Holly Farm

HOLLY FARM Saturday March 31 2007 Trevor and I were away from his farm at 4:45 AM, headed north; he was dropping me off at David Marshall and Sandie MacLean's Holly Farm outside of Christchurch on his way to Nationals with Picksy. We left in a bit of rain and a thick fog; it took us 5 hours to get to Margaret and Allan's place for coffee, where we unloaded Picksy for a grass break and stretch. We were there an hour, and they talked solid horses. These people knew Trevor's uncle Brian and had some of his horses, and knew Trevor's horses and breeding, like he does, backwards and forwards. Allan was a beekeeper for 35 years, and has just turned 70 and is retiring from it. They sent me away with a homegrown jar of honey! (Which Trevor nicked.) It was another 3 hours on to David and Sandie's, where Trevor unloaded Picksy again into the round pen, and we all had coffee before Trevor hit the road again. He headed another 2 hours north where he'd stay for the night, and pick up another lady's float and haul it with Picksy and her 4 horses to Nationals, catching tomorrow night's 7 PM ferry. We would pack tomorrow and head north by dark, to catch the 8 AM Monday ferry. David gave me the history of Holly Farm, in his family for 4 generations, and the rundown on their horses and breeding program and bloodlines, which he knows upside down and inside out. Lots of fascinating history and stories there. David's dad started breeding Arabians in 1961; David started riding their stallions in endurance in 1978, just to prove that they could do endurance. His dad had decided to breed purebred Arabians, and acquired 4 purebred mares to start, and a purebred Crabbet stallion, Silver Sparkle. David's father's lines carry select Crabbet, Russian, and Egyptian blood, and have proved successful in the showring and in endurance. While continuing these lines, David and Sandie have decided to also pursue their passion ("I'm just obsessed with breeding!" said David) of breeding Straight Egyptian Arabians as Al Zayd Arabians. The horses are used for showing and endurance, an all-purpose Arabian. David's been all over the world studying breeding and Arab bloodlines, as well as training them, in the US, Germany, and the UAE. They've got four stallions: Imperial Maakir and Simeon Sapar are Straight Egyptians, and Zaddam and Pradaa are the mix of David's and his father's breeding. The young dark gray Zaddam was the one that made my eyes pop out. David and Trevor have a partnership in Whitestone's Silver Flame, the 24-year-old gray stallion with a band of mares at Trevor's. The old homestead on Holly Farm dates back to the 1860's (about as old as you'll find in New Zealand). There's chickens and baby ducks, peacocks, pheasants, cows, and a miniature horse that is Trent's horse. Nobody but Trent can catch the little bugger, and his first day home, Trent led him right in the house. He regularly escapes out of his pen, and we had to run in a whole herd of 2-year-olds to separate him out back into his orchard pen. There's paddocks of endurance horses in various stages of training, paddocks of two-year-olds, mares and foals, and just weaned babies. Another horse heaven in New Zealand!

