For a while now one of my goals to do with horses is to be able to ride on the beach. Well this came true when we went on a small holiday to an amazing villa in a place near Negombo, and just for fun I borrowed my mum’s ‘phone and searched for riding schools in the area. 

In my favour I came across a nice-looking riding school and told the Villa about it and they very kindly arranged a 2-hour beach ride for me at 4:15 that day. After watching Harry Potter and having some afternoon tea, we set off for my experience.

I was over the moon when we arrived and was assigned a ‘15 hands rising 6’ thoroughbred stallion called Monsoon. The chestnut horse featured in the pictures is a ’16 hands rising 4’ thoroughbred cross Marwari mare called Cherie (yes she understands French!) who is actually Monsoon’s daughter.

We hacked out all the way to the beach including riding on the road for the first time as you can see here and had an amazing time along the waters edge.  Monsoon LOVES the water.  However, to make the horses relax and calm down being in a place they love, some stable boys galloped them along the sandy shore and told us that Monsoon is the fastest horse they have by a long way.  You can see Mummy’s video, here.  I was a little scared of him being fast, but he was actually kind and quite slow for me, and his trot can give Valentina’s trot a run for her money. 

Monsoon is really gentle, and you can’t tell that he is a stallion at all. After about 1 hour on the beach, a wedding party came to take photos with Cherie and a few with Monsoon and I became the official horse handler for their wedding photo shoot which was quite fun.

I did some stirrup-less work for about 10 minuets near the end which made him listen a little more because my foot was lower to the bottom of his stomach. This is probably in my top 3 horse riding experiences.

I miss Monsoon and hope to see him again before we leave.

Emilka