25th July, 2009 Tanzania

It's been a week since I could get near a computer and I am going to have to wait until I get home before I can put up any more photos. Our last night in Kenya was spent at the lake where we went out on a boat to watch the hippos and then sat at the Fisherman's Bar to watch them come out of the water.

We had an early start the next day and were driven down to Nairobi by Henry, a Rastafarian Rwandan who is married to a Kikuyu and supports Manchester United. We were then flown to Arusha by the worlds most diminutive pilot - bit disconcerting that she had to sit on a cushion and still couldn't see over the dashboard - an excellent pilot at that.

Since arriving, life has been chaotic. We were taken straight to the polo club where we found ourselves in the thick of the polo set. I was so tired that I fell asleep on David's shoulder - this was only our third "day off" since we arrived and every one of those has been a travelling day. We have worked with all sorts of horses and all sorts of people and given three little demos to the pony club which is very much in its embryonic stage here. Just 11 children ranging from 7 to 15 and ponies with all sorts of backgrounds; it's a great start. The same themes are relevant here with horses being generally well behaved on the ground - warmth and work really help - but having ridden and performance problems caused by saddle fit and previous careers. I really welcomed the opportunity I had to chat to Arlene, a local instructor, Andre, a showjumper and Tony and Jackie who breed polo ponies and run a polo string. Whilst I have reservations about polo as a sport, it was good to hear that they don't get on their ponies until they are four and they are not expected to compete until they are six at the earliest. We have been looked after very well by Cathy, who has kept us busy with horses and stayed at Caroline's house and then Andre's where the scenery (Mount Meru) is just spectacular.

We have already been down to Lake Manyara for a couple of days and we are off there again tomorrow for a couple of days rest before we trek back up to Nairobi. Of course the wild animals in the National Parks are breath taking. Last night we went to visit a couple who have an orphaned giraffe and he was just beautiful.

18th July, 2009 14 bumps along the road

Having gone to bed at 8 p.m. last night, I woke at 4.40 a.m. to be presented with 12 red roses from David for our wedding anniversary. Naivasha is famous for its flower farms and coincidentally the flowers that I was given for Valentine's day, bought from Marks and Spencers, would have come from exactly the same farm.

This morning we went fourteen speed bumps along the road to meet up with Lel who flew us over to her farm on the other side of the Lake where we worked with two of her horses including Murphy, the one in the photo. Lel is a dressage trainer and I was worried that there wouldn't be anything I could show her but just like every single person we have worked with in Kenya, she was really open minded and receptive. We had a lovely morning before being flown home again.

18th July, 2009 Aardvark never killed anyone

Yesterday we had quite a long session with Fiona and her delightful children that she seems to have had in alphabetical order - Annabelle, Cameron and Dominic. Fiona's horses are an absolute credit to her and her head syce Anthony - gleaming with health and good grooming. These horses didn't have the tell tale signs of the racing industry - muscle atrophy and high withers - and have had carefully fitted and placed saddles ever since. This coupled with good nutrition means that they look very well indeed. Fortunately there were still some gaps that I could fill and we worked on groundwork, especially for the youngsters, and some desensitisation too.

We spent some six hours working with various horses including Storm and came home in need of a drink and a bar of chocolate. These are readily available down at The Fisherman's Bar on the lake edge where Val, the owner, tries to keep the hippos and the tourists apart. We are still waiting for our first sighting but enjoyed the antics of the vervet and colobus monkeys instead.

(Val would like me to say - FISHERMAN'S BAR - ring 0735 333038!!)

As the first leg of our trip is coming to a close, I feel more able to summarise the most "popular" issues for horses in Kenya. The shortage of good saddles makes life very difficult especially when there is a 110% tax on importation. Nevertheless, a poorly fitting saddle is a complete block to asking a horse to get over any ridden behavioural issues and to working correctly. In the long term, horses that are forced to endure a badly fitting saddle can only learn that being ridden hurts and then devise ways to make this plain or ways to avoid the pain; many horses here carry their heads high and hollow their backs.

The long term solution goes beyond awareness - someone needs to set up a sponsorship scheme whereby a team (s) of Kenyans can go to England to be trained in saddle making and saddle fitting and needs to include remedial saddlery and restoration of saddles. There are lots of good old English saddles here but they are lumpy, hard and falling apart. Some corrective numnahs and risers would help to a limited extent whilst horse's backs are recovering.

There is also a dearth of good bombproof ponies here. Children are mounted either on former racehorses and polo ponies, many of which have been hammered or on semi-feral ponies. In both cases there are gaps in the education of the horses - retraining in the case of the former and desneitisation in the case of the latter. Whilst children aren't subjected to the totally paranoid health and safety precautions we have in England, it is a shame if they lose their confidence through being over-horsed. The IH methods I have been demonstrating here could really help in this area and it was good to see that Jo was so far along the line. Her little Ethiopian ponies were fast becoming quiet and reliable.

16th July, 2009 Feeling Harty

This morning we were off to see Donna, whose house must have one of the best views in Kenya with the lake at the front and the hills at the back. Her horse, Tandinera, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Petra Perkins, is coming back in to work after an 18 month gap. We were able to go through how we would approach a restarter and indeed, Donna got one her for the first time while we were there - it was hard to get her to get back off again.

Later we had a tri-lingual lunch with Donna and her extended family including her Italian in-laws and her baby girl, Daniella. Donna has a pet hartebeest and two warthogs that come and go as they please. The hartebeest, which spends much of its time admiring it's reflection in the windows, is an effective guard...er...antelope as it doesn't like strangers!

15th July, 2009 Rhino saw us

Yesterday it was off to Oserian to meet Katie and her two grooms Geoffrey and Joseph and to look at two of the horses, Celtic and Beacon. Once again saddle fit was high on the agenda and we also looked at leadership and long reining. Beacon has an interesting skin complaint, similar to sarcoids and whilst one vet has said that it was incurable, another has suggested that aloe vera and avocado oil might help. So far so good as the number of lesions are reducing dramatically.

Afterwards we went for lunch at Chui Lodge which is very impressive and the food was absolutely gorgeous. We were then very privileged to be allowed into the rhino sanctuary, some 25,000 acres of bush land entirely dedicated to conserving the wildlife and especially the rhino. From 6 in 1997, they now have an extended family of 16.

This morning it was back to Sanctuary Farm to work with more Ethiopian ponies including one called (somewhat inevitably) Spotty, and to do some desensitisation work.

13th July, 2009 Naivasha Lake

This morning it was off to work with Debbie and Henry and her horses at Sanctuary Farm. Such a peaceful place with wildlife grazing the fields - it's like working in a safari park. We started off with groundwork and long lining and this evening Em had a lesson with her pony, Mac.

12th July, 2009 Starry, starry night...

It's difficult to describe just how heavenly it is to go to bed (on a very comfy mattress) under the African stars. We didn't try to count them but woke up every few hours to take a good look at the sky and check out whether there were any wild animals wandering around. This followed by a bucket shower and an enormous breakfast ended our stay at Loisaba.

On the way back to Naivasha, David sat in the back with Debbie's two children and I learned that his favourite colour was red, his favourite farm animal a cow and that his favourite wild animal was a leopard.

Back at Debbie's, Dorian accepted being touched within a minute or so and then really enjoyed being rubbed along his back and neck. It seems that he has remembered everythinhg from that one short session he had before we left.