Desert Hack on Horseback

A full moon was the occasion for our first experience with horseback riding in Dubai. Even though we are both beginners, Neal's associate encouraged us to join a desert ride, and it was a perfect introduction for us. The riding club is located in Mushrif Park, Dubai's biggest and oldest park, so big that you need a car to drive through it. Unlike the newer parks with their highly manicured greenery and gardens, this park looks more like a desert wilderness, with hills, trees and wild life. Getting on a horse was a little scary at first, but the club welcomes beginners and immediately put us at ease, supplying riding helmets and any help we needed to get in the saddle (English, we discovered, not western).

The instructors matched us with horses according to our riding ability, but that didn't mean we were relegated to slow plodders. These were all beautiful, lively horses, many of them Arabians, and we were told to hold our reins in and keep our hands and heels down. The names were a combination of Arabic and other: Sultan, Snow White, Nacho, Parking, 123, Bader, Concord. The instructors rode the most challenging horses, and it was neat to watch how they kept them in control. Soon we were in the heart of the park away from the lights and roads. The horses knew when we reached the running spots, breaking into a trot or light canter to go up the slopes with hardly any nudging. We did none of that the first night, but when we came back again, they had us trotting and cantering before we even thought we were ready. The best way to learn turned out to be the desert hack rather than lessons in the ring, as these horses did not want to trot in circles in the ring for us neophytes. The hack is what they call a recreational trail ride with a mix of walking, trotting and cantering, and gave us time to relax a bit and get comfortable on the horse. I'm not sure how a canter turns into a gallop but I think we did some of that as well. I made sure to keep my reins tight and my hands down so I wouldn't fall off, successfully not falling off so far.

An early morning ride proved to be the best of all, as the horses were fresh and frisky. A horse named Cruella ridden by an experienced rider ahead of me looked like she was dancing while she walked. Watching one of the instructors, Ahmed, take off on his horse for a gallop down through a valley was an amazing sight, as was seeing the sunrise from the top of a horse. We'll be back.