Safaris run on personality. A charismatic, bon vivant with a hugely positive view on life and unlimited energy running through their veins is inspired to set up a safari. At the start they do a lot themselves. They arrange the horses, they buy the tack, they take the bookings, they drink with the guests until the wee hours of the morning and wake up early to check the eggs are boiling and the horses are watered and fed.
They know each guest by name and share inside jokes with them. They can tell when a group can all ride well and up the volume accordingly, taking them to and fro at rapid pace and laughing at the glorious, child-like freedom of it all! Guests come back again and again and feel like returning friends. The line between guest and friend is grey and blurry and connections are real and strong.
But then the Owner starts to hire more and more staff. To make things smoother for the guests. They bring on more horses as one goes lame, and two retire. We must have spares so the guests’ riding isn’t interrupted. The overheads start to increase and they look at increasing the number of guests' on the ride. Eight is probably perfect but technically we could squeeze ten in and what’s the difference? They might even allow for 12, though they know the ones at the back will need to manage themselves, there’s no way they can possibly hear and see that far back, especially when they’re trying to manage these four new, hot, under-schooled horses up the front.
With so many guests and horses they now need another back up guide - or even two for when one is ill. They’re so busy with the back office now with these big groups of 12 that they hire in more young girls to guide. They don’t have much time to train them properly but there needs to be a sense of a team so they order branded shirts to create a feeling of togetherness.
Some trips they’re just so busy that the group is lead by the back up guide. Just one or two rides at the start but then they start sitting out on more and more until eventually they just turn up to welcome the guests on the first day. The guests have a good time but they were hoping to be near the charismatic Owner who started the whole safari and instead they got matched with a perfectly lovely but very young and inexperienced foreign girl on her gap year. The guests are full of thanks and pleasantries but they never come back.
The Owner needs to work harder to get new business now that the return rate has dropped. They start taking on older, less experienced, less-fit riders that they never would have accepted before. They can pay so why shouldn’t they come? There are more falls and the Owner tells the young foreign girls to cut down on the canters. They’ll be able to enjoy the scenery better at walk anyway. The guests, who have seen fast, joyful canters in all of the promo photos are full of thanks and pleasantries but never come back. It was just too slow. It’s just missing something. It’s not quite what I thought it would be.
To mitigate the falls the Owner buys larger horses to carry the increasing weight of the ageing customer base. They’re also slower than the anglo arabians he used to use so that gives him peace of mind.
A guest, who came at the start, gets a rush of nostalgia and books in to relive those happy, free feelings from long ago. She arrives to a different stable of horses, led by a young foreign girl with a great love of horses but no deep, passionate connection to this land and no lifetime of stories to share. The other guests are 20 years older than her and she has nothing in common with them. She is full of thanks and pleasantries as she leaves.. but she doesn’t come back.
You want to catch a safari in its prime. When researching rides for Black Saddle I look for signs of over-commercialisation and fatigue from the owner. Sometimes I can tell from the very large horses, sometimes it’s the number of guides they have on rotation, often it’s the sheer number of rides they put on. Sometimes I can tell from which riding agencies they find most of their riders through - many have almost all of their clients aged over 60 and into their eighties and the riding is slowed right down - just to be on the safe side.
I look for owner-led rides. It makes SUCH a difference.
This sad scenario is all too common. One of the benefits of working with an agent is that we know who is jaded and where the magic has been lost, and without saying as much (we’re more discreet than that) we’ll steer you in the direction of a ride that still has a lust for life.
If you’ve very adventurous and are looking for the most thrilling riding that comes with vibrant safaris I suggest you join me on a scoping ride as we trial the best of the new safaris and golden itineraries. It might not always run smoothly but that’s half the fun - think about it, all your best travel stories are about overcoming the things that went sideways aren’t they?!
For truly mind blowing riding I suggest a stay at Macatoo, riding in Kyrgyzstan, incredible Iceland with the wonderful Anita, or the greatest safari of all, Namibia!