Volume 65 The Art of the Lusitano

Horses For

Volume 65

LIFE

Confessions of an Equine Bodyworker

How can we see a Collected Canter & What is the Wrong Lead

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“Offbeat Safaris, Rollkur and The Bouncing Basketball or Creating the Uphill Canter.”

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Volume 65 The Art of the Lusitano 268 pages of information.

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Content s

Preserving the Pure Carthusian Horse Art of the Lusitano - Book Excerpt Riding by Torchlight - In Africa Part 1 Intro to Dr. Heuschmann Interview Dr. Heuschmann Interview on Rollkur Jenny Rolfe: Breathe the Connection through Loose Work The Portuguese School of Equestrian Art - Book Excerpt Confessions of an Equine Body Worker How to Fix the Downhill Canter Anakalypsi: Choosing Us One Element of the Correct Canter The Wrong Lead

and more

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ART of the LUSITANO

by Pedro Yglésias de Oliveira

The original illustrations from Manoel Carlos de Andrade’s 18th century monumental text, Luz da Liberal, e Nobre Arte da Cavallaria, act as backdrops for the stars of today’s Portuguese School of Equestrian Art. Today’s living equestrian art juxtapose with the engraving art of the 18th century show amazing likenesses. The Portuguese School of Equestrian Art does a fantastic job of keeping traditional Portuguese equitation alive and thriving. The second part of the book features today’s competitive Lusitano stallions and their accomplished riders set in front of gorgeous colorful contemporary paintings. Pedro Yglésias de Oliveira is the official photographer of the Portuguese School of Equestrian Art. Published by Xenophon Press ART of the LUSITANO by Pedro Yglésias de Oliveira http://shop.xenophonpress.com/ART-of-the-LUSITANO-by-Pedro-Yglesias-de-Oliveira-6123.htm

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Art of the Lusitano

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Published by Xenophon Press

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Art of the Lusitano

ART of the LUSITANO by Pedro YglĂŠsias de Oliveira http://shop.xenophonpress.com/ART-of-the-LUSITANO-by-Pedro-Yglesias-de-Oliveira-6123.htm Horses For LIFE

Riding

By Torchlight In

Africa

By Susannah Cord for Horses For LIFE

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M

y heart is exploding, unfolding as the proverbial rose, the bountiful, tender petals releasing a perfume of sheer, unadulterated happiness that has no need for reason or rationale. I am alive, happy, filled to the brim, free and in this moment, timeless, wide open and wild at heart.

I smile and the savannah smiles back, offering up untold treasures and a Who’s Who list of her best offerings – leopard, lion, cheetah, a Martial Eagle glowering over his freshly killed prey, a newborn baby elephant. I am on horseback.

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Save Your Money and Pack Your Bags It’s all Barbara’s fault. Or, rather, to her credit.

When she came across the Youtube video from Offbeat Riding Safaris, she immediately sent it on to me with the ‘brooking no argument’ message that we were going. The message between the lines was clear Save your money and pack your bags. After watching the video, any skepticism or second thoughts were swept away, and the fever set in. Come hell or high water, Barbara was too right – I was going. I would find a way. Maybe it was the stirring, rhythmical music, the lone rider galloping recklessly alongside freewheeling wildebeest and towering giraffes. Maybe the elephant, silhouetted in dark majesty against a fuchsia sky, the deep gaze of the leopard in close up or the thrill sparked by the sight of riders in stark relief to the wild landscape around them. Maybe it was the call of a land that had haunted me for three decades.

Born a Dane, I spent three years in Kenya as a young child, and though I was only ten when we left, and although I subsequently spent 4 much loved years in Zimbabwe, it was Kenya that held me in her grip.

The longing for something indefinable that hung in

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the red dust and the spicy air of Kenya had settled in my heart, mixed in my blood and the residue still flavored my dreams.

There was no question in my mind – this was my chance to return. To return to a land that had lived in my dreams for 30 years, beckoning with a siren song of myth and fables, of cherished memories that may or may not have been fantasy. To return to a place I had once called home, and that had never quite ceased to hold that connotation for me. And I would do it from my favorite perch in the world – sitting on a horse.

A journey of a thousand miles….begins with two flights.

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It’s Sunday, 18 months and one postponement after Barbara’s fateful message, but we are finally on our way. We had been scheduled for a December ride, but just then there was a heightened security alert for travel to Kenya and we all decided to err on the side of caution. We regretfully postponed, but it is now March, our bags are packed and in the belly of the plane somewhere over the Atlantic ocean on our way to London. I start in

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the second seat of a 4 seat row, and in the far seat is a 400 lb man spilling into the seat beside him. A young couple pause by me, and in Danish the man declares that no way is his wife sitting next to the large man, who frankly, is leaving but half a seat for his fellow traveler. Nor, declares the husband, would they be asking me to switch seats. I thank him silently and almost let on that despite my American address I am Danish and understand every word, but decide to wait it out and see what is decided by the powers that be.

Frantic whispering ensues between the couple and airline personnel, and I sit quietly, considering the pitfalls of political correctness. No one is about to tell this gentleman that he is simply too fat to purchase just the one seat – he is literally occupying one and a half. Well, I re-

consider - Offbeat Safaris would. They clearly state a weight limitation on their fact sheet, and once I have read the itinerary, I can see why. You need to be in some kind of shape for this trip, and no horse could carry so large a man over these many rough and sometimes fast miles. I hope I am in as good a shape as I think I am, and I wonder about the horse I will meet in the African bush, a horse that will carry me over stick and stone, sand and bone.

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The plane is basically full, and they are in a fix.

Finally, as it seems they are at an impasse, I speak up. I suggest the obvious - find me a seat, and I will switch. Besides, I am not in a great seat to begin with, and who knows, I might get an upgrade.

I don’t, but instead find myself in another middle seat, but the gentlemen on either side are very entertaining Brits, and soon the steward is bringing me copious amounts of champagne which I share with my neighbors. I am now not only very popular with my countrymen and the personnel who declare I saved them from delaying the flight – I am positively a hero to my neighbors. As we disembark in Heathrow, I am handed a sealed bag of two excellent bottles of the champagne we have been imbibing since Dallas, courtesy of British Airways. Though they are a real pain to lug through the airport and security and so on, I am content, guessing this will make me popular for at least one night of the safari.

Plus, I am not sure I have ever been so well rewarded for doing one small – and right – thing. No matter my arms are falling off and I am getting odd looks for my extravagant parcel - Life is good.

