By Pauline
I took off for NZ Christchurch at a whim on New Year's Eve last year with boots, crop and helmet. I stayed with a host family in Oxford which was only an hour's drive from Christchurch City Centre and a 10 min drive to Kowhai Riding School which I chanced upon on the internet. Being accessible was one big draw, being inexpensive was another. A day’s ride ( 1 lesson+1 trail ride) including lunch cost NZ$215.
Day 1: Kowhai Riding School
I arrived at Kowhai (which is the name of a small yellow flower) at 9 am and it was back-breaking hard work from then on !
There were about 30 riders that day as it was a public holiday and we were put into groups of 4 to 6 according to age and/or riding experience. First, we each had to catch our own horse from the paddock. Under the guidance of our instructor, we each grabbed a handful of barley and a halter and went looking for our assigned horses. It was indeed overwhelming for riders like me who were so used to stabled horses and were always waited on hand and foot by stable helpers. There were some 80 horses in the paddock and they were amazingly peaceful and harmonious! We did not have to worry about being kicked or bitten so it was so exciting to be in such close proximity with so many horses. We soon located our ride and the instructor gave us a demonstration on how to put the halter on the horse’s head while they were happily munching on the barley. This was but the first of many more demonstrations to come.
We led our horses back to the yard and I had a big tall dark bay mare named Opal. I soon learnt that she was like the Alpha female and both of us have something in common- greedy and obnoxious! More on that later... We had to learn to tie a special knot with the halter rope around a pole at the yard and attach it to our horse. We had to be careful to attach it to the raffia string (which tears easily) and not to drop any metal part on the horse or they might injure themselves if they spooked and tried to pull away.
After spending a long time figuring out how to tie the wretched knot ( they call it the butterfly knot i think), we had to go to the barn to collect a brush, a curry-comb and a hoof-pick to groom the horse. It was literally back-breaking trying to do Opal’s hind legs. She would rest her weight on me and swish her long thick tail across my face! I swear she was giving me two tight slaps across my face, left then right, and it hurt! I proceeded to put the saddle pad on, then the saddle (you had to be quick yet gentle because the saddle was both heavy and expensive) and lastly the bit which soon became a tangled mess in my hands. The instructor helped me with it and finally we were ready to mount. We had taken a total of 1.5 hours doing all that!
The lesson lasted about 2 hours, in an arena which was just hard ground and not sand-filled, so I had a good mind to stay on the saddle no matter what... It was a pity that the lesson soon became boring and laborious for me because they actually put 2 beginner-riders with me and another experienced rider. The experienced ones were asked to canter in the later part of the lesson and boy, that alone made all the hard work in the morning plus the boring bit all worth it! Opal was very forward-going and she had such a lovely gait that it was almost effortless cantering her and we just went on and on, for some 10 rounds, on both the left and right rein. Unlike those horses we get so often in the regular riding schools where you have to kick and push so much, especially round the corners, horses at Kowhai are a joy to ride! They are so lively and so well-schooled that it’s no wonder many of their relatively new riders are able to go on a cantering spree in the open farmland as compared to our local riders who probably had to take many many lessons before they could even get to transit into canter. That’s why people often say a good horse actually teaches you a lot more than you teach the horse.
After the ride, we had to untack the horse, give it a sponge bath, clean the tack with soap and water, and feed our horse. After a quick lunch, we went out to prepare for the afternoon hack and we had to do the morning chores all over again! Yes, everything and this time Opal decided to give me some variety: she pooped! Oh my! it was such a huge mound that I had to empty the shovel (which was darn heavy) 4 to 5 times before the ground was clean again.
My group went up the Canterbury hills and it was simply delightful! While the morning was blazing hot, the afternoon was cool and breezy. In fact, it got rather chilly up on the hills and the wind was making a ghoulish howl. Opal was her usual greedy self. She simply had to eat all the way, all the time! If I so much as paused for one second, she would pull the reins out of my hands and stretch her neck for whatever she could stuff into her mouth. Then she would chew on the grass as we moved along. There was no point trying to resist her, she did not take “no” for an answer; she would bend her ears and show you how mean she could be when she got upset!
I had brought along my new Canon Powershot waterproof camera and was merrily snapping pictures with one hand while holding the reins in the other. This was a big no-no but I didn’t want to go home without any evidence of my wonderful time with Opal and my new-found friends. It was extremely relaxing as we trotted up the winding path to the top of the hills. The view was breathtaking; all we saw below was large squares of farmland and as we were lucky to have a clear sky that day, we could see miles ahead to Christchurch! Canterbury Plains has the the flattest land in NZ, so we had an unobstructed view all the way to Christchurch.
I did some good cantering, though not as much as I would have liked. The trail lasted about 2.5 hours and after that, we had to repeat the chores yet again! After the horses were sponged and clean again, we released them in the field by the river. There was a trough of water in there and that obnoxious, bossy horse of mine actually chased away 2 others who were drinking there. She simply bent her ears and “elbowed” her way between them and the 2 horses briskly moved away; they didn’t even try to “argue” with her. Opal got her way, all the time, but I was so proud of her and also felt such an affinity with her. She could have been my twin!
For more information and rates:
Kowhai Riding School
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