Erica is gone. Four days of intensive horse talk and instruction about feeding, inoculations, training strategies and lunging practise of the lovely but difficult Maobi under Erica’s expert guidance has given way to the situation we now find ourselves in: we are alone with a jittery handful of prime condition stallion who is still traumatized by the change: leafy Circle Hippique has been replaced by dusty Sahel plains teeming with creatures never before heard or seen: cockerels crow, muezzins chant, dogs bark and donkeys emit their outraged complaints. Not to mention the visual change: the space and light is over whelming after the shady grove in Bamako.
Even before Erica left we had some troubles. Maobi is excitable, and although he had been able to cope, more or less, with the numerous horses which pass by pulling carts (probably regarding them, instinctively, as belonging to a lower caste than himself) it was a different matter when he laid eyes on the splendid Zaloc , ridden by my old pal Haidara the Marabou who turned up the other day.