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Queenstown

Wednesday March 28 2007 QUEENSTOWN I was in desperate need of wireless internet, so Trevor drove me to Queenstown, about 2 hours away and dropped me off. He had some horse business he could take care of around there, so it wasn't a total waste of his time. He wouldn't hear of me taking the bus anyway. We were socked in a thick fog until about Lumsden, an hour or so away, and then we drove out of it. All the way we'd been slowly gaining altitude, through sheep farms and more farms, and when we got out of the fog, there were big mountains off to our left, and decent sized ones on our right, that they sometimes did endurance rides in. We reached the bottom tip of Lake Wakatipu, under which I believe there's a sleeping giant, whose breathing causes a rather strange rising and falling of lake level. We drove along the side of it, hugging it along what used to be an old goat track. It's still just a narrow winding 2-lane road, that sometimes squeezed to one lane with road construction. Pretty steep mountains above us, and across the lake, bigger mountains rising sharply out of the lake, no room for even goat tracks over there. If you wanted to head west, there's that mountain range to cross (by bird wing) before you reach another north-south highway (that only goes north to Milford Sound before stopping), and on the other side of that, nothing but hundreds of miles rugged mountains and lakes and Fiordland National Park, with very few trails through it, before you hit the Ocean. I'm sure it's thoroughly been explored at some point, but there can't be many casual visitors. Oh, wouldn't I like to just be dropped off with map and compass and the right gear on the other side of Lake Wakatipu to hike straight across to the ocean! But I took the easy way, with Trevor driving me and talking horses on the way. We got to Queenstown and took some time finding an affordable hotel with wireless internet. Didn't find either - not so many rooms available (well, maybe not for the likes of me) with a conference in town, none with wireless at the ones we checked, so I settled on a room in a hostel, with wireless internet at cafe in town. I had the downstairs of a house, with a bit of a view down over the lake. Gee, I'd like to just move in here for a few months! I only had about 2 hours to wander around town before I had to get to work, but, Queenstown seemed to be a nice town in a lovely setting! It's stacked up around the curve of the lake, with a big forested mountain looming right over it (with a gondola ride to the top), and mountains surrounding the lake everywhere. There's a hill on the left as we drove into Queenstown; Trevor said they worked up on top of that on Lord of the Rings, staying on the backside bottom of it, riding up to the top to work every day. I bet there weren't too many whiners on that shoot! It was quite a busy town, tourists and backpackers strolling everywhere, sitting in outdoor restaurants, riding in vans taking them to adventures, and ducks swimming the lake and strolling the parks. You can do anything outdoorsy you want there (for a fee): bungi jump (no thanks!) sky dive (no thanks!), paraglide (no thanks!), white water raft (no thanks!), take Lord of the Rings tours, water ski, snow ski, steam in a boat up the lake, take scenic flights, go to numerous restaurants (lots of Indian!) and bars and internet cafes. Plenty of upscale hotels and loads of hostels. I'd love to come back spend time just hiking in the surrounding mountains. And riding of course. Next morning I took a couple of buses to get back to Gore - all day to get 2 hours down the road, but the bus is a great way to see the countryside. One other girl and I had a whole bus to ourselves, and our bus driver gave us a personalized guided tour of the countryside we were passing through. I am fascinated by the hedges that are all over the land down here, many of them made from closely planted pine trees that are severely shorn about 12 feet up (by tractors with large spinning blades), then sometimes allowed to grow normally above the trim. They are windbreaks or just impenetrable boundaries between pastures. Sometimes the hedges are other kinds of trees, big yucca-like plants, or even the invasive gorse, through which a snake wouldn't want to try to slither (and New Zealand doesn't have snakes - maybe this is why!) The driver pointed out the "freezing works" or slaughterhouses where the cattle and sheep are slaughtered (deer are processed in their own plants), the old pulp mill, the big dairy conglomerates that are making a resurge. I said Surely Kiwis didn't consume THAT much milk, he said 97% of the milk products, milk, butter and cheese, are exported. I also noticed some of the city slogans... If you've noticed, some cities or towns in America have adopted some slogan to put on the sign on the outskirts, such "Winnemucca - City of Paved Streets" (I'm not kidding! Though it may have changed to something more modern by now); Inyokern - Sunshine Capital of the World;" etc - I actually have a little book of them in America. Here, a few of the slogans were "Where Dreams are Possible" and "Northern Southland, Naturally." I'd say for the whole country: "New Zealand - Come Ride!"

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The Black Stallion - Harmony

