Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Sometimes when I have good riders here I take them on a ride to the Giza Pyramids. The trail itself is nothing special...about 15 km through the desert. BUT when you get to Giza you have to deal with Egypt's answer to liability...Nazlit Semman.

On my last trip there around Christmas we discovered that all of the gates to the pyramids had been closed by the authorities except for the one from the asphalt road in the stables area and we had to go down there to get in. First we had to cross a couple of km of desert with crowds of novice riders on untrained horses hanging onto saddles like grim death as they were chased around by pre-pubescent grooms wielding whips. I told my clients that the safest assumption is that anyone who comes within 3 meters of you has every intention of killing you and your horse, so be very, very careful. We made our way down into the stables area where we parked the horses briefly at a friend's stable while we ate lunch and our horses munched vaguely on berseem while gazing in utter bewilderment at the chaos in the road. The mini-grooms chased shrieking clients along at a trot/canter in small death-wielding herds, people tried to "train" young horses in the middle of it all and every stage of horse welfare from gorgeous to walking death passed by. We went into the pyramids area from the road and had a nice tour of the pyramids where it was actually rather saner and then had to venture forth again into insanity. At one point a young man on a galloping horse that was slithering all over the road came within inches of hitting one of my geldings. Nothing I've ever done with my horses has ever frightened me like that.

Giza is estimated to get 15 thousand tourists a day and the stables there do an outrageous amount of business. I have quite a few friends who used to ride there and have been seriously injured in accidents due to untrained horses and bad tack. Does anyone ever sue? Why? Everyone knows that if you ride a horse there you're crazy. It's pretty good for my business.

Maryanne

On Jan 17, 2008 10:23 PM, Beth Walker <bwalker2@xxxxxxx> wrote:

I'll agree with all of what you said (much better than I did).   RMs
and vets should be protected against suits based on the normal
hazards of riding, but riders need to retain the right to sue in
cases of negligence.   I also agree that RMs really, really try to
mark hazards and inform riders -- when getting ready to warm up my
horse after checking in for a  local ride, I've been asked by if I
could double-check out a part of the trail that they had a report
on.  It wasn't that bad - just narrow, but he riders were informed at
the ride meeting that the spot might need a bit of care.

As you say - it all comes down to common sense.

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
msgabbani@xxxxxxxxx

Egypt Face to Face
www.alsorat.com
Weblogs:
Living In Egypt
miloflamingo.blogspot.com
Cairo/Giza Daily Photo
cairogizadailyphoto.blogspot.com
Turn Right At The Sarcophagus
haramlik.blogspot.com
Photos of Egypt:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/livinginegypt/