A New Life Begins...
- lesley hammam
- Jul 31, 2019
- 3 min read
All my life I have been privileged to own and work with many amazing horses from all over. In the UK we for the most part treat our animals like part of the family with a minority that mistreat them and even then we have laws in place to deal with the cruelty that can arise.
But here in Egypt it is very different animals such as donkeys and horses are for the most part working animals here to aid the farmer in earning his daily bread. Horses are also used as dancing horses and race horses and most are not treated fairly or humanly. Strangely enough this treatment isn't done out of hatred for the animals but out of uneducation they have not been taught about why you should feed them properly or why tack has to fit correctly or a bit needs to be a certain way.
The way they treat their horses comes down to their traditions and beliefs.
This was one of the reasons I decided to start The Adventure Within because the horses I use are not full Arabian beauties but the local Baladi horses these amazing animals are seen as cheap and not regarded very highly but to me one Baladi horse is worth 1000 pure breed Arabs!
Mainly small in size most on bigger than 15.2hh these amazing horses have incredibly big hearts and even though most I work with and own have been abused in some way once shown some love and kindness become the most true and honest ride you will ever have!
One such horse is my new addition Gem out riding one day we came across her tied to a lamppost out side the owners house. The owner saw us coming and stopped us and asked if we could take a look at her because she wasn't doing so good.
Jumping off my boy Gazelle I went to check her out and the first thing she did was bury her head in my chest as if to day don't leave me here!
That was it I was taken hook line and sinker
Now it wasn't that the owner was a bad person in reality he hadn't had her long and his other horse look amazing but he just didn't understand her and thought the only way to get her to do anything was to beat her :-(
So with that myself and my friend who was riding with me at the time made him an offer with the money we luckily had in our pockets that morning and ended up settling on 1500le which to an Englishman is a mere £73! but for here was still lot!!
This I didn't care about she was coming with me come what may and even if she died shortly after wards at least she had a bit of love before she went.
When you see her pictures you will see she is painful thin and at the time we didn't realize she was actually 4 months pregnant!! unfortunately a few weeks after we got her she lost the foal and all the condition we thought we had started to get on her we lost and went back to worse than before :-(
I have had her nearly a year now and even though she is still skinny we are starting to take her out to help her gain some much needed muscle only very short walks, lung her I here you cry! well I would but she has no clue what I'm asking and as I don't want to show her a lung whip walking her in circles is kinder for her.
When I first brought her she was a quite lady with a beautiful nature today she is a very talkative lady with not only a still beautiful nature but also a cheeky one!!
She loves a cup of tea or coffee straight out of the cup!! and she just loves lots of cuddles and when I saddle her up she stands proud with her head high and ears pricked as though to say lets do this!
So if your planning on coming riding with me don't forget to bring some treats for Gem!
She will not be part of our riding tours for a while but when she is ready boy will she be amazing x
Through out her journey so far I have had help from ACE -Animal Care In Egypt and PFK - Prince Fluffy Kareem both these charities have been great for giving much needed advice to help me not only get Gem healthier but also my other 4 horses! so check out there websites and donate if you can to help them carry on their much needed work here in Egypt.
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