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In London we switch flights and head to Nairobi. It’s a journey of somewhat more than a thousand miles, but I could not care less. I am jittery and the adrenalin is set to ‘constant release’. I am going back, I am going back. It is a refrain pumped through my veins by an eager heart. There are 6 of us in our little all female group, to be joined by two other unknown women from New York. I send our safari guides a warm thought and hope they are made of stern stuff. 8 women for ten days that could daunt even the toughest man and send a lesser one running screaming in the opposite direction, headed for Timbuktu.

Monday night we arrive in Nairobi and spill into an airport that feels more like a bazaar – low ceilings, warm stale air and to my tired eyes, what appears to be a maze of corridors lined with the inevitable souvenir shops as we turn right and left and right again, following signs that have seen better days. Everything looks just a touch grubby even though I can smell the Dettol in the air, a whiff of the ever-present disinfectant of my African childhood. I wait for what feels like an eternity for my luggage, but it finally arrives and I am only too happy to head for the open double doors and into an evening as refreshing as the inside of the airport was muggy and claustrophobic.

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We are met by Patricia, a pretty, smiling representative sent by Offbeat, and we all pile into the waiting mini bus. I breathe in the cool night air, filled with all the scents I recall so well as we weave through traffic and try to adjust to driving on what we consider the wrong side of the road. There is the smell of black exhaust mingling with an earthy spice unique to the ocher Kenyan dirt, and under it, notes of cooking fires and charcoal pits, a quick whiff of honeysuckle before the wind blowing through open windows once again carries to me only the scent of barely regulated traffic. It is a mêlée of beaten up cars, busses and bicycles, crowded matatus (a taxi that can be any vehicle holding as many people, as much luggage and possibly livestock as can pile in, hang on and sit tight), pedestrians and fancy cars with diplomatic license plates.

It is exactly as I remember it, and my anticipation for the days ahead continues to build. I laugh to myself as I listen to an inner, emotional version of Ravel’s Bolero, a one-movement orchestral piece that goes over and over the same notes and arrangements, only they keep building and building in intensity. That’s me, I think, a walking orchestra with only one tune to my name. Except mine is called Kenya, Kenya, Kenya...

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We are delivered safely to our hotel for a one night stay before heading out to the bush the next morning. Fairview Hotel is close by the Israeli Embassy and security is high – the shared road is an obstacle course of spikes, speed bumps and armed guards, and the hotel itself is ensconced behind high walls and security gates. Considering Nairobi’s low reputation for high crime rates, I find this somewhat comforting. Once inside, the grounds reveal themselves in twists and turns, a sprawling estate of charming colonial buildings, lush gardens, waterfalls and most importantly, I decide, a large eternity type pool. I am quietly amused as we pass by a group of men in the café on our way to our rooms – clearly diplomats, well dressed with a certain air of self importance and smug confidence about them and very comfortable as such. Just as I remember them. Fondly, I must add.

We are all - except one - a little concerned about the weight limitations enforced on the domestic flight we will be taking the next morning. It is a small plane, a 12 seater, and again and again we have been reminded that our luggage, including hand luggage, must not exceed 15 kilos. Try telling that to 8 women. Right. Good Luck and Good Night.

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We have long animated discussions about how impossible it is to meet this requirement, and we wryly talk about how we have packed, repacked, and packed again – only to still be anywhere from 2 to 5 kilos over. We try to reassure one another that it is just 8 of us on a 12 seater plane, so surely we will be fine. I look longingly at Luan-i’s luggage – she is the only person there who is not over the limit. I decide this is not fair, as she is short and I am tall. We both should be given extra weight allowance, Luan-i because she is so tiny and weighs about as much as a feather herself, and me, because I may be slim but I am all of 6 feet, and thus, by perfect reason, it is obvious my clothes will outweigh Luan-i’s by several kilos due to longer sleeves and pant legs, not to mention bigger shoes for my bigger feet. Besides, I have personally lost several kilos since the Christmas revels took their toll and surely those too ought to count towards luggage allowance.

No one outright disagrees with my reasoning, but then again, nor does anyone encourage me to try this argument on our host on the morrow. Instead, once in our rooms, we pack and repack, and put aside what we think we could, maybe, might, live without for the next ten days, to be given up should our pilot demand it.

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Finally I give up on the packing dilemma and head for the pool to stretch my limbs and clear my travel weary head. The evening is cool and the pool barely warmer, but it is heaven as I slip through the calm ripples set off by my swimming. I flip over on my back and lie there languidly, looking at the stars.

Already they look closer and more multitudinous than home, and I know that once in the bush, this city polluted sky above me will pale in comparison. I must - but I cannot - wait.

“No one outright disagrees with my reasoning, but then again, nor does anyone encourage me to try this argument on our host on the morrow.�

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Camp Olare Lamun We are up and at them by daybreak. Despite the long trip and short sleep I feel full of life and raring to go. Breakfast in the large dining room of the Fairview Hotel sets the mood – it is as lush, bountiful and multi layered as the hotel itself. Fresh fruit and warm bread, toast, bacon and eggs, cereal and omelets and a variety of juices – the world is our oyster. Not that oyster is on the menu this morning. But anything breakfast related is. I whoop silently to see a tray of Weetabix, a kind of rectangular, compressed block of cereal for which I never quite acquired the taste, but is a welcome piece of remembrance from childhood nonetheless. I am overwhelmed by choice and simply go for my usual morning routine – coffee, followed by a delicious sweet and tangy mix of mango and passion fruit juice and big chunks of newly peeled and prepared fruit. Papaya, mango, bananas, strawberries. Everything seems to taste sweeter and well, more like themselves compared to the store bought fruit back home. Inspired, I finish with a cup of Kenyan tea – it is heaven in a cup, strong and aromatic. We find out there is free internet and computers and we scurry off to send last minute messages to our loved ones back home. So far, so good. We have arrived.

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We gather in the spacious lobby on time – an impressive feat for 8 women, many of whom have just met for the first time yesterday – and await our bus to Wilson Airport, the hub of domestic flights to and from Nairobi. Once aboard, our senses are once again assailed by the smells and sights of a city alive in a way unknown to what we call western civilization – it’s loud, dirty and a strange mix of the urban and rural. As on the night before, I am hungrily inhaling the smell of Kenya, the red dust with a scent all it’s own stirring half forgotten memories that leave a fond smile lingering on my lips. It is a pellmell mix unique to Kenya, and to me, I begin to realize, it is the smell of home.

