learning to breathe

To tell you the truth, I’ve never really had formal riding lessons. I was taught to ride by my father on the dusty plains in rural Queensland. Thinking back the true teachers were the horses I rode. They certainly weren’t push button ponies by any standard. Dad put me and my two siblings on a range of horses from a 17hh home-bred race horse called Oakley, I still remember his lovely loping canter across the cultivation. To a pony called Princess who was too fat for a saddle so we rode her bareback. Princess used to snort when pushed into a canter, which she only did after being cajoled with a stick.

It’s only been later in life since acquiring my young horses and having to educate them myself that I’ve been seeking as much information as possible on horse education. I’m so thirsty to learn everything and I don’t think horses ever stop teaching you. I’m very excited about my current teacher, Tanja Mitton, who is a nationally acclaimed equestrian coach who conveniently lives twenty minutes away from my home.

So far, I’ve had two lessons with Tanja (pictured above) on my thoroughbred mare, Tilly, who currently plays polo, with the aim of dipping my toe into the world of eventing. What appeals to me about eventing is the cross-country jumping, I’m not too fussed on the dressage or the show jumping, but the cross country jumping combines my love of break-neck speed and leaping over impossible heights.

Tanja is my link to the world of eventing, and if its okay with you, I’ll be sharing what I’m learning on my blog. I’ve had two x one hour lessons and they’ve been quite remarkable. Have you ever considered your breath when riding your horse and centring yourself so you are completely and utterly in the moment? I find it extraordinarily hard to be in the moment and my mind is always stumbling over itself with thoughts and ideas.

Breathing was the crux of my first lesson with Tanja. As soon as I entered the sand arena Tilly’s head was held high and completely distracted with her external surroundings with no awareness of me her rider.

Tanja explained that Tilly was picking up on my energy and I needed to relax and concentrate on my breathe, especially the breathe out. She said imagine jumping into a 50 metre pool and exhaling your breathe slowly until you reached the end. Do this when riding and actively relax your body and tap into the feeling of the horses movement beneath you.

It took Tilly nearly the entire one hour lesson to slow her quick paced walk and short-stride trot and start listening to my breathe and it took me the entire one hour lesson to get my breathing correct. Tilly’s acknowledgement was to breathe out, lick her lips, drop her head, slow down, her ears would twitch back to me, these are all good signs that she was beginning to listen to me and my relaxed energy.

In the trot, Tilly would want to speed up rather than slow down, and as Tanja instructed, concentrate on breathing out by counting to eight, don’t pull on the reins, just breathe out and relax.

The second lesson was even better, building on from the first and after practising quite a lot at home, we got stuck into it. Tilly was responding to my breath so nicely Tanja instructed me to get a feel for Tilly’s hind leg when it moved underneath her and to co-ordinate this with my pelvis. She mentioned that my hips should be moving in a semi-circle in unison with Tilly’s hind legs so that we moved as one rather than my body blocking her natural movement.

This was extremely helpful to feel at one with Tilly’s stride when we took it into the sitting trot. Her head was beautifully tucked, with no pressure on the reins, and she was working from the hind and on the circle at a perfect bend. I was flabbergasted to believe that I could get her moving textbook perfect with my breathe, legs and movement of my pelvis.

Tanja picked up that I was quite stiff on my left hand shoulder which was having a knock-on effect with Tilly’s movement. As soon as I released my shoulder Tilly responded by giving.

Again at the canter, Tanja asked me to position my outer leg behind the girth and concentrate on my pelvis moving in unison with her hips with my inside leg open as to not restrict her. The next lesson we’re going to build on this premise and work on transitions and flying changes.

I can hardly wait. Stay tuned.

happiest of birthdays to my gorgeous globetrotter

This time last year on May 9 our hearts were stolen by a precious little girl who goes by the name of Finn. Life has been far from dull since she entered the world. Here is a clip of the year gone by with our little globetrotter. Enjoy!

horse technology

How is your knowledge on horse anatomy?  I know the names to the major parts of my horse like wither, canon bone, forelock, fetlock, mane, poll, rump, dock – basic pony club understanding. I’m shame faced to admit that’s where my knowledge of my horse’s body stops. I’m fuzzy to say the least on muscle and bone names which is a knock on effect when needing to identify health problems with my horses.

