PHOTOGRAPH: SHUTTERSTOCK/IULIIA KHABIBULLINA
DIANA KNOWS WHAT SHE’S DOING. I’m not so sure. In fact, as the rocky ground flashes beneath me faster and faster, I’m not sure at all. I lean forward in the saddle, an accommodating Western style that sits riders deep and gives your knees something to brace against. I relinquish any pretence that the reins I’m holding are anything other than a psychological prop, something to help me believe I’m driving this charge. I grab Diana’s mane. She gives a snort, a fleeting toss of the head, and gallops onwards across the bushveld savannah. Gallops. I risk a momentary grin. I’m galloping.
Prior to arriving in South Africa’s remote Waterberg mountains, my sole experience of riding horses had been the sort of nose-to-tail pony convoy that passes for the sport on popular European beaches. I had what I’d term a healthy respect for these towering creatures shod in the equivalent of supersize knuckle-dusters, one that demanded I kept a safe distance. And, yet, the more I encountered these mercurial, conker-glossy animals, the more I wanted to understand them. Where better to do this than at the home of a horse psychologist?