Another smile. "Certainly not on the first meeting." He leaned into the fence, protecting his shirt from remnant dust with his forearm, and looked at Astoria now, rather than horse. "Most people think of a horse as just some other animal, albeit a larger, more noble one. Horses have more than one end to respect, however." He avoided saying dangerous, since it wasn't quite conducive to the atmosphere he was trying to promote, but he was sure she'd take his meaning.
Her question stopped him cold, not because of any blatant impropriety or because she'd interrupted him, but because he realised, in a single moment on a sunny day, that they'd never really discussed his childhood. He smile flattened out into a wistful expression. Daphne knew, of course, but he assumed that he wasn't the sort of thing that came up in conversation, much less memories from almost twenty years ago.
"I was around seven," he began, fingers rubbing lightly over the fence. He looked out at the horse. "Right after I learnt to walk."