Thankfully with modern technology in the form of a app known as Horse 360 I’m learning – incredibly quickly I might add – the intricate details of my horse. Words like Coccygeal Vertabrae, Metacarpal and Scapula Cartilage I can know pronounce and better still I can identify where these bones are on my horse. I reached level 3 on this quiz platformed app before my minimal horse anatomy started failing and I had to start guessing. The benefit lies in what I learnt and remembered in less that five minutes compared to trying to retain information from a one dimensional text book. Absolutely brilliant!

I don’t quite understand the Vet Talk element of the app and the graphics could be improved, but these are small criticisms to a equine app that is jam-packed with knowledge and information that would help a top show jumper to a happy hacker. For all horse lovers this app should sit alongside your ‘go to’ apps on your iPhone or iPad as a essential learning guide to help understand your equine compatriot.

And better still the ethos behind this company is truly commendable, ‘improving horse welfare through education’.

In memory of our war heroes

With ANZAC day today, April 25, I wanted to dedicate a post to two true blue Australian War Horse heroes from WWI. Staggeringly, in the First World War, 136,000 horses were sent overseas for use by Australian, British and Indian forces. To me, that number of horses is absolutely inconceivable. Tragically, only ONE horse from the 136,000 made it home to Australian soil. This heroic and surviving horse was Sandy  (pictured below) who belonged to Major General Sir William Bridges who was killed in battle at Gallipoli. It was the Major’s dying wish to have his beloved horse Sandy sent back home to Australia to enjoy a long and happy retirement.

When the Major died Sandy was put into the care of Captain Leslie Whitfield and was transported to Egypt then onto France in March 1916. It was in March 1917 that the Australian authorities granted Sandy a safe passage to return home to Australia, thus honouring the Major’s wishes. After six years of munching on lush green grass on Australian soils, Sandy was put down down in 1923. Its remarkable to think that Sandy not only survived this brutal war but went into battle against all of his natural instincts due to the trust he had for his rider.

Interestingly enough, the Walers, a term for Australian horses transported abroad (also now a well-known breed), were sent to fight in World War I because they were considered hardier than European horses. However, once arriving on foreign land, our Walers suffered from a lack of food and water and often succumbed to skin diseases. The Waler was the back bone of the Australian Light Horse mounted forces.

Another Australian War Horse hero worth celebrating is well-known waler ‘Bill the Bastard‘ (pictured below), who was Major M Shanahan’s mount. Cheeky ‘Bill the Bastard’ was known to buck when asked to gallop. Yet during World War I, when the Major found four Aussies outflanked by the Turks, ‘Bill the Bastard’ carried all five men to safety. Three on his back and one on each stirrup, he travelled over 2 km’s at a lumbering gallop in soft sand – with not a inkling of a buck. What a herculean effort by this Waler.

At the end of the War, 11,000 surplus horses in the Middle East were sold to the British Army. Some light horse men chose to destroy their horses rather than leave them on foreign soil. I can’t begin to imagine how heart-renching this situation must of have been for these soldiers. To of shed blood with your horse on the battle field and not be able to honour the horse by organising its safe passage back to Australia must of been devastating.

I found this poem by a solider called ‘Trooper Bluegum’ -

I don’t think I could stand the thought of my old fancy hack

Just crawling round old Cairo with a ‘Gyppo on his back.

Perhaps some English tourist out in Palestine may find

My broken-hearted Waler with a wooden plough behind.

No: I think I’d better shoot him and tell a little lie:–

“He floundered in a wombat hole and then lay down to die.”

May be I’ll get court-martialled; but I’m damned if I’m inclined

To go back to Australia and leave my horse behind.

