Morocco -- Rena and Mama Blue

A fellow rider and Mama Blue with eating tent on one side, shower tent on the other.

Horses should listen to their riders.  By listen I mean mind -- listen, feel, watch.  They should wait for our cues and then respond.  If a good relationship is established, the horse begins to anticipate the rider and offer what the rider wants before the rider is aware of asking.  When all that falls into place, it’s an amazing feeling, a real partnership that makes you open your heart to this animal that could kill you but instead is trying to anticipate your wishes.  Still, let’s be honest, the rider is only one thing to which the horse responds.  They are herd animals and prey animals.  As such, they are very aware of each other and their surroundings.

These horse we are riding in Morocco are very well-trained, very attentive to the rider.  A shift of the leg or light pressure on the rein is enough to change their course or speed.  Still there are two things that supersede the rider with these horses – Rena and Mama Blue.

Rena is a trim but obviously strong woman of about sixty.  Her skin is deeply tanned and somewhat lined, her curly blond and silver hair either braided or pulled back in a clip.  She is Swiss but has lived in Morocco for 40 years.  She is fluent in English, German, French, and Arabic.  She and her late Moroccan husband built this life together – running a riding academy and breeding Arab/Berber horses (his focus), outfitting and leading rides and competing in endurance races (her focus).

Rena is a kind woman who, nonetheless, exudes authority.  On our first night of the ride, we’d set up camp and then gone to the ruins.  Setting up this camp is no small task.  There is a large truck (Mama Blue) that carries water and supplies and serves also as the kitchen, two 4x4s, a two-horse trailer, tents for the crew of about five, a latrine tent, a shower tent, and ten horses.  As we were leaving the ruins, four policemen drove up and approached Rena.  They were new; Rena has been camping in this location for more than 25 years.  They told her she would have to move the camp for fear of flooding.  The sky was cloudless.  Rena shook the leader’s hand and then started speaking to him forcefully in Arabic.  The three other armed gendarmes tightened around her.  This continued for ten minutes.  Ultimately, she dropped us at our guesthouse and moved the camp.  How she managed this in the dark, I don’t know.

On the rides, Rena raises her arm when we are going to gallop.  Long before she says, “We are going,” the horses are ready to skip a trot and jump into a canter.  Once, we made a quick stop to adjust tack and pee.  A few riders were a bit slower in remounting and Rena started out, leading about half the party about 50 meters on, but around a curve.  All the horses left behind, though they were still in herd of four, became anxious – Rena, their goddess, was gone.

There is only one thing that may rival Rena in horse attention and that is Mama Blue.  To the horses, Mama Blue represents all that is good in the world.  At mid-day, Mama Blue means they get their saddles removed, are watered, and get a ration of grain.  In the evening, Mama Blue is the end to the day; so, all those things plus a long rest.  At the end of Day 3, Mama Blue waited for us at the most surreal location.  We’d climbed mountains of what looks like (and crumbles like) cement mix.  Cresting the tallest of these, we were again greeted by the wind and a small village.  Next to the village, at the top of a knoll of its own, stood Mama Blue.

My feet were blistered from the steep descents that we often walk; my knees ached; and I’d suddenly discovered I in fact have a groin capable of causing me significant discomfort.  Following Rena toward Mama Blue, I understood my horse completely.