but, of course, he has not the beauty of an Arab.

Trent Miles photo

I am sure that for the person who wants to know the real joy of keeping a horse as a pet and a friend there is nothing to equal an Arab. He will love you as a dog does, he will let you groom him in an unorthodox way, he will wait for you while you post a letter or pull down a branch of honeysuckle, and he will always be a “thing of beauty.”
He is never clumsy, never stupid. He may give a kick or two from sheer exuberance of spirits, but he never follows up with an evil buck. If he doesn’t understand something he looks at it long and wisely and those great eyes grow larger and darker, but he listens to your voice and he doesn’t shy across the road because a leaf shakes. If he is ill he longs for your comfort and your presence. He will come to you when you whistle and he will caress your cheeks with open lips as softly as a child.
He is romance, he is beauty, he is love.