Monday March 26 2007 This morning the clouds were hanging low enough to obscure the near mountaintops and it was cool - yea! I'm Wearing fleece - no complaints here! Trevor wanted to put his black stallion Cherox Egyptian Harmony out in a pasture with a mare. I rode with Trevor on the 4-wheeler as he ponied the black stallion down the paved road, up a gravel road on his property and into a paddock with a mare who was waiting and ready for her black stallion. Boy that's a good looking horse. He's not very big, 14.2 hands, and I am a great sucker for black horses (and he's true black, doesn't get a cover - blanket), but he's really well put together, and he's got terrific manners. He and his uncle had their eye on this horse from Australia, and bought him a few years ago. He throws some nice horses, and they aren't all small like he is. He trotted along behind us, then we sped up and he galloped right along. Even when he had a paddock of horses whinnying at him and trotting alongside him, he bellowed at them, but never altered his course in following us. Back at the house, Andrew showed up to help Trevor continue cutting up the huge 100-plus-yr-old tree they had to cut down before it split and fell on the road and his house. I, meanwhile, could take Picksy out for a 10 km walk down the road. If Trevor was positive he wanted to trust me with his Nationals horse - sure! I could do that. Trevor caught him and saddled him up for me and turned me loose, and Picksy and I did the 6-mile strolling loop down the road past the neighbors' farms. It was still overcast, slightly cool, but no wind, very comfortable, and very lovely to be out in the Kiwi countryside riding (again) a Lord of the Rings horse! It took us two hours, what with having to stop on the way up and fill the tank up with grass a couple of times. When we got back the boys were almost done with their work for the day, Andrew still chain-sawing away and Trevor hauling the trunks and branches away with the tractor. I brushed yesterday's sand and sweat off Picksy, then turned him loose in the very front yard. Then I sat out on the porch with the computer to keep an eye on him, had an ice-cold beer, and kicked up my feet. The boys stopped their work and Trevor fixed Picksy's feed while Andrew started the grill. We had yummy barbeque (Trevor's home-grown cows) out on the porch into dark. The low clouds were still around, but no precipitation, and it was very silent. You could only hear distant traffic if you listened real hard (Trevor groused at it and I said "You need to move further out into the country!") and a bull bawling. Andrew's sausage dog launched herself off the porch several times to find scraps Andrew threw her. Andrew left, and another neighbor farmer stopped by - neighbors are always popping in on Trevor - and they talked sheep and cows. And a bit of horses. Vince didn't have horses, but Trevor's world revolves around them, so there's always talk of horses in the house, no matter who you are.

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RAVEN RIDES LORD OF THE RINGS HORSE!

RAVEN RIDES LORD OF THE RINGS HORSE! Saturday March 24 2007 OK, so it wasn't Shadowfax, or Brego, or Arwen's gray horse (who is actually on the North Island with his owner Jane Abbott, with some other Lord of the Rings horses, where I was hoping to have time to visit), but he was one of the hundreds of extra horses, (literally 200 or 300), one who became well known and was in many shots, in many of the close-to-the-camera shots because he was such a good pony, and he was probably the only Arabian there. All the horse armor was too big for little Picksy - the face plates would hang down almost to his chest - so they had to cut some things down to his size. I told Trevor I had to get a picture of him with his Lord of the Rings horse, who's in the paddock off the porch, (and pet him), and he said "You're going to ride him!" What!? I (and the Raven) were going to get to ride this famous anonymous Lord of the Rings pony! Dell Dancer, or Picksy, is a very laid back Arab gelding, about 15.2. Trevor brought him up for me, took his thick rug off (most endurance horses in training seem to wear these heavy blankets), massaged him all over, his fingers working out this one spot on his left croup that always has a little knot in it. The Raven met this famous unknown Lord of the Rings horse, Trevor saddled him up for me, held him while I got on... and Picksy just stood there. I walked him around a bit - very easy going - no need to ride him a while to get used to him - and we waited for Trevor to saddle his half Arab black gelding. We headed out the drive and down the paved road toward the high peak, for a mile or so till the road turned to gravel. It's out in the country so there's little traffic. Trevor's mount didn't have front shoes, so we moved to the grassy shoulder, and Trevor started trotting, then moved right into a canter. Picksy followed eagerly along behind, and the canter turned into a gallop. Picksy galloped right along behind, then suddenly leaped in the air and looked underneath him, to see what it was he jumped over, and we ended up on the road, pulling up beside Trevor, who was pulling up because his stirrups were too long and he didn't have complete control. We walked along another mile or two, past Marie and Murray's house, and came to a locked gate. Trevor's a friend of the guy who owns the whole mountain top, only he couldn't remember the combination to the lock. Picksy ate grass while Trevor tried to open the lock; he called a friend for the combo, tried a few more times, then finally remembered it. We passed through the gate, followed the road down and up a gulley and around a corner, then started trotting up the road. We left the road at a curve for an uphill slope on grass where we turned the horses loose, and they attacked it at a gallop. We climbed higher and higher, then turned up another grassy hill, which was really a mountain, and we hauled ass up it! Trevor was leaning forward over his horse's shoulder and I leaned forward and threw Pixie the reins. The cool strong wind was blasting us in the face, big floating thistle seeds were hurling our way like storm-blown snowflakes, and Picksy's mane lashed me in the face as the horses leaped and launched their way up this steep mountain. The Raven and I were galloping on a Lord of the Rings horse up a mountain in New Zealand! Yeehaw!!! The horses slowed to a walk the last 50 yards along the road to the top, huffing and puffing. We had a view spread before us of the entire south of the South Island, it seemed, from up there. The wind was howling and cool, and we didn't stay long before we turned around and led the horses back down. We hopped back on at the gate, and walked most of the way home. Trevor's going to ride Picksy in the 160 km at Nationals in two weeks. How many horses can say they were a star of Lord of the Rings, and are competing in national FEI endurance rides? And how other Ravens can say they rode a Lord of the Rings star and an endurance star?

