Christa Lesté-Lasserre

You can plan a trip like this for hours upon hours upon hours, pouring over maps, making telephone calls, writing hundreds of emails, speaking to dozens of experts, and putting in decades of riding experience. And yet, there’s always something that can pop up that you didn’t plan for at all.

And I happen to be really, really good at finding the things that never happen. I know that.

That’s why I’ve programmed a few FBAG stops into this trip. FBAG as in: Fall Back and Regroup. I don’t mean retreat back where I already came, of course. But I mean, stop advancing for a few days. Find a safe haven to spend some time reflecting on the lessons I’ve learned and how to make things better, and catch up on anything that needs catching up on.

We’ve made it to our first FBAG stop, one week into the journey. I’m glad we’re here; we really needed this FBAG because one week has taught us an awful lot. Like packing. It seems simple: anyone who travels a lot (like an international correspondent) has done lots of packing, and anyone who camps a lot (like me and my family) has done lots of camp packing. But packing a pack horse is a whole different scenario. Sabrina is tall: 17 hands. Believe me, that makes a difference when you’re 5’2 and packing and trying to attach everything so that it’s all evenly distributed and not moving.

We’ve also learned that cows are really curious, and they can move. Fast. Towards us. In big numbers. This was a hard lesson. My horses have been exposed to cows in the field and go past them surely but cautiously. What they haven’t been exposed to, though, is an entire herd of young and excited Charolais barrelling full speed towards us and ending up just inches away on the other side of a tree. We fortunately avoided a serious accident, but the experience made me reconsider the importance of ensuring that my horses can be controlled even in such unexpected scenarios–especially since there are no other riders.

I’m grateful for the hospitality we’re getting at our first FBAG site, a mounted archery center in a cute little village about 30 minutes from Disneyland Paris. Here, I’m catching up on writing, and I’m reworking my daily routine and practicing my packing skills. I’ve also gone to the desensitization expert, Marc Pierard in Belgium, for guidance on ensuring that the horses stay safe and happy during this trip, even in the face of running-towards-us cows and other unanticipated events. Marc is both a researcher and a practitioner, and he’s the go-to for the Belgian mounted police for training their police horses to be afraid of absolutely nothing.

The cow incident, which also involved a low-hanging branch meaning I had to be on the ground instead of in the saddle, and a thick line of trees pushing us close to the fence line, was “a perfect storm,” Marc tells me. It was a rare combination of events that isn’t likely to happen again. But even so, it’s important to be prepared for whatever comes our way. And since this trip is supposed to be fun for the horses and for me, I’m ready to take some time to be sure everyone has a great time on this journey.

We’ve also–sadly!–learned that some well-meaning hosts have bed bugs! “Don’t stay in the tent; it’ll rain and you’ll be exhausted,” they said. I accepted their generous offer in their gorgeous pristine home, and I didn’t sleep all night for the bugs I felt crawling on me.

Fortunately I had no bags in the room and took a shower as I was leaving, with my dirty clothes in a sealed plastic bag. So I didn’t bring any of the unwanted guests with me. But it’s miserable riding with itchy bed bug bites all over! They’re worse than chiggers, and I’m immensely grateful for the wonders of modern antihistamines and corticosteroid creams. In the future, I’ll always check mattresses for signs of bed bugs and will keep any bags in plastic and off the floor, just in case.

First, it was the kids.

Then, it was the job.

Then, it was the house and all its endless renovations.

Then, it was kids again.

Then, it was the marriage.

And someday–hopefully not too soon!–it’ll probably be my health.

Through all these phases of my life, my horses have waited. Waited for me to be available for them. For them to become my priority for once. For it to be their turn.

Sure, they were well cared for. And I did my best to ensure that they had good welfare and were happy. But time and again, I asked myself, why exactly do I have horses if I can never spend any real time with them? How can I be so busy that they’re never my priority?

There’s a reason we have a drive to “have” horses. And many of you reading this will really understand that obscure drive. We have horses because we want them to be a part of our lives. We might think we love going for a ride or competing in a show–and yes, it’s true that those things are great. And we might love caring for them and brushing them and just admiring how beautiful they are.

But seriously, there’s got to be more to it than that. You know you love smelling your horse. You know you love burying your face in his mane. You know you love just watching him peacefully graze in the field, hearing him snort, and seeing him seeing you when you approach.

I think it must be in our genes. I mean, literally, in our genes.

The horse is one of the rare animals that humans domesticated not as just a work animal or livestock but as a partner. Like the dog, the horse took on an important role as a companion to humans. People selectively bred the horses that filled that role the best; the ones that fed the lines of today’s domesticated horses were the ones that were the easiest to work with and that accepted having people around them all the time.

But what about the people? They started domesticating horses somewhere between 5500 and 6000 years ago. I can imagine that by 4000 or 5000 years ago, the people who had horses lived more successfully than those who didn’t. They had more powerful “engines” for farming; they could transport larger quantities of supplies and over longer distances. They were swifter and better equipped in battles. And even within horsey communities, the people who communicated better with horses would have had an easier life and, logically, better survival.