From Australia in Palestine, 1919

polo at puddle duck farm

With the start of May just around the corner the 2013 polo season is set to start and I must admit I’m getting quite excited at the thought of pelting up and down the polo field on my mares. Its going to be a interesting balancing act this year with Miss Finn in the picture. I’m imagining Sunday chukkas up at our field in Gympie with or without Buster depending on how he wants to play it. For a day of polo I’m guessing I’ll be trading a day of surfing for Buster – which works out fine.  I thought I would share with you all where I first tasted polo and thus fell head over heels in love with the Sport of Kings.

It’s a small field tucked into the sleeve of the rolling green hills of the Sunshine Coast hinterland in Maleny. It’s known as Puddle Duck Farm and is a private property, owned by Joe Colreavy. If you can picture stone fences, grand ancient Fig trees, paddocks filled with grazing ponies and a field that overlooks the ancient Glass House Mountains.

Puddle Duck is the perfect platform for beginner polo players to gain their confidence on ponies that can play polo blind-folded. Owner, Joe Colreavy is a polo fanatic, and at 70, he still plays every weekend and very generously offers his horses to those wanting to stick and ball.

Its a hill billy affair where we gather on a Saturday at 2pm and play three-a-side, you’ll have more experienced players playing with beginners, and some how it works. It’s light hearted and social and is on every weekend throughout the year – weather dependant of course. The field is only a quarter of the size of a normal playing field but its flanked with boards which helps speed up play.

Polo can be extremely expensive and at the best of times has a ‘nose up in the air’ mentality but Puddle Duck Farm is far from that. Everyone is super friendly and happy to teach and encourage others to get into the sport. The best news is you don’t need three horses to play and you can bring a novice pony to the field. In the early days Dad and I  turned up with our grey pony called Sapphire who had never see a polo mallet or ball in his life. After a couple of weeks he was tearing up and down the field like a pro’s pony – not quite we couldn’t stop him.

I now particularly love Puddle Duck for green horses, introducing them to the boisterous sport in a relaxed setting where they get familiar with turning, accelerating, stopping, pushing and line outs.

For those that are keen its free for your first Saturday to see if you like it, then you can lease a horse from Joe for a minimal amount. Check out their facebook page.

Images of the weekend gone. 

Finn and Dad’s dog Blue, a Australian Kelpie, getting to know each other on the back of the ute.

Finn hanging out at the polo field. If you look closely you can see Ruby Red Shoes, her toy bunny, who is never far from her clutches. Thankfully we have two back-up Ruby’s in the cupboard, just in case she gets forgotten on family outings.

On the left, I’m working my mare Arusi, look at that backdrop one of  the Glasshouse Mountains. Dogs are welcome at this polo field.

Horse circus of epic proportions

A couple of weeks ago, my mother and sister spent a thrilling two and a half hours, mouths ajar, as we were swept up in the theatrics that is Cavalia. We were fortunate that they extended their tour in Brisbane by another week and we managed to wrangle some tickets to a nearly sold-out show.

I didn’t really know what to expect, people described it to me as Cirque du Soleil that incorporated horses. I had also seen the larger than life billboards strategically positioned on the highway which added to the mystique and fascination.

We arrived on a miserably wet Friday night only to be cocooned quite comfortably in the purpose built Big Top amongst two thousand spectators, all eagerly waiting for the show to begin. There was an assortment of people from wrangler wearing, high-top boot kinda crowd to twenty-somethings in cocktail dresses and young families with weary kids. The show began with a series of questions about Cavalia and their star equine performers. With each question multi-choice it was a lovely way to start the show with crowd interaction from the get go.

In the pop quiz we found out there are a stable of fifty horses involved in the show with a mixture of stallions and geldings (no mares – for obvious reasons) and these equines are primped and pampered by a team of 20 stable staff including two vets and a farrier. The breeds vary with the majority of the herd Lusitanos, and the remainder are Andalusian (PRE), Canadian Horses, American Quarter Horses, Paint horses, Belgians, Percherons, Arabians, and Appaloosa.

From the get go this production swept me up with its live music and light technology while demonstrating an intrinsic understanding and respect for the spirit of horses. The opening scene with a horse and female dancer was enchanting to say the least as they danced around a lagoon of water. Another favourite scene is the liberty training where the horses are free of bridles and saddles, there is nothing quite like seeing horses in their natural silhouette.