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Cosy Dell Arabians

COSY DELL ARABIANS Friday-Saturday March 23-24 2007 Hand off the endurance rider... David and Sandie Marshall picked me up at 9 PM Friday from Linda's and hauled me down south with them... they were taking a couple of horses down to Oamaru to family friends, where we were staying the night, picking up Nolene, and taking her down to the funeral of a long-time old-school Arab breeder Brian Ross; I'd be dropped off with another endurance breeder and rider Trevor Copland (Brian was his uncle), and David and Sandie and Nolene would pick up a horse or two to haul back home. When you drive long distances in New Zealand, you might as well take care of as many things as you can. Trevor's Cosy Dell Arabians is just outside of Gore, on the bottom part of the South Island, just at the foot of the Hokonui Hills. We arrived at noon, just as Trevor was loading up a beautiful black Arabian stallion that he was taking to the cemetery, as a tribute to his uncle. I went with David and Sandie to the neighbor's, "just next door", several miles down the road actually, where David and Sandie were buying back a gray gelding that they had sold to Marie several years ago. We went in for tea, as you do everywhere in New Zealand, and it came up that Marie, and Trevor, had been extras with their horses in Lord of the Rings! How exciting for me! Trevor would be quizzed extensively on that later. We picked up the horse, hauled it back to Trevor's and turned him in a paddock for the day, then headed for the funeral reception. It was packed with friends and relatives of Brian. There I properly met Trevor, and he told us about the black stallion at the cemetery: when the hearse pulled up, the black stallion stood up tall, screamed 3 times, and then stood there quietly during the service. What a nice accolade to Trevor's uncle! He also told me, "Make yourself at home. There's food and drink there, so if you go hungry, it's your own fault!" Back we went to Trevor's farm, which is surrounded by rolling green paddocks of horses and cows, chickens, a few caged dogs (all dogs in New Zealand must remain kenneled or chained up unless working), and deer fencing, which meant Trevor probably raised deer, and probably some sheep also. When Trevor returned we discussed my plans... priority of which was riding! Maybe a trip up to the top of the mountain that you could see from his drive, and a trip to the beach, the "most beautiful beach in the world to ride on," and the southern-most beach you can ride on. Twist my arm! Then on to the important stuff: Lord of the Rings! I'd seen a photo of Trevor on his horse in costume in the house. I thought he'd be all macho about it, "Oh yea, I was in Lord of the Rings," all snooty been-there-done-that, but his eyes lit up, "Oh man, it was brilliant! I went for 3 days and stayed for 3 months!" Trevor really didn't care that it was a huge movie production that could be the biggest production of all time, or that he'd be working with some famous actors. He and his horse just went and had a great time. Dell Dancer (Picksy) - who he'd only ridden 4 times to break him in before he answered the call from Lord of the Rings - became quite popular because Picksy took everything thrown at him - standing still while horses galloped away from and straight at and past him, standing still on a mark for 4 1/2 hours while all kinds of commotion and filming went on around him, carrying a huge whipping flag when no other horses would get near it, galloping in a line of 200 horses, no kicking, no bucking, no bad behavior. The makeup people would have to keep passing through the piles of horses to touch up make-up and costumes, and most of them were a little intimidated, not knowing horses, so he'd take them on little rides when he had free time to get them used to horses. Picksy took everything in stride. Not bad for a barely-broke Arab! The horses got the hang of their job: whenever Peter Jackson would say "Rolling - 3 - 2..." Picksy (and the other horses) would wake up and perk up and inflate for the cameras... "1 - action" and chaos would happen; and when Peter said "Cut" the horse(s) would deflate till the next take. One of the actors (must have been David Wenham - Faramir, or Karl Urban - Eomer, and it sounds to me like it was Eomer) copped an attitude when Trevor told him he had to gallop down this hill faster because he was holding other riders up and