I feel welcome, restored, a thirst finally met. Vegetable plots with smoking cookfires lay closely tended next to high rise buildings and I spot a garden nursery bordered on three sides by what appears to be a dusty park shaded by my favorite tree, the Jacaranda, it’s tall, spreading, branches heavily laden with masses of it’s signature, trumpet shaped light purple flowers standing in stark contrast to the grey, trash filled filth of a neighboring slum and thirdly, a shiny office building.

TIA. This Is Africa. Mon.

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“This is Africa”

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“I am back in Africa, where there are no straight lines to anywhere, where directions are hazy at best and usually involve a tree, a cow and a fork in the road.�

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Katika Nuru Our driver turns on the radio and I listen in bemused shock – it plays the one song that I remember clearly from 30 years ago. It is a happy, jaunty tune and the only words I can ever remember spill out of the loud speakers: “ Jambo! Jambo Bwana! Habari gana?

Mzuri sana!� Hello! Hello Mister! How are you? Very fine!

Hello, think I. I am no Mister, but I am mzuri sana, for I am in Kenya.

We have a slight accident on our way to our plane. Having turned into Wilson Airport and passed through the main gates, it is a maze of squatting concrete buildings and signs pointing every which way but up, which I decide is ironic. It is an airport, after all.

People are loitering, walking, running, bicycling, driving, talking, laughing and staring as we trundle by. Our driver is uncertain of our drop off point - we drive a little this way, then a little that way. Even this has a familiar feel to it, a sense of yes, I am back in Africa, where there are no straight lines to anywhere, where directions are hazy at best and usually involve a tree, a cow and a fork in the road.

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Finally, our driver stops to ask for directions. When he maneuvers to turn around, he backs into something hard and unyielding. A large crunch indicates the demise of the rear window, and days later I find little shards of glass in my luggage. But the window as a whole holds, our driver appears very nonchalant and I am just waiting for him to shrug and offer up a Hakuna Matata (There are no worries), a phrase made universally popular by the movie and Broadway musical, The Lion King. But he remains silent and just drives on and we find our way to the drop off spot, an unimpressive, not very airport looking door in one of the many large nondescript buildings that we have passed that all lay next to other large nondescript buildings. The only difference seems to be that some have the lush bougainvillea, a dark green and deep fuchsia flowering vine, growing on them and some don’t. No wonder it was hard to find.

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We tumble out of the bus and lug our luggage through the door, where we are met by a metal detector and x-ray machine that both appear as if they have been there since the beginning of their time, grey, beaten up and well marked. Once through this obstacle we weave through a throng of touristy looking people towards floor to ceiling windows with a view of the airstrip, and past a tall, older man in green shorts and shirt with greyish-blond, ruffled hair who is looking at us in a slightly bewildered fashion, as if so many women in one spot is bending the rules of common decency.

Who let the women out? Pausing before the doors that lead to the tarmac and waiting planes, I turn and see him coming after us.

“Are you our pilot?’ I ask, trying to be helpful.

“No,” says he, “I am your guide.”

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We have just met Tristan Voorspuy, owner/operator of Offbeat Safaris. He breaks into a smile and if I had any doubt before, it evaporates in the gleam of that smile. I know we’ll be alright. He reminds me of so many of his breed that I have met and spent time with in Africa over the years of my childhood and youth – men that have exchanged or left behind the comforts of home and hearth and the known parts of the hemisphere and cultures to explore the rough interior of lands unknown, taking chances every day that would have left the commoner listless for a year. They are a can-do people and there is a certain wicked sense of humor and stark sense of reality that such men embody, an outright denial of political correctness supported by the nuts and bolts of their existence, yet softened by a sense of grace and decency accompanied by an insistence on as much chivalry as circumstance allows. Which is not always much, but they do try.

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That said, I also know that if anyone knows how to ‘cowboy up’ as the saying goes in Texas, it is men such as he, and he will expect no less of us. It was practically stated in our fact sheet and itinerary, sentences such as “You should be comfortable at all paces and able to gallop out of trouble. We ride in big game country.” In other words, if we come across a hungry lion or an angry buffalo, be ready and willing to rock and roll – without question. If they say go, you go, and do for God’s sake take your horse with you. The faster, the better, hell bent for leather.

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We meet our pilot, who is not Tristan – he is Duncan, a young man from Johannesburg, South Africa. Without a second glance he piles our luggage into the single engine 12-seater, and I am not sure whether to be relieved or offended. All that effort and worrying – for nothing! I settle on relieved. After all, were we 12 people about to board that plane, I have no doubt our pilot would be very concerned and making us toss the extra suntan lotion. A little plane can only carry so much.

But we are only 8, and we get to keep all of our belongings. We lift off into the African sky, breathlessly aware that our adventure is just beginning.

Duncan turns our plane in a wide arc and Tristan starts guiding. There is a huge slum that holds some 4 million people, a staggering statistic in view of what appears to be a relatively

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small area. There the Nairobi skyline, the Nairobi Thoroughbred racetrack, and the Nairobi polo grounds. A little wildlife is spotted as we slice through the air above the Nairobi National Park, zebra mostly, and then we are headed west over the roiling Kikuyu Highlands and on to traversing the Great Rift Valley pockmarked with ancient, burnt out volcanoes.

They cling to the faintly green smear of the plains like great taupe barnacles, rising boldly out of the sweeping valley only to collapse in upon themselves, mere lifeless shadows of a once fiery extravaganza of nature’s wrath. It is all as vast and amaranthine as I thought it should be, and my spirit soars with the plane even as my stomach occasionally plummets when we hit the little bumps and bruises of the early morning, swiftly warming air.

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Tristan points out Mount Suswa and pleased to see this known point of interest, I tell him my father named his sailboat Suswa after this once smoldering volcano. It strikes me that I have never asked my father why he chose to name his handsome, shiny sailboat after a dusty old crater, after all, the previous one was named after Ganesha, the Hindu deity known as the destroyer of obstacles and evil, or, as one Hindu once told me, call him the God of Luck – kind of a handy guy to have around when you are sailing in open waters. What did an old hole in the ground have to offer that was so special?

I have no recollection of climbing the crater, and yet, I think now, the very area in which it resides has a powerful pull on me.

