“Sugar” by Tom McGuane

 

When the cow tried to get back to the herd, I knew I would ride cutting horses for the rest of my life. With liquid quickness, the mare countered every move that the cow made. Riding her on a slack rein gave me a sense of controlled freefall. Centered between the ears of my horse as if in the sites of a rifle, the cow faked and dodged. Much of the time I didn't know where I was or where the cow was, and I was certainly no help to the horse. By the time I picked up the reins to stop, I was addicted to the thrilling shared movement of cutting, sometimes close to violence, which was well beyond what the human body could ever discover on its own.

This short non-fiction piece by the fine writer, Tom McGuane, can be found in his collection Some Horses.

It tells of the love affair with cutting horses that he and his wife both engaged in.

It nails the feelings of a novice rider versus the experienced rider. It takes us to competition and gets those details right, too; the missed turn-offs, the annoyances of pulling a trailer in traffic, the jittery nerves of competitive exposure, even the low-level “Me vs. You” between man and wife competing in the same event.

This man loved horses, but he is no Dan “Buck” Brannaman, and that makes the story all the more accessible for we lower-level riders. We can feel what he feels where as what “Horse Whisperers” do is an ineffable work of art, almost unrelatable beyond the beauty of witnessing the relationship.

A brief work but it does more to get “Man & Horse” dynamics perfect than many a longer tale in a genre that always features horses but seldom gets them right beyond the color.

Superlative!