Indomitable spirit baffles the medics

Peter Taylor

Peter Taylor's birthday is on March 18. He'll be 52, with a full life to look back on. Taylor has been a respected international equestrian rider and Olympic team stable manager. He was the founder of Auckland restaurant Le Brie and the equally memorable Surrender Dorothy bar in Ponsonby.

He's gay but has been engaged to be married twice. His work ethic is versatile - he has turned his hand to house cleaning, cooking, carpentry, sex work, anything to finance his number one passion of working with horses.

However, for Taylor to reach 52 is amazing. At this stage of his life, he finds he has become an international superstar for a most unusual reason. He is a medical mystery, the only person in the world who continues to survive long-term with the twin afflictions of being HIV-positive and the incurable parasitical disease known as Leishmaniasis donovani - caught from a sandfly bite.

The Leishmaniasis parasite destroys the white "fighter" cells generated in the bone marrow, but people with healthy immune systems can easily stave off its effects. The elderly, the very young, and HIV sufferers whose immune system is already corroded, are horribly vulnerable, and die within three to 20 months.

Taylor was diagnosed HIV-positive in 1985, and he was bitten by infected sandflies in 1992 in Barcelona, where he was stable manager for the Canadian Olympic equestrian team. He should have died at least 10 years ago.

Taylor has been warned four times over the past eight years to prepare for the end, and doctors who had used him as what's known as a "poster boy" in an international medical case study, have taken him off the list. They regard him as a freak.

"They thought they were on to something with me but after four years of the case study, they realised that everyone else was dying between three and 20 months," says Taylor, who is almost completely blinded by the aggressive chemotherapy used to fight the parasite. "So I must be some kind of freak. They took me off the international post because there was no further scientific evidence to show any correlation with all the other people who were still dying.

"In the end, as part of the conclusion, the doctors wrote that, 'we recognise that this client has an amazing spirit'. Now, doctors never write things that are ethereal like that, but there was no reason to understand why I should still be alive."

Taylor's autobiography, Don't Postpone Joy (Random House, $34.95), released this week, offers an insight into that indomitable spirit noted by the specialists.

It's in the pages and it's there when we meet him: his assured, jaunty stride around his central Auckland apartment never betraying his near-blindness. He's not carrying his cane and he's having what he calls a good day, having just come out of a period of chemo, with an eight-week break ahead before the cycle starts again.

How does he move about with such confidence? "I know my area. I carry my cane in places where I know there are going to be a lot of people or if I go into a building I don't know. If there is a lot of glass, I need to tap to make sure a door is open. Out of all of this I should have at least three nose jobs."

Until recently, Taylor had the company of his beloved dog, Barney. But just before Christmas, his doctors told him he was becoming resistant to the chemotherapy and the end, when (and if) it came, would be quick. He had to give Barney away, to be assured of his future welfare. Barney now lives on a lifestyle block in Helensville, and Taylor is alone. But then, at heart - apart from his animals - he always has been.

As Taylor tells it in his autobiography, boyhood was normal for a chubby lad growing up on a Northland farm, where life was sweet in an eel-catching, pet-lamb kind of way. His father gave him his first pony when he was 11, launching a lifelong passion, but the kilos piled on until he was the "fattest boy in school". He lost the excess weight when he was 20, and stayed fit and healthy for years.

Taylor's parents split up when he was 13 and his relationship with his mother, who was prone to mood swings and emotional manipulation, has been erratic since. He now has little to do with her, and is not sure she should read the book. His father, to whom he was close, died in 1995.

As with many children of dysfunctional parents, the adult Taylor would have difficulty forming committed, monogamous relationships. Animals - specifically horses, cats and dogs - were a different matter. "You can form a relationship with horses and dogs because you can trust them," he says. "They don't carry baggage like people. They don't look you in the eye and lie to you."

But his empathy with animals also led to an ability later to become a leader of people, as a trainer, restaurateur, bar manager and now a popular motivational speaker.

Taylor, a talented chef, was only 22 when he opened Le Brie, with partners Tony Adcock and Sarah Davidson. He started riding again, as a form of relaxation, on his days off and after a few years was accepted into the National Equestrian Centre, mentored by the venerable Lockie Richards.

Taylor's empathy with horses eventually led to successful three-day eventing, cross-country, training and management in New Zealand, Australia, England, and the United States. His career got a huge kick-start in 1979 when he discovered a shepherd's horse called Fez on a station near Dannevirke. As he describes it in the book, Fez was watching him closely from the stables and "I fell in love with the horse in that split second, and I am sure he felt the same about me".

Taylor persuaded the owner to sell the horse to him (for a mere $2000) and trained him to become a brilliant jumper and eventer. But other people also wanted Fez and, because of a bizarre series of threats related in the memoir, Taylor fled to England, with the horse shipped over soon after.

Taylor's hopes were high for the 1982 World Championships. Tragically, Fez's leg became seriously infected during a three-day event in Belgium and he had to be put down. It was a terrible shock.

"We had an immediate connection. We went to the top in two years, we were so in tune with each other. When I rode him, he made me look really good. I only had three and a half years with Fez but if I talk too much about his death, it still brings me undone ... more than 20 years later."

Taylor is sure his work with animals helped him to develop healthier relationships with people. "The principle of life is relationships in all shapes and forms but to develop this relationship with the animal you are training - a long-term goal in the three-day event world, maybe 10 years or more - is to capture and work with his talent, his personality and his intrinsic characteristics.

"The horse taught me the biggest skill I ever learnt: to think outside of myself. All of those wonderful adventures I had through the equine industry taught me skills that you can translate into how you deal with life and people. It is a very simple system."

Taylor has been taking strong medication for 18 years, and his pill intake has reduced from 480 pills a week to "only" 250. He says people ask him how he keeps going. "With long-term illness, one of the biggest things that knocks people to bits is chronic depression. So I won't go there because I'm not sure I could climb out of it," he explains.

"I keep a direction of always going forward. I guess it's part of a survival thing from all those years ago, as a kid believing in myself, always being optimistic. As a rider, I've had years of training to be positive; mentally and emotionally strong."

And his wish for March 18, the birthday no one thought he would have? "Send money," honks the ever-practical Taylor, who lives on a sickness benefit. "I don't need flowers. Send money."