screwing up a particular scene. The "bloke" (honestly, I don't think Trevor knows the names of the actors that he worked with) told Trevor that Trevor couldn't tell HIM what to do. Anyway it turns out this bloke admitted he was scared, that he'd never galloped a horse flat out, (not to mention downhill), had just learned to ride in Wellington for the movie. So Trevor gave him some coaching, had him gallop uphill (easier) to get used to it, and after they did that, the bloke found he enjoyed it. He trusted and listened to Trevor after that, and he gained great confidence in his own riding. Trevor also got to be one of the black riders (!!), got to fight Orcs, got to do lots of horse and battle scenes, as did Picksy, got to die once or twice, was one of the Rohirrim when they surrounded "that guy" (Aragorn) and "the wee little dwarf" (Gimli) and "the blond guy that shot the arrows" (Legolas). He was right in the thick of the filming because he held Eomer's spear. In this scene where the Rohirrim galloped up to and surrounded the three heroes, the "wee dwarf" was scared when Trevor galloped down to him and skidded to a stop right in front of him, because his horse's (not Picksy on this day) bit broke and was hanging out of his mouth. They did another take or 2, (Trevor stopped his horse by his breast collar each time), and Gimli was so flummoxed by the bit hanging out of this horse's mouth that he couldn't concentrate on his lines. Trevor remembered everything as if it happened just yesterday, when it was about 5-6 years ago already. He could have talked on for hours and I could have listened for hours! His stories were just as fascinating as the documentaries that accompany the extended versions of the movies, which included a good piece on the horses and riders - which I don't know that Trevor has ever seen. Now who would have guessed I'd be a guest of a Lord of the Rings extra horseman! Okay, peel me back to the present and endurance... We hopped on Trevor's 4-wheeler and took a tour of his 300-acre farm that's been in his family for 4 generations. He's got 3 Arabian stallions, the gorgeous black one, 14-year-old Cherox Egyptian Harmony; a gray one Whitestone's Silver Flame, (24); and a bay one Ralvon Outback (5 or 6), bred by the renowned Ron Males of Australia. It's a little early to turn the stallions out with the mares, though the gray and bay stallions are already out with their bands. Here, with seasons opposite to the U.S., they want to drop foals about mid-Nov through January (official birthdays for all Arabs are Aug 1). We went from paddock to paddock, up and down hills, horses here, cattle there, deer there, the different species mixing together at will. The horses and deer don't mind each other, and Trevor's stallion Harmony likes hanging out in the middle of a mob of deer and will play with them. The deer are raised for meat, though the market is down now. Wool is good right now only for keeping the sheep warm in the winter (no market for it), so they are mainly used for meat. Trevor knows all his breeding backwards and forwards, what he's got, what direction he's headed. He really doesn't like to take in outside mares to breed because it really is more of a pain than anything else. He'd rather foal out his own mares and sell the foals. His uncle Brian got into breeding Arabs, and did a bit of endurance, as such, as it was back then. He just loved to produce foals, and he always gave people a great deal, either on the breedings or the foals themselves. Trevor's been around horses all his life, got into endurance about 8 or 9 years ago. He's broken in horses here in New Zealand, in Australia, and the UAE, (he likes the challenge of the problem ones) and this season he's got 18 of his own young ones to break in. He makes it sound easy (and I think that's because he's a good horseman)... I'd like to watch his methods. There's a strip of coal running through his land that he reckons will eventually get sold to the government... in which case he'd get a good bit of money "to buy a bigger place for more horses." But that would be selling what's been in his family for so long, and where would he find such a perfect place? This spot gets the best weather, he can raise all his horses on grass - no hay or hard feed (grain), and the youngsters develop good balance running up and down the hills. If that isn't enough, it's just a great place to sit on the porch and live and breathe horses in New Zealand!