As long as I can recall, the very words Great Rift Valley have perked my ears and interest and instigated an intense sense of longing, as if some great, magnificent mystery lay buried in the sand, a mystery particular to me, calling to me, waiting for me, hidden just below the surface and out of sight. It’s just Kenya, I would think. Anything to do with Kenya catches your fancy, you silly git. It gets under your skin, in your blood, messes with your mind. It’s the dusty reddish brown dirt with it’s aroma of exotic seasoning heavy in the hot afternoon and 50

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faintly teasing in the cool night breeze. It’s memories of the warm, tropical showers of pounding rain and days of white beaches and swimming in an ocean of impossible clear aquamarine, fish like shoals of rainbows flitting before my eyes like tame butterflies. It’s the fresh milk of a green coconut on a hot day, and just picked cashews roasted in a tin pan over an open fire in front of a mudhut, offered in unexpected hospitality by a toothless, grinning old man. It’s the picturesque, flat-topped acacia trees throwing shade as they stand tall on golden plains – straight as arrows, or crooked and leaning into an unassailable wind, but always majestic, regal, silhouetted against a fathomless horizon of rare blue.

“As long as I can recall, the very words Great Rift Valley have perked my ears and interest and instigated an intense sense of longing, as if some great, magnificent mystery lay buried in the sand, a mystery particular to me, calling to me, waiting for me, hidden just below the surface and out of sight. It’s just Kenya, I would think.”

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It’s all that and a history romanticized in books, movies and your very own mind. Out of Africa, The Flametrees of Thika, I Dreamed of Africa, West with the Night. I have read and seen them all, anything pertaining to Kenya, an irresistible magnet.

Yet now, looking out at the abiding land below me I wonder if there is more to this fanciful mystery of mine, a far more ancient, archaic and original meaning.

The propeller is loud and overpowering, making conversation difficult. Instead I sit and look out at what is known as The Cradle of Mankind. It was here that what is believed to be the origins of man were discovered in the early seventies, a pile of bones named Lucy becoming the most famous and emblematic of the discovery. Now 40 years later, genetic memory is all the rage, as is talk of DNA markers that allow scientists to trace our individual origins back to times lost to any known records of history, back to a time when man was still a regular on the food chain and relied on nature and his own instincts, senses, strengths and an innate intelligence that assimilated them all into corresponding action. We are walking records of history, computers of flesh and blood, yet we have barely begun to realize or try to unlock the buried records in our bones, the libraries of time gone by written in our very marrow.

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I scoff at what feels a little like foolishness, and yet I keep coming back to the thought like a dog worrying a bone. What if? Could there be some tiny, fragile spark of primordial cognizance that whispers out to me from behind barred doors and through cracks in the wall, a scent so faint it only teases like a broken promise, a cognizance that defies intellectual reasoning and cannot be identified in mere scrapings of bone in a test tube? What if my bones are remembering a time when I was an integral part of nature, not just popping in and taking her out to lunch for a few hours because it makes me feel like a good citizen and sends me home with a few good tales to tell. You won’t BELIEVE what she did now!

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What if this far off singing, longing, rushing in my blood as I look out over Rift Valley is really this very innate intelligence remembering a time when this was my paradise, a time when I understood the mystery of life or had no need to, simply was, because this was my place and nature was indeed my mother, my reason and grounds for living because without her, there would be nothing and no one? What if I had no need to conquer, betray and enslave her because I trusted in and knew what God looked like because God was all around me, represented in every tree, beast, bush, hard won meal and this was understood, without question, that we are not separate and cannot out-think God or his accomplice, good old Mother Nature?

What if‌

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I wrench myself back to the present. We are looking out at pale beige plains lightly dusted with green and dotted with trees with nary a road in sight, and the dust of a dry land thirsty for the impending rainy season leaves a slight haze blurring our sight in every direction. Nonetheless, we can spot the round kraals of the Maasai, tiny villages unto themselves, the manure darkened dirt of the centrally located enclosures indicating where they keep their livestock at night, the whole of it surrounded by brushfencing and the mud caked huts of the villagers. It has been this way for as long as we have known the Maasai, and likely for centuries before, a people that have come to an understanding with a nature that can be as harsh and unforgiving as she can be suddenly bountiful and extravagant in her constant search for balance. Yet now there are changes in the

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“I realize it won’t be long now and my heart skips a beat.

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I can’t wait to get there, to put my two feet on the solid ground and to meet my horse, to then put his four between my two and the dirt.”

air, I spot flashes of reflected light that can only be coming from glass or metal. No mud, brush or cow ever shone like that. I wonder at the implications and what changes I will see once we begin our journey through Maasai territory.

I realize it won’t be long now and my heart skips a beat. I can’t wait to get there, to put my two feet on the solid ground and to meet my horse, to then put his four between my two and the dirt.

I will not have to wait long.

Soon we are flying over the rolling greens of Loita Hills that have been the lucky recipients of some early rains, and despite my anticipation, I am almost surprised when the 45 minute flight is over, and we land at the little dirt airstrip at Siana Springs.

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We are met by two vehicles, a host of Maasai hawking their goods and Archie Voorspuy, Tristan’s 19 year old son and fellow guide. A week later, I am asked by Milo, a lifelong friend of Archie’s, if I will be mentioning Archie in my story. Sure, I say, he has been an integral part of our trip, I can hardly leave him out. Milo informs me that he was once mentioned in an article on the subject of his parent’s safari camp, described as a ‘tanned young man’. We amicably agree this description can not, for the moment at least, be applied to Milo who has just arrived back in Kenya on Easter

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break from his studies in the UK (on beer and women, he breezily declares), and is decidedly not tanned, but Archie certainly is just that – a tanned, young man. He is also polite and free with an easy smile, though I think I sense a certain uncertainty at the prospect of ten days in our all female company. If I’m right, I can’t say I blame him. It’s not even like we had the decency to bring along a teenage bathing beauty. The youngest among us is a whopping 28, and it rises steadily, mercilessly, from there. Nonetheless, after we say our goodbyes to Duncan, Archie cheerfully helps Tristan get us all loaded up and with our guides at the wheels of the Land Rovers we head north towards our first camp, Olare Lamun – Rhino Saltlick.

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We have plopped down in the Maasai Mara, a national game reserve of some 1500 square kilometers in the southwest region of Kenya. Renowned for it’s Maasai people and an abundant wildlife, as well as the famous Wildebeest Migration, it does not disappoint – right off the bat, we begin to spot wildlife. We have barely driven 100 yards through the thirsty grass and drooping bush before baboons make their presence known, walking along on all fours in supreme confidence, a confidence surely not based upon their looks. This is one ugly ape, and scary to boot. Their canines can strip you to the bone, and they are known to be ferocious fighters.

