“The horses were humanely killed because nobody else wanted them.”
This story, by Glasgow legend Alasdair Gray, is one I’ve never been sure what to do with or how to take. It is this that makes it so compelling.
Insofar as the story is a story, it tells of a TV programme in the vein of Rogue Traderswhich investigates small businessmen. Those, as Gray caustically remarks, who are too small to “afford to bring strong libel actions”. The programme investigates a horse breeder who left his animals poorly fed and badly stabled. The man is charged with cruelty to animals, jailed, and his horses are seized. They are then killed because there was nowhere else for them to go.
In the hands of another writer, this would be a small ironic story worth a wry smile but not much more. What Gray does, however, is he challenges the reader at the end with a short philosophical quiz, asking who cared most for the horses, who gained the most from the events, and who lost the most (surely the horse). The story is typical of his tongue-in-cheek style. You’re never quite sure whether he has taught you a lesson, or whether he is just winding you up. I always lean towards both being true.
First published in The Ends of Our Tethers, Canongate, 2003
A Personal Anthology 