Horse Riding News from Sunray Farm on the Wild Coast South Africa

Horse Riding Holidays in South Africa

News letter December 2009

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Join us on a horseback eco adventure, endless beaches, river crossing,

warm lagoons and fantastic cross country riding in the heart of rural Africa.

Page updated 21/02/10

WILD COAST HORSEBACK ADVENTURES 2009

2009 is going to be the year that we remember as a turning point in most of our lives. A crashing recession has left us all just keeping our heads above water! Here at Sunray Farm, we are also managing to survive the worst drought in living memory.

Its been a really tough year; but we can honestly say that we have still had a great one! J

WORKING RIDING HOLIDAYS

I have just gone through our charts and can’t believe that we have had 50 working riders stay with us since January!!! I have to thank each and every one of you for sharing our home, our horses and our lifestyle. It gives me such pleasure to see how each one of you arrive and grow as a person. You are all so brave – leaving your homes on an unknown adventure to Africa. Each one of you has your own experience and leaves a little piece of yourselves in my heart.

Clint and Dez have been working on “The Loft” throughout the year and can now sleep 6 comfortably. The new lounge area is almost complete (we intend finishing it off with tiles on the floor). French doors open up onto the lawn, and we have hung hammocks in the old oak tree. A new back door will stop everyone trudging through the bedroom! We have also added on another shower and separate toilet which makes everything a bit more comfortable. The last phase will be completed in the New Year – one more separate bedroom, which will gives us back our spare room in the main house! We can take a maximum of 8 work riders at a time.

Lee joined us in March as our Yard Manager and Instructress for the Gap Year Working Riding Holiday. Thank you Lee. You are wonderful, and I really appreciate all the hard work and effort you put in to making the program work. Lee has introduced the game of Horse Ball to our riders, and now that the horses have got used to the ball being thrown around they love it! (We play it with similar rules as Polo Crosse, but without the sticks!) She is a bit of a sergeant major in getting everyone doing their chores in the morning, but once the girls get over her bark, its great seeing a bunch of young women having so much fun caring for the horses and doing so much ridingJ

Elizabeth also joined the team and is our cook, who feeds us all far too well!!

Shunter’s (our head groom) riding has improved so much. He is having as many riding lessons with the girls as he can, is very competitive at horse ball, could easily compete at a novice jumping show and is now being trained as a guide to take the out rides on the farm.

THE BEACH TRAILS & HORSE SAFARIS

Most of our trail riders this year were riders who stayed on the working riding holiday. They ride 4 nights 5 days of our monthly 6 nights 7 days Wild Coast Horse Trail. We know that things will pick up for the coming year; the soccer world cup is bringing a lot of interest to South Africa, and what we have to offer. Our agents are all working hard to promote The Wild Coast and the outstanding riding countryside that it has to offer.

THE SURF & TURF HORSE SAFARI is a brand new adventure that we have launch in conjunction with Horizon Horse Safaris. It really is a great combination of African experiences and riding. (You can see all the details on our web siteJ) We are all very excited about getting this trail off the ground, and already have bookings for 2010.

NEW DEVELOPMENT - a WILD COAST HORSE SAFARI is being created and we envision this to be a 5 star safari based at a luxury privately owned game reserve between Sunray Farm and Kei Mouth. It will be a base ride with an option to add on one or two satellite nights out along the Wild Coast. Once we have finalized all details, we will let everyone know!!

NEW BRIDLES

We are very pleased that we have been able to upgrade our bridles to Wintec Synthetic bridles with matching breast straps and martingales.

The horses all look so smart!

The material used is extremely hard wearing, easy to clean and rot proof. Perfect for our coastal environment, it does not stretch, fray or break, and meets all our safety requirements, this is a good long term investment, we have always been very proud of our presentation and turn out of the horses and the new bridles lifts the quality of our tack to an even higher level.

