For Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Geraldine Brooks, history is rich with stories and characters that can illuminate the complexities of human experience. At the centre of her most recent novel, Horse, is a particularly famous four-legged figure: Lexington, the legendary American racehorse. But part of what led Brooks to this story – and the complex layers of injustice that lay beneath it – was her own late introduction to horseriding. In this conversation with Griffith Review Editor Carody Culver, Brooks shares the genesis and evolution of her relationship with man’s second-best friend.

CARODY CULVER: You came to horseriding late – in a piece you wrote for Oprah Daily, you say, ‘I did not grow up in the kind of suburb where little girls got riding lessons… The only equines I saw in our inner-city neighbourhood belonged to the mounted police.’ How did these occasional sightings shape your childhood perception of horses? Did you have any other equine encounters when you were a child?