Any horse person worth their salt can’t help but admire the talented riders with their advanced dressage skills performed in unison with their riding counterparts. I loved the light and shade throughout the performance where you have the structured, fussiness of the dressage to the rough and rollicking trick riding and horse vaulting. I found myself getting itchy feet at the chance of galloping a team of horses astride two horse while jumping obstacles.

The momentum and rhythm of the show built to a heart-stopping crescendo that uplifted the entire audience. All two thousand spectators were up out of their seats with a standing ovation.

Cavalia is a tribute to the history and spirt of horses and is a word-class performance of acrobatics, musicians and horsemanship. Bravo!

for the love of alpargatas – the BEST riding and travelling shoes

Don’t be disheartened if you can’t pronounce this peculiar Spanish word – al-par-gatas – all you need to know is they are THE best travelling and riding shoes you’ll need for your next riding safari or  holiday. Alpargatas are a jute-soled canvas footwear favored by Argentine’s for their comfort, durability and low cost, pretty much Argentina’s version of the Spanish espadrille. I discovered these canvas slip-ons when travelling in Argentina some seven years ago and I now have a mighty collection of the lightweight shoes and they never leave my feet when I’m knocking about the house, riding my polo ponies or pairing them with a pair of jeans, skirt or shorts. Not only are they super comfortable (when you find your perfect size), they come in every colour of the rainbow and groovy patterns.

Yes, you’re going to say they’re dangerous for riding in because they don’t have a heel and for the safety conscious they probably are. BUT I find them fantastic when teamed with a pair of chaps especially when you don’t want to wear knee-high boots in hot weather. The other benefit is if you’re crossing rivers the trusty alpargatas will dry in minutes with their canvas material.

When we were in Buenos Aires in December I discovered this new brand known as Paez which produce a truck-load of different designs with cool inner-linings. Check out the ones above, I couldn’t resist buying matching pairs for both Finn and I. As you can see she isn’t as big as fan as I preferring them off rather than on.

Can you tell that I love them? AND they’re cheap as chips. To clean them I throw them in the washing machine and good as new. So next time you’re planning a trip a pair of alpargatas are a essential for your bag. Would you wear a pair? Love to hear you thoughts.

happy shiny people – the Maasai

A lovely client of mine recently shared a moving and powerful video of a young Maasai lady by the name of Kakenya Ntaiya. Kakenya with dogged determination well beyond her teenage years had a dream of becoming a teacher. Persistent as she was to the buck the trend of becoming a child bride, she cleverly managed to convince her father and her village elders that she deserved an education. She’s now university educated and has since established a school to educate girls and thus change their life trajectory through education. You’ll see through this clip, Kakenya speaks honestly and passionately and it made me realise NEVER to take my education for granted.

Regular followers of this blog know that I have a strong affiliation with Kenya having lived and worked there. I’ve had countless moments over the years with the Maasai people, who I believe smile with their entire body. I thought I would share these images with you and provide some insight into their lives.

I love the spookiness of this image with the Maasai warrior’s face still partly visible as he jumps under the light of a hurricane lamp.

Buster taking photos of the Maasai children at one of their villages on the cusp of the Masai Mara game reserve.

The children LOVE seeing photos of themselves and squeal in delight when we show them video footage. I could play with these children forever and a day.

Nettie bleeding a cow, the blood still warm they drink it out of a gourd, a great source of protein and iron for a normally lack lustre diet of ugali. Rest assured, the cow is fine after this, cattle are far too valuable to the Maasai to kill over a cup of blood.

Modern technology has well and truly found the Maasai people. A lot of the men are well-educated and choose to come home to live traditionally with the mod-cons.

A mzee (term of respect in swahili) sipping on some freshly squeezed cow’s blood. This toto (child in swahili) was sitting shyly next to her mother. These photos were taken prior to me becoming a mother I now can’t help but compare Finn’s life to these children’s lives.

These Maasai women were on the their way to a tribal wedding, the young girl at the back of the group was getting married. After taking photos of their smiling faces I danced alongside them.

A Maasai village is always teaming with livestock, dogs kick around with children while goats nibble on grass and calves lazily sleep alongside manyattas.