In otherwords, it doesn’t seem like it was just humans who domesticated horses. It might be that horses also, simultaneously, domesticated humans.

Perhaps this explains the impressive success of “equitherapy” centers, which are cropping up worldwide, offering people comfort, relief, and healing just from being around horses. Maybe humans have actually evolved to need horses, in a sense. And maybe horses have evolved to—at least minimally—need humans, through congruent evolution and domestication.

And as we domesticated each other, horses became a symbol of strength, beauty, and power, as represented in glorious forms of art in cultures throughout the ancient and modern world. By 3000 BC breeders in the Saudi desert had perfected the Arabian breed, with its proud and noble carriage, its remarkable intelligence, and its particular emotional sensitivity that could make it seem wild to some people—but deeply attached to the people who knew how to connect with these majestic horses. Other breeds soon followed, both locally and cross-culturally, with genes spreading all along the Silk Roads from China to ancient Rome and back again, as horses accompanied merchants trading their goods along hundred- or thousand-kilometer journeys.

Fascinating legends developed of incredible horse-human relationships, like that of the Greek heroes Alexander the Great and his black stallion, Bucephalus.

But then, in much more recent times, the industrial revolution happened, and it changed the way humans and horses connected. Horses became objects in the 19^th century, spurring Anna Sewell’s classic novel, Black Beauty, to remind people that horses are individuals with feelings.

Despite those efforts and the success of that novel, though, by the 20^th century, automobiles had gradually made horses jobless. Their daily presence in people’s lives began to drastically diminish.

And now here we are, today, with horses reserved mostly for leisure and sports activities (in developed countries). For the most part, they live in stalls or fields in equestrian centers where humans come to ride and interact with them a few hours a week, sometimes more.

Today’s fast-paced life affords humans little quality time to spend with horses. We drive cars that run on expensive fossil fuels that damage our planet. Even electric vehicles and public transportation often run on electricity generated from power plants that don’t always use green energy sources. Horse owners usually drive, sometimes tens of kilometers, just to see their horses.

And in the other parts of their day, humans spend countless hours sitting in front of computers and sometimes get bursts of exercise from a scheduled jog or a trip to the gym.

We’re overbusy, unhealthy, anxious, and depressed.

Domestic horses, meanwhile, live in restrained settings. Even in large pastures, they rarely move more than a few kilometers a day—compared to the daily 50 kilometers a day that mustangs and brumbies roam. They lack diversity and discovery, although research has shown that these are curious animals, eager to explore. They eat bland diets of planted meadow grasses, sometimes mixed with grains, although free-roaming horses thrive on a variety of forage, including grasses as well as trees, bushes, and other plants.

Could we—horses and humans—be offering each other more than we are, in our modern world? Are we depriving ourselves of the richness we could be providing each other, through movement, discovery, diversity, a more balanced diet, and a development of the age-old horse-human bond?

And if we are, is it too late to do anything about it? Is there still a place in the human world for horses, outside equestrian centers and specific culture communities within restricted geographical areas? Is it feasibly possible for people to live, day-by-day, with horses?

I aim to take on the challenge of finding out. As a veteran science journalist specializing in horses and the horse-human relationship, I want to discover what it’s like to share my day-to-day with my horses in an incredible journey across plains, mountains, ocean shores, and borders.

This is in no way a step back in time; rather, it’s an exploration of what the horse-human relationship could truly be in 2022—with the technology and scientific knowledge we have today combined with the species we’ve evolved to become over the last several millennia.

I want to know whether it’s still possible to travel point-to-point by horseback, by horse-drawn carriage, or on foot with a pack animal in first-world countries. I want to know if we can find safe routes, and if so, how. I want to know if we can find food, water, and safe lodging. And I want to know which humans and which animals we might meet along the way. 

From a practical aspect, I’m also interested in exploring how much the horse-human relationship might trespass on my work life—if at all. How much less efficient will I be in working? How much time will I have really lost by traveling slowly?

And even if I end up being less efficient in my work, I’d like to know how that might even out in the overall balance. What will my horses and I have gained in exchange for the lost work time?

So it’s finally their turn. Or, more appropriately, our turn. Sabrina, Solstice, and I invite you to follow us as we partake in this incredible cross-country adventure, from greater Paris, France, to Florence, Italy, starting September 3, 2022. Two horses and one human, traveling and working together across 1500 kilometers over a period of several months. With daily echocardiogram monitoring provided by the horse-human relationship researchers at the University of Pisa, my goal is to explore the bond between my horses and myself as we navigate a modern European world, without ever using a motorized vehicle, and with cultural exchanges with local artisans and populations.

I hope that our journey will not only provide greater understanding of the horse-human relationship and support both human and equine welfare, but also contribute to a healthier planet and a greater understanding of who we all are—humans and animals alike.