The Nigerien outback

This past week, I picked up an old passion of mine again, namely galloping in the bush! There is nothing as calming in the entire world as being about to let go of all thoughts and just race along a sandy line that keeps going for eternity. I love speed and so does my mares; the work in the outback is purely built on inspiration, which suits me just fine!

For some reason however, this season has mostly been centered around the race track and for the past few weeks, I have started to feel an urgency to get away from it all. Though the race track is full of development opportunities, it is a time-consuming business and there are too many conflicts involved. I guess when you start brining more problems home than you left behind, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn't fall in love with horseback riding at the races, nor did I fall in love with racing. I fell in love with gudu (speed) and galloping in the bush and that's what makes me happy.

In the bush, I can gallop for an hour, intensive time. I do not look at my watch a single time. I do not worry about anything in the world, nor do I bring any problems along. It's just me, nature, teamwork with my horse and God. It's a simple world - a time-out from everything else - some times a treat, some times a need. I come home satisfied and smiling. Now, after all this waiting for Arwen's foal to pop out, I finally found back to my old passion this week. For three times now, Yaronbaba and I have been out on long sessions galloping in the bush. I took the vets' advice and started riding Arwen again; and for the first time since before my accident, I let her have free reins. Needless to say, after a lot of hard work Arwen was in the end satisfied; Yaronbaba was in shock because the horses worked so hard out of pure enjoyment and Sahara was happy but exhausted, having given a 110% - willingly - doing her best to keep pace with Arwen. And as for myself, I was just like Arwen; thoroughly satisfied and with a smile lasting all evening and longer...

Surprisingly, even though it's my time-out, I'm a social person and prefer going out with company rather than alone... As tomorrow is training day at the races and YB has other horses to tend to (and I prefer to stay away from the social spotlight for a while), I came up with a solution that fits us all; both YB, me and the horses. He'll come by and pick up Arwen at normal training time, and two hours later I will meet him at the track when all the work there is done and the owners are on their way back again. We will then dash into the bush for about half an hour of intensive riding. He gets to please everyone, I get to leave all my thoughts behind and the horses get to enjoy their work! Now what could be better?

Ishtar