It’s a classic image: a horse and rider racing across a wild landscape, moving as one. The image is rooted deep in the human past like a genetic memory from before people learned how to ride. Back in what might be called the Footsore Period.
Anywhere you wanted to go, you had to walk.
Then someone figured out how to get onto a horse and stay up there. From that elevated position, everything changed. Distances shrank. Loads grew light. Entire regions opened up to habitation. It was the first great step in human mobility.
In the age of machines, nothing is different. For many, sitting a good horse remains a deeply satisfying experience that no jacked-up SUV or sleek sports car can rival.
You can get a glimpse of that feeling on trail rides offered by stables or dude ranches, but if you want the real thing, you have to ride free and far. You have to cover distances and go places. Get out in the wind and the dust and the rain and sun. Ride the way a horse wants to be ridden.
Fortunately, you don’t have to own a horse to do it. Opportunities for real riding abound in some pretty surprising places, from the wilderness of the American West to the sun-
scented hills of Tuscany; in the company of gauchos in Argentina, farmers in Ireland or caballeros in Spain.
Equitours, a company based in Wyoming, offers a doozy of a ride in Namibia, covering miles across mountains and desert from the highlands to the sea in southern Africa. No hotels. Dust in your face. Hot sun and hard riding in one of the wildest corners on Earth.
Other Equitours offerings are civilized in a classical Old World way. Italy, Ireland, Spain and other countries maintain centuries-old bridle paths, public rights-of-way leading through peaceful rural settings past villages and tiny churches, pubs and country inns.
Either way, wild or civilized, “You see a landscape differently from horseback. Walking is different. Driving certainly is,” says Ellen Vanuga, sales manager for Equitours.
Mingle with wildlife
Being around wildlife is a revelation. Large animals that would run at the sight of people on foot behave differently around people on horseback. In effect, the riders become invisible. It’s as though the wildlife sees only the horses, making it possible to ride along with herds of migrating elk in the Rocky Mountains (in places where they are not hunted) or with zebras in East Africa.
“With zebras,” Vanuga says, “you trot toward them and end up cantering with them. It’s almost like playing, running for the pleasure of it.
“The horses are savvy about all kinds of wildlife,” she says. “You learn to trust them.”
Riding experience can be critical. No one, not even a good athlete, should mount a horse for the first time and charge off on a week-long ride. It could be dangerous. There are techniques and skills that come only with experience. That’s not to mention the physical conditioning necessary to enjoy the adventure.
Any good outfitter takes it as a primary responsibility to screen clients and match them with a trip appropriate to their abilities.
The details
Equitours, P.O. Box 807, Dubois, WY 82513; 800-545-0019 or ridingtours.com.
Boojum Expeditions, 14543 Kelly Canyon Road, Bozeman, MT 59715; 800-287-0125 or boojum.com.