Their big red bums are mildly repulsive and their beady little close set eyes hardly make up for the lack of posterior beauty. Still, there is some ooh’ing and aaw’ing when we spot a mother baboon with her infant hanging from her belly, proving that all babies are considered cute, no matter the species or appearance of parents.

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The bumpy, rutty road through softly undulating land dotted with trees and bushes soon draws comment and laughter, and Barbara promises she will never again complain about my half mile long, somewhat rustic driveway. I settle happily into my seat 66

as memories of days spent bumping along just such rutty roads in our family station wagon compete with the present. But the thought of impending game soon has me on my toes and comfy seats notwithstanding, it is not long before most of us are riding up top the Land Rover. There are cushions provided that tie to rails along the roof, and I can sit here quite comfortably, hands grasping the rails, feet braced against the ledge opposite the one I sit on, a simple rectangular hole in the roof giving access to a whole other game viewing experience than the one found within the walls of the Rover below me, my view unimpeded and all my senses all involved.

The sun is warm on my shoulders, the breeze blows merrily in my face, flipping up the soft edges of my sunhat making me look alternately like Elmer Fudd and a quirky cowgirl with her hat pinned merrily up on one side of her head.

The Land Rover is a roughshod, cantankerous horse given to humping it’s back threateningly over potholes and lumpy bits of the bare land that passes for a track, but it’s fun in that childlike joy in the unexpected and non-ordinary kind of way, and we are all given to giggling and laughing as we thump along and bounce with every revolution of Horses For LIFE

the wheels. It’s a sense of freedom akin to the way I feel free on the back of a horse, no walls to hold me in, no roof between me and the unbound sky above, only a thin layer of cotton to dull the air beating softly, refreshingly, at my body. I am close as lovers to the elements and if it rained now, I would stay where I was and let it soak me as a lover’s touch.

The arid, bittersweet scent of bush and game are clinging to my skin and my nose drinks it in, every twist and turn of the road presenting a new tinge, a slight variety on the moment before, here sweeter, here tangy, here fresh and oh dear, here stinky like a dead animal rotting in the sun. Up here we spot game sooner, and it seems, around every bend, the sights coming in rapid succession – the first exclamation of discovery heard upon spotting the elegant and petite (and ever present) Thomson’s Gazelle. They delight with their daintiness, tiny and deer-like with their fawn colored backs, black flank stripe and white belly, their delicate legs stepping through the grass like ballerinas in a beatnik dance.

We survive another massive rut in the road and erupt with glee as we are rewarded by the appearance of scattered zebra, gazing out at their artful stripes and sturdy bodies in cheerful contrast to the thirsty grasses all around them, their foals drawing exclamations of adoration.

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Among the handsome zebra we spy a handful of the prehistoric looking wildebeest, an altogether different sight with their hunched shoulders and long beards, a somber almost sullen presence in juxtaposition to the jaunty confidence of the strutting zebra. Fingers point in agitation and I relish the appearance of warthogs trotting off in their rapid, tail-and-nose-in-the-air posture, an absurdly purposeful manner about them and the square’ish nose and curved tusks that lead the way as if they really know where they are going, though mostly they seem to just kind of‌mill about.

In the Land Rover, reality is setting in and the atmosphere is in turns giddy, solemn and awestruck as Kenya begins to reveal her riches to our greedy eyes.

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Sheer joy erupts at the sight of giraffe. Their stilt like legs and softly arched necks rise against the horizon, and we admire the strength and massive bodies of a few males mingling with the more delicate females. Their eyes are large, dark with thick eyelashes, gently curious, and their heads swivel on graceful necks to watch us pass. When they move, the impossibly long almost awkward legs belie the grace with which they canter in impossible slow motion, perfectly balanced by an intelligence of nature that will always be superior to the intellect of man.

We arrive, elated, at our camp, Olare Lamun, a lovely green spot shaded by enormous, flat -topped Acacia trees watered by a slow little river that Tristan mentions flows year round. Accustomed to our Texas creek that flows only part time and often in sudden bursts of flash flood only to dry up again, I am oddly pleased and slightly

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envious at this notion. We meet the main crew – cooks Phillip and Clement, mess waiters Timothy and Dennis, as well as the rest of a shy but pleasant ten man crew including the keepers of our tents and grooms of the horses.

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The names come in rapid succession and I am left knowing only the ones I see daily, including our tent keeper, Wilson, tall, bald and lanky with an ear to ear smile. He tells me he will be looking after us – that is, my roommate and I – from beginning to ‘the very, very end’. I feel looked after already just looking at his kind face and warm brown eyes, and I return his smile with a heartfelt ‘Thank you, Wilson!’ I feel gratitude for the moment well up and I want to hug him but I think that may not be well met – or appropriate. After this, I can’t say hello to Wilson without thinking of Tom Hanks and his volleyball in the movie Castaway, but it only endears him to me even further and helps me remember his name. With his oval head he doesn’t look much like a volleyball, and thankfully, is rather more animated.

My ‘roomie’ Elaine and I pick tent number 1, and this green canvas tent with it’s two camp beds and a small night table will be ours for the duration of the trip, as will the water canister, cups and

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mirror sitting on a table at the tent entrance under the awning. We will be moving camp several times, and this arrangement makes for ease of organization and less confusion as Wilson and his coworkers take down and pack up our tent and beds only to set them up again, a total of 4 times before the safari is over and we head to the Voorspuy’s Deloraine House for our last few days in Kenya.

The tents are spread out in the bushes and our tent is set well back in the grove, surrounded by a lush, green profusion of shrubbery under the towering, spreading trees, and we are well pleased with our choice. Though we can all see each other through gaps in the brush, it feels secluded and cozy, steeped in a sense of camping in the freewheeling splendor that is nature. The brick and concrete of civilization is a receding memory that I am only too happy to surrender and I step eagerly towards this new present, that is indeed a gift in itself. The trees above me whisper in the wind, and I feel restful, grateful and content to be living beneath their canopy, even if just for a few days.