Proud Maasai warriors about to dance for us as a storm brews on the horizon. Long and lean in turn they each jumped to the heavens to show off their ability.

My client Robin and I had just bought these necklaces from these charismatic Maasai mama’s. Colour is everywhere, royal blue matches with burnt orange matches with fluro pink.

patagonia and pisco sours

I first fell in love with Patagonia five years ago on a ten day horse riding holiday to Torres del Paine, Chile.  A wild, unkept region positioned at the bottom of the earth shared by Argentina and Chile where mountain peaks are craggy and treeless, rivers flow icy and translucent, the winds are swift and constant and flowers grow wild and  abundantly. I was bursting with anticipation to return to a different region of Patagonia with two of our G.T guests in tow and our travelling circus (me, Buster, Finn and my mother, Meme). We left Santiago on a regional flight south to a tiny outpost called Balmaceda where we were picked up by our smiley host Natalia Gorrono – who is pictured above.

I tell you what after spending three nights in Santiago I was getting itchy feet to start riding and exploring this new estancia I had heard so much about. My tolerance for major cities is limited to no more than two nights, I’m a country girl at heart and I feel like a fish out of water in capital cities. I think my sentiments were felt amongst the entire group, so even though we had to wake at a ludicrous time (4am if my memory serves me correctly) to make our regional flight there was a good feeling amongst us that we would be on horseback that afternoon. Surprisingly in the picture above we look quite bright eyed and bushy tailed while waiting for our regional flight it must of been the caffeine injection we had just received.

Our effervescent, smiley host Natalia and guide Sebastian picked us up from the airport where two vans were loaded with all and sundry. The Patagonian wind was also there to welcome us lifting jackets, tousling hair and whipping hats off heads. A joyous reminder that we’d touched down in wind-swept Patagonia. After a three hour trip to the estancia with a tiny detour for refreshments and to eye-spy a condor’s nest (Sebastian pictured above looking for the illusive condor and her nest) and to pluck some bunches of wild flowers we had finally arrived. And what a welcome awaited us chilled, tart tasting pisco-sours, a raging fire and some golden crisp, disolve-in-your-mouth empanadas. The sigh of satisfaction was audible amongst us all when we sunk deep into the couches knowing that we were now in the care of our lovely host family the Gorrono’s and their impeccable staff.

We had to peel ourselves off the couches to be shown to our boudoirs for the next five days. Robin and Bernadette shared a impossibly cute stone cabin where they both had their own rooms and ensuites (large enough to swing a cat around in) and a shared living room with a pot-belly fire place, squishy couches with alpaca throws and spectacular views of the shimmering lake and river that curved its way through the mountain ranges. Even though we spend most of our time on horseback its so important that when you return wet and sodden if you were caught in the weather on a ride or aching from too many hour in the saddle that you have a place for respite where there are hot showers, a couch to curl up on and read and a bed made for sleeping.

The wonderful part about a Patagonian summer is the days are so incredibly long so much so you can be on horseback until 7pm at night and its still light. Eager as we can be, we went for our first introductory ride that afternoon. With all of my globetrotting rides there is always a introductory ride so horse and rider can get to know each other before committing to each other for the riding holiday.

The next five days we fell into a beautiful rhythem of riding every day rain, hail or shine. To tell you the truth, we had cracking weather for the entire time we were there and you’ll see with the photos. We were all mounted in traditional Chilean saddles and were as comfortable as if a armchair was strapped to your horses back.

I rode a selection of horses, this I always try to do, to make sure that there is a good range of horses suitable for guests of every ability. The horses definitely got my tick of approval. They were forward moving, soft in the mouth, alert but not silly, happy to be at the front of the group or at the back taking photos, and all keen-as-mustard to jump anything you pointed their nose towards.

This is what I adored about this ride, I love to cross-country jump and every paddock we rode through there were fallen trees begging to be high jumped. Our host Natalia has the same penchant for jumping and speed as I do, so it was incredibly fun to tear around the paddocks leap-frogging over logs. For most of the trip I was on a smashing 15hh grey gelding known as Vodka and I adored him, you didn’t have to ask twice for him to jump over something and he always had his ears pricked looking for action.

