Riding at Ferme Équestre de la Césarée

Bonjour tout le monde !

We've been riding ! Last weekend Anthony and I took a little wee car trip down to Macouria where we had booked a two-hour "ballad" with Ferme Césarée (which is also where I have been riding every wednesday).

Simply put, it is heaven on earth ... for both horse and rider, I assure you. It is (mainly) an equestrian breeding center as well as a cattle farm (the second largest of its kind in Guyane!). It has about 200 horses and 300 head of cattle, spanning 400 hectares in size. And here is the wonderful part, the horses as well as the cattle are all "kept" free on the land. Only the sick and the old are kept in horse boxes. The geldings, the mares and younglings and the stallions have their own fenced land to roam in. As horses are pack animals they are happiest when in a group, here they live freely on the land roaming as they please within their respective packs. This forms part of the reason why I absolutely adore this riding center; the horses are both healthy (in body and mind!) as well as happy. Pure pleasure!

This fantastic wall-mount greets you upon your arrival - I knew I had come to the right place the first time I set my foot on Césarée soil.

This is Rodrigo, a 7 year-old spanish half-breed gelding. He is an absolute star of a gentleman. For the past month I have been working on foot with him and riding him bareback (which I absolutely love!) and he is progressing very well.



Rodrigo and I :)

I fill his quota of hugs every time I see him - just in case he isn't getting enough love from elsewhere.

After leaving the farm and entering the area with the mares and younglings we came across this little man - who had apparently been born just the night/day before. Mum was not very happy about us being so close to her little man but he was standing upright and looked healthy so all was well.

We kept going and entered into the cattle area. Opening and closing the gates on horseback was a bit more technical than you'd expect - but we did well.

Once we'd reached our halfway mark we started looking for a place to jump off for a bit and have a bit of a break. Unfortunately the yard which we were headed to had a set of young stallions in it so we headed out of there pretty quickly once we noticed we had company - stallions of course can be rather dangerous, especially the young vigorous ones. Anyway, we all made it out alive and settled for a pack of moo'ing cows instead.

Here we are! Anthony & Naches and Sarah & Rodrigo looking very snazzy!

The Moo's.

Lots of happy Moo's :) This is how cows all over the world should be living.

And so our trek continues among the cows. Riding on horseback amongst freely grazing cattle makes you realize what freedom is all about.

My favourite picture of the day! Seriously, once we entered the yard with the young cattle in it, every single pair of eyes followed our every move. It was actually rather daunting at first, but once you realized they were simply just curious and always kept their fair distance, it was just wonderfully amusing being the highlight of their day.

We had some fantastic gallops across the open land and gave our horses a good scrub and rub when we came back to the stable - Naches seems to be enjoying his shower here :P

Thanks so much for reading and get ready for monkeys and our sunny boat trip to the Isles du Salut in the next post. Featuring some seriously amazing pictures, I promise.

Happiness and love to all!