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Standing quietly, considering the atmosphere that is like breathing manna, I wonder what it is about trees‌ they draw me like a bee to pollen, with some inner conviction that they have a wisdom, an offering that will send me home all the richer for knowing them, simply by being in their presence. To sleep under them is sublime, with no intellect to overanalyze and shut the door on their whisperings or so I decide as I take another deep breath and close my eyes. I am trying to listen with something other than my ears, and a faint stirring in my heart is the reply, a subtle response in my skin. I think of the ancient wis-

dom of druids and wise women that knew of such things, that knew of the significance of trees and herbs and all the lore that has been lost to a past steeped in a fear of sorcery and a modern age obsessed with scientific proof. An age that scoffs at oral traditions and hard earned experience, instinct and intuitive knowledge even as the most fundamental questions remain unanswerable by microscopes and machines.

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Surely, argues on an insistent voice in my head that simply will not be denied, surely in that tiny seed or acorn that grants them life is hidden all the wisdom of the ages as it is hidden in our bones, all the extractions of the history of trees intermingling with that of man and beast, written in some ancient script hidden on the inside of what passes for their bones. I shrug and allow for anything being possible.

Looking up at the vast crowns and well sprung limbs of the acacia, I wonder at what they have seen, what power they must feel in the depths of their roots as they draw up the water of the nearby spring and lean into the wind when it comes calling. What do they think of the monkeys and birds that nest in their limbs and what do they think of us who come seeking their novelty only to leave in a rush? What could I learn if I spoke Tree? I warm inwardly at the thought, a childhood dream not yet extinguished.

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Our toilet is a tall, square tent behind our abode, raised over a hole dug in the ground, with a rickety wooden seat – we are warned to alight gently lest the seat collapse. Apprehensive giggling ensues. There are two showers, more simple green canvas stalls under a tree with a rope slung over a branch holding the inevitably green canvas bucket outfitted with a showerhead and a lever to control the flow. I airily wonder if trees can be classified as voyeurs, because they are about to have a first row seat to all these ladies and their ablutions. Though all drinking water is bottled and pristine, and the ice is industrial ice guaranteed to be clean, our washing water will be river water warmed on the fire. Now I know we are camping, and I feel just a little girlish and giddy all over again.

This is fun!

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Drinks are served at the long table set down in the speckled shade outside the mess tent, and we are given the ‘rules and regulations of camp’ talk by Tristan, as well as an overview of the afternoon. First up is a scrumptious lunch, salads, cold meats and fresh baked bread, then we are released for afternoon siestas before an early evening ride. I marvel at the delicious, aromatic bread fresh out of a camp oven, what appears to be a cabinet of sorts placed over a fire, and in the days to come, I will be continually impressed at the meals that come out of a simple camp kitchen consisting of a few worn wooden tables under an awning, assorted campfires and a simple grill. I can barely cook in a modern kitchen, never mind what passes for one 80

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out here in the wilderness. The salad is fresh, sweet and crunchy, the tomatoes juicy ripe and the avocadoes rich and creamy, and along with the smoked meat and salty salami I am left feeling my hunger has been well met.

Before I wander off, Tristan takes me to meet the horses, and my inner Dressage Queen, however well prepared she was that these horses would not be sporting the plump toplines of her DQ dreams, is a little startled at just how lean these horses are. But their coats shine with health, they are sparse but not gaunt and I remind myself that these horses are more akin to endurance horses and marathon runners than my nice plump little arena dancers. Though my horses go on hacks, jump and are asked to work for a living, and hard, there is no comparison to the demands made on these lanky and fit horses that will carry us for up to 50 kilometers a day.

Furthermore, they were just driven some 8-10 hours and 280 kilometers over rough roads to the campsite the day before, and as Tristan’s wife Cindy tells us later on in the week, a horse can lose as much as 5 kilos an hour on a hard lorry ride. For all I know, these horses just sweated off the equivalent of a small person the day before we met. In fact, they may have been positively fat just a few days ago. I seriously doubt my horses could even stand up after such a drive over challenging roads, and these horses look positively perky.

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“They were just driven some 8-10 hours and 280 kilometers over rough roads to the campsite the day before�

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I am introduced to Libra who will be my mount for the next week. Libra is a tall, gangly, chestnut Thoroughbred gelding with a convex forehead. As requested, due to my own height, he is about 16.1 hands and maybe 6 years old. With a herd of some 90 horses back at the Voorspuy’s magnificent colonial home, Deloraine House, Tristan gets a little iffy on non-significant facts such as a horse’s age. I look him over – the horse that is - and feel well pleased by his kind eye and good bone, and decide I am going to like the young fellow.

I just hope he likes me, too, because we are about to embark on a hard, week long ride and he will be doing most of the work. A thrill begins to work it’s way from my toes to the top of my head as I contemplate what lays ahead, a 7 day journey across Kenya, a land of beauty and legend that has held me in her thrall from afar these past 30 years.

Now I will see her again, not from the back seat of a station wagon but from the back of a horse, and a good one by the looks of it. All those years of daydreaming as we bumped along on family outings are finally coming true. Back then, a magnificent white horse that may or may not have wings was my constant companion. As we drove the long distances from home to destination I was never bored as my phantom friend ran, frolicked, gamboled, leaped and sometimes

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A thrill begins to work it’s way from my toes to the top of my head as I contemplate what lays ahead, a 7 day journey across Kenya, a land of beauty and legend that has held me in her thrall from afar these past 30 years. flew, his great wings beating in majestic accordance with the thumping of my heart alongside our car. He never had a name, there was no need, he simply was, and the sight of him brought me joy.

Why is it, I wonder as I let my hand run down Libra’s neck, not white but a rich coppery chestnut but I will not be picky, why is it that anything looks better from the back of a horse? Why are our emotions greater, grander, why do we feel such freedom, and elevated in majesty that all regents through time wanted to be depicted on the back of a handsome horse?

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Is it, as has been suggested to me, because we are taller and more imposing when we sit upon the beast, because the speed we borrow from the horse heats our blood and whips our adrenalin to a frenzy, leaving us out of breath and full of endorphic euphoria? Is it because the horse lends us a sense of freedom leaving behind the mundane as his four feet take us further, faster and over obstacles we could never clear on our own two in such high fashion? Is it that horses, like us, lend themselves to cultivation, to learning and facilitation of honing of skills, and that their innate intelligence and sensitivity in fact mirror our own? Maybe it is because when we sit on their backs, a representation of symbolic elevation in spirit and spiritual growth, leaving the earthly and the commonplace in the soil, we also sit above their hearts in alignment with our own and they connect us with an earthy intelligence and knowing we have all but lost. Perhaps these hearts of horses that em-

“When we sit on their backs, a representation of symbolic elevation in spirit and spiritual growth, leaving the earthly and the commonplace in the soil, we also sit above their hearts in alignment with our own and they connect us with an earthy intelligence and knowing we have all but lost.�

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body a latitude of generosity and kindness seldom found in our own lend a sense of what can be found if sought, what may be won if fought, and what we may become if only we would try.

