I have been watching a recent offering from Netflix, A Man in Full, starring the great Jeff Daniels. The style is somewhat like that of the magnificent Succession – a nasty tale about mostly nasty people with absolutely no redeeming features, and a disturbing subplot or two. The Jeff Daniels character, Charlie Croker is Trump like, deluded, narcissistic, a bully, apparently incredibly rich but actually in hock to the banks to the tune of over a billion dollars. There is even a Croker Concourse, much like the monstrosity Trump Tower.
Desperate to secure funds to avoid bankruptcy, Croker invites a super wealthy couple to his quail ranch for the weekend. The husband never lets emotion influence his business dealings, but he otherwise seems a sensitive type, and his wife is a staunch PETA supporter. Croker thinks she will like the idea of a quail ranch, but as is pointed out to him, perhaps not when they are raised purely for shooting. Croker presents the man with a Stetson at breakfast in an excruciating scene and in a fantastically misguided attempt to impress them, to the despair of his family and aides, Croker invites the couple to witness the mating of two of his horses.
The mare is chained by all four legs and at both sides of her head. The stallion is brought to her and is manually guided into her. “This is life,” says Charlie, proudly. The PETA supporter runs off in tears: “This isn’t right. This is rape.” The couple insist on leaving the ranch immediately and Charlie’s downfall seems more certain than ever.
Indeed. Horses have been around for over 50 million years, horses we would recognise today evolved around four million years ago, homo sapiens around 200,000 years ago. Presumably, then, horses have somehow managed to copulate and reproduce without our intervention just fine.
The photograph at the head of the post is of Popeye, a gentle rescued pony I became very fond of at Trindledown Farm animal rescue.
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