Usually when I’m discussing core concepts, I try to be gender-neutral. It is true that horse kids of all ages also come in all genders. But a particular subspecies has surfaced lately in both fact and fiction, and that’s the horse girl. The female-presenting person who lives and breathes horses. Who is most alive and most truly herself in symbiosis with equines.
She’s always out there. I am one, and so are many of my friends and colleagues. Anne McCaffrey used to talk about the SFWA Cavalry, because so many SF and F writers were horse people. That’s still true.
When Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain died after a long and full life, one of the things that defined her was her love of animals—specifically dogs and horses. Her identity and her history were complicated and she aroused strong negative emotions as well as positive ones. But there was never any question that when she was at home, she was very much about the horses. They were her happy place.
She was a bit of a hero to the horse girls of the world. Not just that she was so devoted to horses all her life, or that her daughter Princess Anne has carried on her footsteps (hoofprints? Stirrups?), but that she was riding almost to the very end. Whenever she could, she would slip away to be with the horses.
As she grew older, she did make one concession. She moved away from the larger horses to a smaller, very sturdy, native breed, the Fell pony. She was a great patron of the breed, and she delighted in showing them off. News reports and social media delighted in turn in publishing pictures of her riding one of her ponies.
That’s dedication, to still be riding in your nineties. It’s the epitome of the Horse Girl. She was lucky that she stayed fit enough, still had the balance and the core strength. But true horse girls may find other ways to express their passion if riding is out of the question. Driving. Breeding, with staff to raise and train the foals. Judging and managing horse shows. Or simply being with horses whenever they can—up to and including therapy horses that visit care homes and hospices.
After the Queen died, one of the most poignant images that emerged from her funeral was a green lawn at Windsor. On it, as the cortege rolled past, was an elderly man in riding attire, and a black pony. The pony was saddled and bridled. Draped over her saddle, wrapped under the stirrups, was a silk scarf.
The man was her groom, and she wore the scarf when she rode with him. The mare’s name was Emma.
I don’t know what Emma felt, or if she knew that her person was gone. I suspect she did. Horses know a great deal.
She’s still at Windsor, being loved and cared for. The groom, I believe, has retired. Emma, from what I’ve heard, will live out her life in her familiar stable.
To a horse girl, this is vital information. Far too many people use horses as sports equipment or money machines. Horse girls live and breathe their horses. If at all possible, the keep their horses for life, or at the very least, make sure they’re well and safely cared for in their old age. It matters that Emma will be all right.
Right around the time we were saying goodbye to a Queen of horse girls, fantasy fans were treated to a surprising entry in the annals of fictional horse girls. The Lord of the Rings prequel series, The Rings of Power, is a whole huge basket of Easter eggs and fan service. What we didn’t expect was that one of the central figures of the legendarium, Galadriel, would turn out to be a horse girl.
Tolkien was not what I consider a horseman. He didn’t own horses and I don’t know that he ever had much to do with them. However they were very much a part of his world.
They were not only transport. They had names and histories. Everyone remembers Shadowfax, the king of horses who would only ever allow Gandalf on his back, but the books and stories are full of horses and ponies, from Bill the Pony to Aragorn’s horse Roheryn to the elf-horse Asfaloth. And let’s not forget Shadowfax’s whole breed, the Mearas of Rohan.
There’s a basis, then, for making horses a key part of the new series. There’s even some support for the idea that Elves could be horse people. Though the idea that Numenor was big on horse breeding—well, it’s definitely not in canon, but some things we have to just sit back and let happen.
So here we were in Numenor, with Plot Stuff going on, and Galadriel interacting with one of the greats of the future world, a sea captain named Elendil. For Plot Reasons, they need to get to the other side of the island kingdom. Half a day’s ride, he says.
Galadriel’s eyes light up. Not just with the light that shines in Elvish eyes—terrible Elves with their bright eyes, Gollum will say, a few thousand years later. No, this is a different light altogether, a light horse girls know better than any. “Ride?” she says.
Reviewers grumbled about “beauty shots” and pacing and Oh Come On and Bored Now. Horse girls had no such objections. We knew exactly what she was feeling when she galloped across those beaches on that amazing goldy-pink horse.
Who knew Galadriel of all people would turn out to be one of us? In the books she’s mostly about woods and starlight and secret magic. When Frodo offers her the Ring, she has a Moment, but she resists the temptation. She gives gifts and sings sad songs and serves as a kind of eminence grise, a shadowy figure who does great deeds far offstage.
There’s nothing in there about horses. One facebook commenter offered a lovely bit of head canon, an image of a hidden stable of horses in Lothlorien. Galadriel, like Queen Elizabeth, might have found a refuge there, a place to escape from her duties and obligations.
Head canon for horse girls always has horses in the middle. As far as actual show canon goes, Galadriel as horse girl is a gift to all the horse girls in fandom. We’ve loved Shadowfax, we’ve doted on Bill the Pony, we’ve dreamed of racing Black Riders on Asfaloth. Now we have Galadriel on her uniquely colored horse with his eerie blue eyes.
That’s not everything we’re given, either. Peter Jackson’s LOTR films gave us a different horse for Aragorn than the ones in the books: a big bay named Brego. Rings of Power replicates him in Isildur’s bay life-partner, Berek.
What makes this extra special is that Elendil, though he’s primarily a sea captain, is also, in his way, a horse girl. He understands about the bond between horse and rider, and teaches some of it to his son.
As for where he learned it, it seems his late wife was a horse girl. A trainer, probably. Maybe a breeder, who knows. What matters is that she knew horses and loved them, and she passed that knowledge to her husband. Clearly her son inherited her love of horses.
I have a multitude of issues with the writing of this series, but I love that horses play an important part in it. Making Galadriel a horse girl is the first sign we get that she’s more than a revenge-driven killing machine. It’s a side of her that may not be in canon, but it softens the edges. It hints that she may have an inclination toward peace and calm and the kind of deep empathy that humans share with their horses.
It’s a promise of sorts. An indication that she really is going to mature into one of the Wise.
Judith Tarr is a lifelong horse person. She supports her habit by writing works of fantasy and science fiction as well as historical novels, many of which have been published as ebooks. She’s written a primer for writers who want to write about horses: Writing Horses: The Fine Art of Getting It Right. She lives near Tucson, Arizona with a herd of Lipizzans, a clowder of cats, and a blue-eyed dog.
