Horses are amongst the subjects that I do not draw easily. That is to say, if there’s a horse for me to look at, I can draw it. When I look away, however, the relative positions of ears and mouth, long nose and mane all begin to migrate and wiggle about. The legs grow sticklike and the body becomes a box. Then I give up and draw a cat instead.

Therefore the two resident horses on the farm provide me with great delight. They’re splendid examples of their species and also placid, slow-moving and friendly. They don’t mind me staring at them hour after hour. They’re retirees, these horses, having served their time as draft animals, now enjoying their peaceful twilight years. They’re a couple, Danny and Bella, but were brought together long after their breeding years were over. They look like Shire horses or Percherons, with broad chests and huge rumps, their heads at least a foot higher than mine. Their bodies are caramel brown while their shaggy manes, tails and bushy ankle-hair are jute white.

They spend their whole day walking around in the wide open meadow that is their home. The far end is rimmed by tall blue-green conifers. The near end is bounded by the thin orange wire of the electric fence. They munch grass, look for hand-outs of crab-apples from their human companions, then munch some more grass. That’s their norm, that’s what they do all day, every day. Until today.

I happen to be standing in the front yard along with Grace, scattering grain for the chickens. In the distance I hear a clip-clopping sound and look up. Grace looks up too and waves: “It’s Penny!” she says, a friend of hers. Penny’s riding her dainty black horse, Julie. They are half-way up the drive when I hear the sound of pounding hooves. The earth shakes beneath our feet. And there, on their side of the thin orange wire of the electric fence are Danny and Bella. They’ve come galloping over from a distance, to put on an astonishing show.

These normally calm beasts are rearing and plunging, bringing their massive hooves down on the ground with great force, rearing again and tossing their heads. Their nostrils are flared, their ears are folded back. They’re snorting and panting. And Julie? Why, she just continues up the drive, as cool as you please! She’s like a slinky fashion model, unmindful of the attention she inspires as she sashays down the ramp. She doesn’t even turn her pretty head to look at the two hairy peasants with their huffing and puffing and stamping of feet. They’re behind a wire fence. They can’t touch her.

They continue with their aggressive display all through Penny’s brief visit. The moment Julie turns to leave, Danny and Bella revert to being their normal soft-spoken selves. Grace says she’s never seen them behave that way before. “They’re being territorial, maybe?” she guesses. Later, when I’m alone with the horses, I ask them to explain. But they twitch their ears and look away. “It was nothing,” they say. “And you wouldn’t understand anyway.”

Manjula Padmanabhan , author and artist, writes of her life in the fictional town of Elsewhere, US, in this weekly column

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