TORSTONE SPORT HORSES & ENDURANCE RIDING

It has been an exciting as well as heart breaking year for our breeding and endurance program.

The tragic loss of Al Adiyat Shabah has left a huge empty gap in the paddocks. I miss him cantering down the fence whenever anyone arrived – he always had to know who was doing what! Shabah also had a great sense of humor, and loved to pretend that he was far more mean than he actually was – his favorite game would be to prance around on the end of a lead rope for any unsuspecting handler, until told sternly “Shabah, no” and he would become the well behaved gentleman that he was. He leaves a legacy of many beautiful horses, all with exceptional temperaments and that special something that makes them outstanding endurance and riding horses.

Three mares, Sarah Jane, Queen Eleanor & Starlight were bred to him shortly before he died, we can only pray that they took to the service and will produce stunning foals at the end of next year.

We have embarked on a new breeding program with the introduction of ‘Bobby’ a very handsome 16 hh Percheron stallion. Bobby is being bred to some of our Thoroughbred mares and also our Boerperd/Arab mares. The objective is to produce athletic forward going horses with good bone and sensible temperaments – in other words good looking Cobs for the trails and general riding.

We had a stunning crop of foals this year. Three colts and two fillies. You can find all the photos on our Facebook page Wild Coast Horse Back Adventures.

_DSC3754 Ashley & Torstone Tamsin has had a fantastic endurance season. Three 80 km races finishing in national team qualifying times & their first 120km FEI endurance race where they represented the Eastern Cape Province. Torstone Time Warp started his endurance career, but was tragically seriously injured in the paddock at the end of October (pictures on Facebook) he is healing well, and we are hopeful that he will make a full recovery. Torstone Tashbah is being prepared to start his endurance career during 2010, and Torstone Tambourine & Torstone Tassenburg are ready to start doing a couple of 60km rides. So we have a busy year ahead! I need another horsebox!!

THE FAMILY

P1030629 Branden has been busy; 5 weeks volunteering at a eco lodge in Limpopo province, he got his Professional Hunters license, and will shortly have his skippers license for the deep ski boat. He has also been working hard at local pubs & restaurants making money! And has been a great help here at home, just having another pair of hands around has been wonderful.

Ashley has been riding hard, training for endurance – and doing really well. He is also doing more with the Working Riding Holiday and getting more hands on in the general yard management. He will be exploring different options this coming year, and hopes to complete his FAGASA level 1 guiding course.

Clint has been building the loft between hunts! He has done a lot of work on the farm, and has managed to get huge areas of over grown bush cleared and opened up. One advantage of the drought is that many of our small stock dams dried up enough for him to be able to get in with a bulldozer and clean them out. Our dam next to the house is now huge and deep – now all we need is rain to fill it! (Then we will be able to swim in it with the horsesJ)

And me, (Julie-Anne) well, I have been working on the web site (which is still a work in progress), and built up a fun network on Facebook (Wild Coast Horse Back Adventures), I have not done much endurance (I did a 60km and could not walk for 3 days!), but have done all the crewing for Ashley and enjoyed seeing all my enduro friends. I have been leading all the overnight trails, with a couple of times during the year only being at home for a few days between trails/endurance rides. Organizing, planning, grocery shopping, marketing and general office work keeps me busy the rest of the time!! We never got to go away on holiday this year, but I have great plans for when I can afford it J

2010

2010 is going to be a good year. Bookings for the Gap Year Working Riding Holiday are already coming in, but because of the world cup soccer the normal pattern of reservations might change slightly. We are confident that the trails will start to gather momentum again and that we will soon be fully booked!

What our visitors want most in 2010 is something their money can’t buy. It’s called Service Excellence – and it comes from being professional at what you do, competent in how you do it, and treating people with genuine warmth and respect when you do it. This is what you will get when you ride with Wild Coast Horseback Adventures.

“It is in the simple sharing of love that we make our beliefs come alive, and our dreams come true.”

Till next time.

Happy riding.