WHITTLED FROM WOOD
One of Eitan’s most important jobs as a youth was watching sheep. He would take a herd of 500 into the mountains of Jerusalem for 30 days at a time, carrying a gun, a knife, and not much food—primarily pasta. He would supplement the pasta with figs, almonds, and whatever he could pick from a tree; it was never much. What he lacked in food he had a surfeit of in boredom, and Eitan would fill the long hours whittling figures out of wood, nurturing a talent that would be seen later in his artistic endeavors as a wood carver and sculptor. This ability to see the potential in a nondescript chunk of wood and patiently work at it until its beauty emerged, would carry over to training rough colts and fillies and molding them until they reached their own potential.
Eitan Beth-Halachmy
Eitan—also known as “8” to his friends—was born on November 24, 1940, in Rishon LeZion, a small town south of Tel Aviv that had been cobbled together out of the sandy desert since the first Zionist movement in 1882. Although Rishon LeZion has become a city of 230,000, it had little more than 10,000 inhabitants when Israel obtained statehood in 1948. The town was dirt, dust, ducks, and donkeys when our story begins; animals were everywhere, but horses were a luxury. Donkeys and mules served as transport, carrying necessities such as kerosene. Eitan delivered goods too, including eggs and vegetables to Ben Gurion, first Prime Minister of Israel, who had worked in the town himself as a young man, at Carmel Winery’s Rishon LeZion Wine Cellars. The young Eitan also spent long hours as a shepherd; his family had lived in close connection to agriculture for generations. Eitan’s was the fifth generation of Zionists and would be the first to live in the new state of Israel as a child.
Although horses were a luxury in Rishon LeZion, Eitan’s hometown, animals were everywhere. People relied on mules and donkeys for transport; here the young Eitan hitches a mule to a delivery cart.
WESTWARD BOUND
Eitan first visited the United States in 1961 as part of a farm youth exchange. He was chosen out of 500 applicants and the main criterion was an English exam…but Eitan knew almost no English: yes, no, and that was about it, he remembers. He was shaking as he entered the interview room, but one way or another he managed to convince them he had enough English to travel to the United States. To this day, he does not know how he did it. Perhaps because he wanted to visit the land of his cowboy-filled dreams so much, Eitan somehow succeeded in communicating despite his lack of English language skills.
The miracle of his acceptance into the program was followed by the challenge of communicating once he had reached his destination, although the struggle to make himself understood brought benefits as well: On the one hand, Eitan learned to express himself with very little, using body language and expression in lieu of the words he had not yet learned. On the other hand, the experience left him with a fear of using his English in public, a language barrier that he would not conquer until late in life when the need to share his knowledge of horses overcame his reluctance to speak in front of large crowds.
Eitan Beth-Halachmy today.
Eitan was born as far away from his dream—Cowboy Dressage—as could be, on the other side of the world, across the ocean, in rural Israel (then the British territory of Palestine). For the skinny child in rubber boots and a straw hat, horses were a luxury. That first ride in the graveyard opened up a new world, but one that seemed far out of reach. As far as he knew, his family had never had anything to do with horses; still he dreamed.
He made tentative friendships with the Arabs, partly because he wanted to learn about horses from them, but despite the lore, those Arabs were poorer than the Jewish settlers were. Yes, they had horses, but looking back, Eitan realized they knew little horsemanship. They only used horses for ceremonial occasions; the rest of the time, they preferred camels or donkeys, while the horses remained tied to a stake next to their tents. When they did ride the horses, their horsemanship was basic—woven blankets rather than saddles, equipment that reflected the necessities of a hard life. Eitan remembers trying to organize horse shows—races, mainly. He would get some Arabs to bring their horses, but it was absolute chaos. Eitan almost always won because he could make his horses turn. For most people, horses were for work and status symbols, not competition or pleasure. Eitan’s obsession with them set him apart.
Long afterward, as an adult, Eitan would learn that his family had not lived entirely apart from horses. One grandfather had been a horseman; another had made carriage wheels with an old-fashioned steamer. Those wheels were placed on carts used to carry grapes to the vineyards of Rishon LeZion. Knowing these things, Eitan instantly replied to my question of whether horse persons were born or made: “For me, it was equal parts genes, luck, and dreams.”
People who work with horses and are good at it are artists, and like all artists, they are born with a special talent, but without the right circumstances, that talent will never be apparent. “You’ve got to really want it,” Eitan believes, “and then you’ve got to be lucky—you have to come across the right people at the right time to guide you along the road to true horsemanship.”
It took a long time for Eitan to realize his dream. Like all young men in Israel, he had to fulfill the military service requirement at 18. He spent much of his obligatory military time (approximately 1958–1961) finding excuses to be with horses. His brother—higher up in the military—would get him out of trouble, but finally he ended up with a choice that led him to become a paratrooper. He made dozens of drops before breaking both legs during the extended Arab-Israeli conflict.
When Eitan completed his military service, he applied for a youth exchange program that would take him to the United States for the first time (see sidebar, p. xix). He came back more determined than ever to include horses in his daily life. With the encouragement of his father, he investigated the possibility of studying veterinary medicine. He found two vet schools he thought he could get into, one in Vienna and one in Italy. He decided to go to the one in Vienna because he was more comfortable in German, but first he had to make enough money to get there and pay his way. He chose the fastest way of making money he could find: driving a bus from Tel Aviv to the Red Sea. Because it was dangerous work, it paid well, but it still took him nearly four years to save enough to go to Austria. When he finally made the move in 1965, Eitan went by sea to Genoa, where he purchased a 1961 Opel. He then had to live on a beach while waiting for his paperwork to go through before he could make the drive to Vienna.
Eitan found Vienna disappointing. He had expected a hands-on program, but students at the University of Veterinary Medicine spent the first two years studying from books. To make matters worse, Eitan felt that his social life was limited by the lingering effects of WWII: there was a disproportionate amount of elderly women, and he made few friends. The highpoint of his stay in the city was a part-time job he found thanks to the recommendation of the secretary of the University, one Frau Schmidt who had a contact at the Spanish Riding School. For 25 schillings a day, Eitan cleaned the stalls of the Lipizzaner stallions, but what he really did was watch. It was an eye-opening experience.
Prior to his stay in Vienna, Eitan’s familiarity with classical dressage had been limited to the times he could get away from military service or work in order to spend time with a Hungarian cavalry officer who was director of the Israeli National Stud at the time. His daily observations at the Spanish Riding School introduced Eitan to the reality of classical riding. It could be harsh. They did not start horses until they were