The horses of Offbeat Safaris look tough and capable and beautiful in their rugged capacity, emanating a sense of inner strength and endurance that I find appealing and comforting - I feel like I can place my life in their hands and not be disappointed. Or wake up dead. They have the look of horses that know and accept their job and still think for themselves. A good combination, I’m thinking, when traversing territory riddled with large, possibly hungry, cats.

Mainly home bred and schooled, they are largely Thoroughbreds and Thoroughbred crosses, and Tristan tells me they are now looking forward to the most recent addition to their crops from a new stud – an Irish Draught horse. They are only a few years into the line, and are getting close to starting the first babies. Archie, who recently spent time in Australia with a colt starter is in charge of the gentling of young horses, and from there, the horses go on to play polo, and some will go on to event with Tristan’s accomplished wife, Cindy. By the time they hit the savannah turf, so to speak, they are hardy, responsive and infinitely rideable. All required traits on such an endeavor as ours.

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With this cheering experience under my belt along with my lunch, I head for the tent and a little lie down. After a nap spent mostly half awake, meditating and listening intently to the wind in the leaves, sounds of camp, the local birds and soft chatter of the staff, we head back to the horses around 4 PM and find them saddled and ready to go. We may be camping, but we are not exactly roughing it. The saddles vary – polo, Australian, general purpose. Libra is saddled in a polo saddle, and I experience a momentary twinge of concern. I have been no fan of the previous polo saddles I have ridden where due to the extraordinary demands on the polo rider the stirrups have far more latitude than my saddles at home, and I felt it difficult to keep

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my long legs under me where I am the most accustomed and comfortable. But just one minute in this saddle and I decide it not only fits the horse, it fits me, and was well chosen for us both. I make a mental note to thank Tristan which is soon forgotten in the rush of new and novel experiences that follow.

The bridles are uniformly outfitted with thick snaffles and placed over nylon halters, the leadrope looped and tied around the horse’s neck, a standing martingale comfortably fitted so we have a cheat strap when the going gets rough. We are offered to mount up with

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the aid of a large metal box doubling as a mounting block, though this once I decide to mount without it, from the ground, just to prove that I can - I am somewhat concerned that years of using a mounting block has left me soft, and I know I can’t count on a mounting block magically appearing everywhere we go in the Kenyan bush. So I grit my teeth, offer Libra my apologies for what is about to occur, and stick my foot in the stirrup. He may not have wings, but then neither do I, as I am about to prove. To my relief, though it is perhaps not me at my most graceful, and wings would have come in handy, I am quite capable still of climbing onto a horse’s back, and Libra is not looking too put out. But then, he is a very kind soul with the aforementioned generous heart.

Everyone aboard, we set out, bearing more or less northeast. I think. I am all turned around and direction was never my strong suit. My husband would say I am a feather to each wind that blows. So far, it has served me well and I think the wind that blew me here, to this very moment, is no exception. The horses are fresh and the mares opinionated, but Libra soon has me putting my faith comfortably in his care. Although he feels narrow and slightly unbalanced compared to my usual mounts at home, I soon grow accustomed

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He is willing, easy going, yet ready to move. When we try out our first trot across a large grassy hillside, all the horses pick up a fast and jaunty trot, eager to get a move on, and I revel in the familiar movement of a posting trot in unfamiliar territory and the surroundings so unlike my arena and neighboring fields at home that pass for my – now already decidedly mundane - hacks.

I think we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto, I think as the African bush, red, yellow and green, opens up before us and the horses spread out like a fan, egging each other on across the open patch of dry grass. To my delight, I recognize in my speech a long forgotten Swahili word. Toto - small child, young animal. I am a child at heart, I realize, a child of this green earth we call home, and I can imagine no better way to explore her bounty than from the back of this horse who has remained present and accounted for during my momentary lapse of attention.

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“I am a child at heart, I realize, a child of this green earth we call home, and I can imagine no better way to explore her bounty than from the back of a horse.�

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I return to find his stride open, smooth and swinging, and when it develops into an easy canter, Libra is covering the rough ground with aplomb, balanced and flowing over the patchy grass and red soil, avoiding the occasional hole of his own volition. I am looking around, trying to suck it all in, the air, the earth, the trees, the horses around me with their ears perked and riders perched. I think this must be heaven and joy is bubbling, the joy of a good horse, a nice easy gallop, the wind whipping tears from my eyes and a feeling of reconnecting to a reality that grounds us all if we’d but let it, that of earth, wind, fire and rain. Libra is heating up, he is strong, eager but not yet pulling and we settle into a mutually comfortable balance and rhythm.

I sigh a breath of relief – I am definitely going to like this horse. We are floating over the plains in unison with the soaring of my heart. He could almost have had wings. I am feeling poetic.

The ride goes through the creek, the land rolling and soon we are deep in grass, acacia trees, thornbushes…and game. I begin to feel nature gently closing in and crowding out the modern world still buzzing ever so faintly in my head as my heart tentatively cracks open, and that insistent sense of belonging begins to cackle loudly. I told you so!

You wouldn’t listen, oh no, you had all the excuses, all the rationalization and analyzation, THAT ISN’T EVEN A WORD I try to break in, but here you are, the voice carries on, and You. Are. Screwed! You will never be the same!

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Indeed, I am in her thrall once more as I trust Libra to put his feet where they must, and let the wind sing softly in my ears, my eyes roving constantly, some sense of prehistoric alertness trying to assert itself. I know there is a way to let one’s eyes soften and take in the irregularities that signal hidden game, but it’s been a long time since I practiced that skill. It is a way of seeing with your heart, not your mind, and I am reminded of a Cherokee saying: “Listen! Or your tongue will make you deaf.” The same, I consider, applies to the mind, all those should have, could have, did you, should you, could you voices drowning out the quiet, still voice of instinct and intuition, of sensory intelligence, a voice not exactly valued by a rational, intellectual mind. And yet it is the voice that kept our ancestor’s seed alive for eons, and out here the very thought forms, all that intellectual analysis that we value so highly in our cities of stone and steel, would get us killed in a heartbeat. Apart from anything else, they are just too damn slow.