That’s us above, there is nothing award-winning about my jumping style, but I lurve to jump it puts a smile on my face. Check out the riding attire – drizabone, beanie, must of been a cold day. The saddle bags we lug all over the world, they are custom-built to fit our camera equipment and they’re the ducks nuts, more on that in a later blog post.

Above is globetrotter Bernadette jumping over a log textbook style. Each day brought a brand new adventure exploring, traversing and navigating every nook and cranny of the estancia and beyond.  With so much to discover and in such a brief time we sucked every riding moment out of the day.

There were hell-for-leather gallops through lush green valleys where the grass was high enough to tickle the horses belly. Steven and I filmed and photographed this, I can still hear the yips of excitement from my riders high on adrenalin that echoed through the valley.

Climbing like mountain goats to summit a bare, craggy plateau to watch the clouds dance overhead and absorb the scale and grandeur of the region.

A handful of sun-kissed picnics where elaborate lunches were pulled out of saddle bags like a magician with a bunny in a hat. A spread of bottles of wine, steak burgers,bars of chocolate that we grazed on.

At one lakeside picnic our chef who had ridden with us that morning to our destination proceeded to build a fire and cook a award-winning chicken curry while we sipped on vino tinto- oh so very decadent I hear you say. And then with bellies full we would dozed under the warmth of the sun while listening to our horses munch happily on sweet grass nearby. Moments where I have to pinch myself where ordinary life seems so very far away.

Learning the fine art of taking matte with Chilean characters that we met along the way. With Sebastian or Natalia translating the Spanish vernacular for us and telling our subjects story while teaching my guests the etiquette of taking matte was a memorable time.

In a fast-paced world where everything is instant, the ritual of matte in the campo is nearly as spiritual as going to church every Sunday for these folk. G.T guest Robin pictured above having her first slurp of matte.

Always in search of action shots for our growing portfolio of images we make our guests do crazy things. On our last riding day, Robin, Bernadette and Natalia used the icy river as a race track to canter through the middle of it while we filmed and photographed. The water temperature was arctic and they were drenched from head to toe once we had finished with them but you couldn’t wipe the smile off their faces.

Early December was perfectly timed with the wild flowers in full bloom. We rode past paddocks, river beds, mountain tops filled with lavender, mauve, candy pink coloured lupins. I felt like I was riding through the set of Little House on the Prairie or a flower market.

On our last night we were treated to a Chilean fiesta in their purpose built stone cottage. It was a great send-off and a lovely end to a superb week, we munched on lamb cooked traditionally on a asado, drank far too much Chilean red wine and listened to live folklorica music and danced out-of-step with the locals. My cheeks blushed red with the warmth of the entire six days spent in this raw, beautiful part of the world.

We’ll be visiting this estancia again this year (2013), so head over to our website for more details.

Shared moments

Over summer our family of three has resembled a travelling circus, tripping to South America for six weeks. Five years ago, I fell in love with a particular Argentinean estancia and I was determined to return to show Buster and our baby girl, Finn. It’s hidden within the depths of Patagonia shadowed by the Andes mountain range.

The only access to the property is a three-hour horse ride with a team of pack mules, as it lies beyond all roads. Once you arrive, there is no internet, mobile reception, television and only limited electricity. We were unplugged from the outside world for 10 glorious days.

It’s a slow-moving place where time is sweet and plentiful; a place where you have time to wait for bread to rise, pluck wild cherries to make a pie, and to sit patiently for tea to brew. A horse is your only mode of transport.

I’m so thankful for the time spent there now I’ve joined the dizzying, guilt-ridden world of a working mother. Time escapes me now. The other day I got dressed by plucking clothes off my clothes line before racing out the door.

I now try and count the special moments in a day rather than the minutes and hours. Shared moments like watching the wonder on Finn’s face as an insect creeps up a window or whispering into the crook of her neck until laughter tears trickle down her cheeks. These are the moments I’m chasing.

I would love to know how you unplug from the outside world?