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Mt Horrible

WEDNESDAY MARCH 21 2007 MT HORRIBLE At 11:30 Linda and I loaded up Abigail and Savannah, and hauled them a few miles down the road toward Mt Horrible. The name has to do with the Maori wars before the Europeans came. I thought it was going to be in the big mountain range quite a ways away, but it turned out to be a little hill, barely distinguishable from the surrounding rolling hills and farmland, until you got to it and went up it. It was a nice uphill climb for the horses, and we trotted all the way up. I rode Abigail, a very nice mare, smooth and responsive, that will be going to the Nationals in two weeks and doing the 100 km. New Zealand has adopted the FEI endurance rules and goes by them for all their rides. Here horses must do 2 novice 40 kms, then 2 novice 80 kms before they are qualified for open rides (as do riders). David and Sandy Marshall one day held an 80 km ride, and two 40 km rides, one in the morning and one in the afternoon - you could bang out your 40 kms in one day for a horse. This is Abigail's 3rd season of competing; she's done enough 40 and 80 k's and is ready to move up in distance. Linda is a resolute trainer - it's always business for the horses on a training ride. Straight ahead, carry on, stay the same speed, which is 10 km/hr, (about 6 mph, just what we do in the US) on sand, grass, pavement, up hills, down hills, or on the flat. If you must spook, do it while carrying on. There's no stopping to smell the roses, or horse poop, like Stormy likes to do. (Of course, Stormy doesn't trot 10 km/hr either.) In the rides Linda's horses start out going their well-schooled 10 km/hr, and the pace picks up every loop on the ride, according to the horse's condition and ability. Linda said she'd let me lead at the speed I wanted to go, since I was on the leader of the two horses, but heck no! I wanted to know what she did, not me try to guess what was best. We walked the horses a mile or two till we got to where the road started climbing, and we took off at a 10 km/hr trot, all the way up to the top. Most of the time we trotted on the pavement of the country roads - you can find some grass shoulders to trot on, but it's deep grass, with what underneath you aren't sure, so sometimes you're just forced to trot or canter on roads. Fortunately there wasn't much traffic, because here, as on the North Island where the Horse of the Year endurance ride took place, people don't appear to slow down much for horses. We did wear bright yellow safety vests to attract more attention from motorists though I doubt that makes a difference to them. We passed farms of sheep and cattle, and a few goats, rolling green hills, with the mountain range to our north-west, and the sea to our right. The horses broke a little sweat in the cool overcast day, but they powered right on up the hill. At the top, we turned around and powered right back down the pavement, 10 km/hr, stopping for a few pictures (the Raven came along again), and slowing to a walk on the downhills when it had sprinkled just enough to make the road a bit slicker. Abigail was a fine, smooth, fun and willing ride and it will be fun to see how she does in the Nationals. Back home, after lunch we went out and cleaned another paddock of 10 bags of pony poo. We were supposed to go meet the neighbors - Morgan horses and Icelandic pony farms, but we ran out of time. Rebecca and Monica showed up, and without Linda we took 3 horses out. I rode Razzy, Linda's HOY 7th place endurance mare. She's a crabby ol' mare, the boss of the herd, will kick at anybody, and pin her ears at you when you saddle her, but she doesn't really mean it. She's a really nice horse, a lovely ride, very light and all business. We spent about an hour and a half riding in a big circle (circles? I was very lost) from the house. Almost all the ride was on the pavement, and when we'd hear cars coming, we'd pull over to the side as far as we could, because on a whole, vehicles do NOT slow down for horses. Which I find bizarre, as this is and always has been a farming community, and what with that and the Kiwis being so friendly, you'd think they'd have the common sense to slow down for people on horseback. Razzy was handling everything just fine, but Monica and Rebecca were on younger horses. Once we heard a truck coming up a hill around a corner towards us, and we motioned him to slow down. Well, Mr Cranky Truck driver wasn't so happy that he had to stop. "You shouldn't be out on this road! This is the third time I've had to stop for horses!" (Is that such a horrible thing?) The girls had a discussion with him, explaining that the horses were young, there really isn't a horse path near here to ride on, and the law says to slow down for horses. "Really?" He had no idea. The girls told me there was even an advertisement on TV to make drivers aware of slowing down - really, isn't it common sense? People must slow down for school buses - hopefully that law (common sense) happened before some young child was killed. So will a horse rider have to be killed before people learn to slow down for horses? I hope not. Less than half all the vehicles we met slowed down at all or moved into the other lane giving us more room, and I figured those were parents of young girl riders! We've been really lucky in the states, especially in the desert, where nearly all the motorbikes and 4-wheelers slow down for horses, and a good number even turn their motors off. I just find it quite puzzling here. We got back just at dark, turned the horses out to their grain, and Linda had an amazing meal of potatoes and sausage and marrow (a kind of squash) and silver beet (like a spinch-kale) waiting. Rebecca stayed for dinner, and she showed me some scars on her ankle - a horse had flipped over backwards on her (a mare in heat who didn't like being disciplined), badly broke her ankle, cracked her femur, a couple of ribs. She had 6 hours of surgery, was in the hospital two and a half weeks, and was back riding as soon as she could. It happened only 6 months ago! Ah, what we obsessed riders go through to get back on our horses...