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We spot a giraffe, then another, and another – by the time we are done counting, we are amazed. Even Tristan is impressed. It is a herd of some 29 giraffe, an unusually large grouping, and they are all watching us as closely as we are watching them, and it seems, with equal amounts of amazement and curiosity. This turns out to be a hallmark of our giraffe experience – they are as curious as cats. The horses are calm but attentive as we inch closer and closer, admiring a male giraffe with a light colored head and face, not to mention a massive chest above spindly legs, all covered in the magnificent patchwork unique to their species.

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Closer and closer we carefully creep at oblique angles, never straight at them, slowly moving around even as we move ever closer. Tristan explains that though they can fall victim to lions, they own a ferocious kick and this likely puts off most predators. As youngsters, however, they can be somewhat vulnerable, especially as giraffe mothers do not exactly crowd their children, but may be found wandering quite some distance apart. Perhaps they rely so heavily on their height and superior view of the landscape that they find it unnecessary to be quite so close as another species would choose. Indeed, we often find giraffes surrounded by zebra and antelope, all relying on the giraffes for an early warning should a predator approach.

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I am sitting on an alert Libra thinking that as much as I love nature shows, there is just no comparison here to sitting on a couch watching giraffes on TV. Out here, with the added challenge of controlling a horse below me while respecting the space of my fellow riders, obeying Tristan’s whispered directions while tip-toeing through the secrecy of the surrounding bush and around the giraffes towering above us, the giraffes go from cute and mildly interesting to suddenly, intensely personal.

They are questioning my ability to truly take in their presence in this, the ultimate, immersible, surround sound experience. They won’t just go away at the press of a button, and they will stay with me for life even if I don’t put them on Tivo. They. Are. So. Tall. Had I really forgotten how tall they are? Had I forgotten the wet, dark depths of their enormous eyes and the time-shifting trick of their movement? The intricate meandering of the yellow cream among the islands of brown that pass for their hide and their silly, little tails that seem almost an afterthought of nature? Why did none of this seem to really register – until now? They are no longer just giraffes. They are one of nature’s most incredibly odd, quirky, beautiful and endearing creatures. And they are causing me untold joy.

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Nonetheless, I am also thinking it is somewhat difficult to relate to a mother leaving her child wandering the African savannah on his own with some 100 feet between them, as well as possibly a pride of lions in the middle, but then again, Mother Nature is nothing if not Politically Incorrect. Everyone is not a winner and we all don’t get along. Lions eat the slowest, the weakest and the infirm and there’s no life insurance or guarantee of survival never mind benefits. Nobody is entitled to what they have not earned, and if you snooze, you lose, you don’t get a booby prize, and frankly, nobody cares. It’s the ultimate reality show.

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We sit quietly, I feel the sun on my back and the sweetly pungent, almost horsy scent of giraffe in my nose waking long slumbering nerve cells. The cogs and wheels of my brain are shifting gears, and I am thinking the Kardashian’s and the world at large just maybe could use a big dose of this. We’re a long way from Manhattan but we are awash in the real thing and I rather prefer this jungle where the rules are clear and fair in the most original sense, and personal responsibility is not just a cute concept but a survival technique.

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Libra lends me his heart and eyes and ears, never mind his feet and back, and I can sit easy, left to watch the potentially gamin young giraffes and thinking my slow trickle of thoughts. I know all this intellectual grand standing is what is supposed to separate us from the four legged beasts, but although Nature can be rough and tough and merciless, and to be quite honest, I’d probably rather not be at her beck and call, I have never seen nature behave in quite as beastly a fashion or perhaps more to the point, for such absurd reasons as I see humans do on a daily basis. I am wondering if the advance of intellectual thought and the industrial and technical revolution, however conducive to daily comforts, are not in fact the ultimate disconnect from a reality that ironically is the basis of our very existence, the earth upon which we walk, live, experience life and the nature upon which we depend to breathe and eat. I used to think drugs were the most advanced form of dissociation from an authenticity of existence, but now – well, now I wonder.

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Deep in thought I am woken from my reverie as every now and then a horse startles at a nearby giraffe breaking into a slow motion canter, seeming to pause in midair with the gangly legs gathered underneath them in an uphill pose. It’s an angular yet magnetically graceful, loping gait that floats to a halt after just a few feet, followed by a slow turning of the head with restful eyes watching us once more, dense lashes batting in our general direction. I am charmed and fascinated, delighted and thrilled to have a full ten days ahead still. I know from experience how swiftly this time will pass, and I take a moment to bask and rest in the glow of the sense of so much time still ahead.

And Time plays along and stands still by my side, as the horses and giraffes alike seem to pause in unison, as if by silent consent they wish to stretch the moment and not rush it’s depletion.

Only the wind still moves through this moment in time now frozen in my memory forever.

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Katika Nuru - Into the Light

Susannah Cord, a lifelong horsewoman, is the author of the illustrated children’s book, ‘Fenella, A Fable of a Fairy Afraid to Fly’ (now also on CD and an eBook) and the column, Riding by Torchlight, at HorsesForLife.com, as well as having several exciting new projects currently in the works. In between riding, training, teaching and hosting clinics with Stephanie Millham, she spends her time doing what authors do – writing, travelling, talking about and promoting her work.

For more on Susannah Cord, please visit www.SusannahCord.com

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Katika Nuru Swahili for Into the Light Join us in our next issue for Part 2 of this story

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Introduction to

Dr. Gerd Heuschmann Article

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Dr. Heuschmann Interview Part II

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BREATHE THE CO THROUGH LOOS

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ONNECTION SE WORK

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From the Real Picaria of the 18th Century to the Portuguese School of Equestrian Art

From the Real Picaria of the 18th Century to the

Portuguese School of Equestrian Art Da Real Picaria do Século XVIII à

Escola Portuguesa d’Arte Equestre

Pedro yglésias de Oliveira

Emília Celestino da Costa

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Confessions of an Equine Body Worker When Reality Crosses the Finish Line

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Anakalypsi: Choosing Us Horses For LIFE

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The Wrong Lead

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The Pursuit of Excelle Preserving the Pure C

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ence Carthusian Horse

Galiano

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One Element of a Correct Canter

Training the Eye

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The Bouncing Basketball

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From this To this

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