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I figure that with all the crazy things my horses have to work around  
(camels, water pumps, all sorts of livestock, enormous dump trucks  
and bulldozers, village weddings...you name it), I'm approaching  
expert on de-spooking horses.  When one of my geldings was just  
starting under saddle, he was afraid of ducks. Yes, little quacky  
ducks. He lived with donkeys and a water buffalo so those weren't  
scary, but ducks were terrifying. We walked up and down a lane with a  
canal along one side that was just filled with ducks until he got  
over it.  He never actually leapt into the air or anything when  
encountering a duck, just sort of side-stepped and snorted. None of  
my horses have ever spooked much more than a sidestep.

Yesterday I went out riding with two friends, one of whom is a runner  
training for marathons. Since she has to do long runs, Cristina and I  
insisted on accompanying her with two of my horses while ponying a  
third in case of emergency. We set out to do 20 km or about 14 miles  
through the countryside of Egypt along dirt trails running along  
canals. Everything was going quite well at first. The farmers looked  
rather quizzical at seeing three women with three horses but only two  
being ridden. I'd explain that she was training for a running race  
and there would be dubious nods..okay, crazy but okay.

At one point the navigator, yours truly here, made a miscalculation  
on the trail and we ended up in the middle of a village where a pack  
of bored children decided that their afternoon would be much more  
interesting if they ran along the track behind us shouting, waving  
sticks, and generally making a horrible racket. We put Tracy in front  
with her horse in hand, Cristina rode behind her on Nayzak, the  
former duckophobe, while I took the last place between the children  
and the horses on my 8 yr old gelding Nazeer.  If any of you have  
ever seen the last scene of the old black and white movie of  
Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer, you can imagine the  
situation. There was a mob of about 30 or 40 very aggressive kids  
chasing us down the dirt road, more than any of the adults available  
in the village could handle, and one of my main concerns was that if  
they annoyed the horses enough, someone would get kicked. This was a  
spooking situation if ever I saw one and not one of my boys so much  
as sidestepped. I even cranked Nazeer up into warhorse mode with  
extreme collection and would spin him around to face the crowd if  
they got too close. Nayzak and Nazeer took a couple of stones from  
the kids...no comment from them...and eventually we got out of the  
village, over the bridge to MY side of the main road and MY farmers  
who ran the little brats off in no uncertain terms.

This was a truly terrifying situation, although at the time none of  
us would let ourselves be fazed by it. When it was all over there was  
a lot of nervous laughter and MUCH, MUCH, MUCH appreciation of these  
horses who had every possible reason to spook but didn't.  Wonderful  
bloody horses.

Today I set out with another friend for a ride in some of the same  
area, but we made a serious point of avoiding that particular  
village. Today's ride went much better, no kids and we found the way  
to a 26th dynasty palace that sits on a hill in the middle of the  
fields around Memphis. Took different horses today. The others had  
earned a break.

Maryanne
Egypt

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