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Timaru

Tuesday March 20 2007

Linda Pullar, my host here on the coast of the South Island in Timaru, has 19 horses, a big farm on a hill, and boarding pastures down the road - 10 acres all together, with a view to the South Pacific Ocean not far away. Timaru is the birthplace of Pharlap! He was bred and born here, and sold to Australia as a yearling. Linda rode as a young girl, got away from horses as she raised her 3 daughters, then as one of her young daughters developed an interest in horses, she got back into them also. Linda started endurance about 10 years ago. For her it's a business; she doesn't let herself get attached to them. Her goal is to bring horses along and sell them overseas to pay for next season's endurance. She teaches lessons, and she also runs her own business of producing phone book covers, selling advertising space on them.

After arriving at Linda's home at 11 AM Tuesday, I was desperate for a New Zealand adapter for my computers and cameras. I have one European adaptor, and a "Universal" adaptor, the Universe of which apparently does not include New Zealand! Linda loaned me her car and turned me loose, and I drove into town to find one. This wasn't my first attempt at driving on the left side of the road - I'd done it across South Africa 11 years ago... but I kept telling myself, "GAUCHE!" which is left in French, which was the word Carol and I kept yelling at Leonard in Napier-Hastings as he sometimes forgot that he was supposed to be on the left instead of the right. The roundabouts would be confusing enough if they drove on the right side of the road, but I escaped them unscathed. I also had to parallel park on the left side! And the steering wheel is on the right, for an added challenge. I was also very careful not to get Linda a parking ticket and skip town.

All went well, I found an adaptor quickly, and stopped at McDonalds, not for food, but for an ICED Coke. I had to ask the lady to fill the cup with ice. "More ice?" She looked at me as if I were daft. "Yes! Fill it up with ice!" And I got a half cup of ice with my coke, which I greatly enjoyed. You can't get a cup of ice in any hotel or grocery store or gas station anywhere. I think nobody in New Zealand ever craves a cup of ice with their drinks. Oh well, I guess I'll stick to my lukewarm water.

Back to the farm, a bit of work for me on the computer because I am so far behind, then I went out to help Linda pick the horse poop out of the lower pastures. We scooped it into a cart pulled by a 4-wheeler, then bagged it up (8 bags!) and took it to the bottom of the drive, where she leaves it out for people to pick up at $2 a bag. There's an Honesty Box down by the poop, where people mostly leave their $2 when they pick up a bag. I don't think there are too many places where you can do that. The Bedouins might be that honest.

In the afternoon, Rebecca and Judith came over to ride with us. We headed down the road a mile or two to Linda's other property where she boards horses, and we took 4 out for a short ride - Monica drove up and joined us. My mount Babe, a Thoroughbred bred off the track, wasn't used to going out in a group, so we spent the ride walking, making sure she didn't get too excited. But that was fine, because it was still the Raven's and my first ride in New Zealand! More trails to ride tomorrow!