“When I arrived at Windfields Maryland farm in the fall of 1990, Northern Dancer was standing in his spacious stall, his muzzle in the feed tub. Biographer I might be, but he was not curious – I was merely one of thousands who trekked to Maryland to see him.
Yet, as I looked into the eyes of this remarkable animal, I realized the question was not whether he could communicate, but whether I was capable of hearing what he had to say. And so it was that I spent the next few days simply sitting on the cool grass outside the paddocks, watching and waiting.
Outdoors he appeared much bigger, and powerful than he had in the stall. There was something about his restless patrolling that gave one the sense of an animal in the wild guarding his turf; a feeling that to challenge him would prove dangerous. Ever on alert, he behaved more like a wild stallion than a horse that had been pampered and fawned over all his life.
At one point I wandered down the lane beside his paddock, and eventually he deigned to come over to the fence. I cautiously tried patting him, but he warned me off: if I continued, he might be obliged to bite me.
So, what was a biographer to do? I decided to interview him. Along the way I told him about Nijinsky and The Minstrel and the many great horses he had sired. And I talked to him about Eddie and Winnie Taylor and how they both had passed.
This horse was such a big part of their lives and I was reminded of how much I missed them. Unconsciously I reached over, and this time he let me pat him. When I started back up the lane, he followed me and I returned to watching him as he returned to patrolling his territory.
Suddenly the silence was shattered by a piercing scream.
Now, only feet from the gate, Northern Dancer is up on his hind legs hollering wildly. His groom is inside the paddock, keeping a cautious eye on the stallion’s slashing front hooves. Northern Dancer slams his right foot into the soft dirt with all his might. His nostrils are flaring, his eyes fierce.
For a horse his age to be rearing and hollering is as unlikely as an eighty-year-old man to be pole-vaulting over his back fence and into his neighbour’s backyard. Yet there he was – still wild as the wind.
His savage scream stayed with me throughout the four years it took to complete his biography – a reminder, I suspect for me to listen to him.”
Photo of Muriel with Northern Dancer, Windfields Farm Maryland from her personal collection
Bestselling author, Muriel Lennox, has spent a lifetime working with, learning from and writing about horses. Over the years she has honed the craft of storytelling to a fine art. No doubt an inherited trait, for she descends from a line of colourful Irish story tellers and horse traders. For 12 years she was rider-in-residence at the famed Windfields Farm estate, home to Northern Dancer, Nijinsky, Nearctic, and on and on. During her tenure she accompanied Eddie “EP” Taylor, master of Windfields, when he wished to see the world from the back of his beloved riding horse, Philip. An award-winning journalist, her fifth book, “Rivers of Gold,” was released Fall 2017.