Story and photos by Elizabeth Farrenprice.

How often does a girl get a chance to ride a pure-bred Andalusian horse across the Andalusian mountains? Hardly ever, so when I got the call, ‘We’re going horse riding in Spain’, there was no hesitation, I was a goer!

I’d already done a horse riding trip with the same group of girlfriends (all men, especially husbands, banned) five years before in New Zealand which had been the holiday of a lifetime and Spain sounded much more exotic.

Horse riding holidays, however, are fraught with danger: everything from the professionalism of the tour organisers, the quality of the horses, the quality of the food and accommodation, and dare I suggest, the quality of the other riders.

Having done numerous rides in Victoria, from Lake Albacutya in the Mallee to Mount Howitt in the high country, it’s just as important that your fellow riders are as up to the task as the horses.

So it was with some reluctance that we welcomed a new rider to the group of Aussie girls (when I say girls, aged from forty-five to fifty something). Five of us had been there, done that, but Cindy had NEVER ridden before. But she was determined not to let the team down, and I must say, she did an amazing job. Six months out, Cindy started having riding lessons. They were infrequent and mainly on an indoor arena. Cindy would be the first to admit she was a long way off mastering rising trot, let alone cantering and galloping when we arrived at Malaga in southern Spain.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Cindy had read the tour guide advice, ‘This ride is for experienced riders only, as the stages leading through the mountains are strenuous, the rides along soft trails through the forests and plains are fast at times, and you’ll spend up to eight hours daily in the saddle.’

With that very much on all our minds, we met the tour operator at Malaga Airport and set off to El Rancho, and several hundred Andalusian horses, all happily waiting for their turn to take yet another tourist on a week long journey from Ronda, over the Sierra de Libar to Alcala and on to the Atlantic with the promise of plenty of galloping on the beach.

Day one was a rather long and winding journey by tour bus to Ronda, one of the most beautiful, ancient towns in the Andalusians, with Spain’s oldest bull fighting arena. The town is perched precariously on steep slopes and it was with this as our backdrop that we unloaded the horses from the truck and each rider was ‘introduced’ to their mount. It really wouldn’t have made much difference which horse each of us got as they were all extremely well behaved and experienced, though it must be said each had its own idiosyncrasies. My brown mare, Reiner had a few geldings she despised, and galloping, even cantering was a big effort for her. She was very responsive to leg aids, as long as they weren’t ‘hurry up’!

The first day was a fairly easy ride as we all got to know our horses and got used to riding in a Spanish hackamore with the reins in one hand, and straddled across the Spanish riding saddle. When I first laid eyes on the tack, as an event rider I thought, ‘Oh, oh!’. But the saddles were perfect for long hours of walking, very little trotting, and short bursts of cantering which is just what we had in store.

Our guide was a young Polish woman, Bogeisha who spoke English, German and Spanish and had a seat like a Grand Prix dressage rider. She was wonderful and handled our strange sense of humour with aplomb. She led a spare horse for the parts of the trip on main roads, though for most of the time the spare horse just ran free which was a novel concept which went off without a hitch.

The Andalusian horses proved to be very sure footed and strong. I’m sure my thoroughbred would not have coped for more than a couple of hours with the steep, rocky mountains. The photos unfortunately don’t really indicate just how steep it was, both up and down. It was pretty treacherous even for the more experienced riders, not to mention dear Cindy who was incredibly brave and didn’t dare complain! By day three she was riding like she was born in the saddle, even if she was walking more like she’d just given birth to one! And that included walking up one hill which was too steep and rocky to ride up. Thank heavens the horses were well mannered and happy to walk steadily behind.

We spent most nights in good, clean well serviced hotels and dined at some great tapas bars and local restaurants. Our trip was not through the usual tourist spots and we even spent one night in the homes of locals as there were not any hotels in the town! The towns were all picture postcard, white houses with red clay tiled roofs nestled in the mountains on small, winding roads.

Our journey also took us through ranches which exist solely to breed the classic Spanish bulls for fighting, though we had a fence between us and the bulls for protection. We also rode through hectares of cork oak tree forests where the cork had only recently been harvested. Large bands of cork bark about half a metre across are stripped from the trees every seven years. Each lunch time we were met by our driver, who’d prepared a picnic fit for a king, or a group of old queens like us! Lashings of wonderful cold meats and Spanish cheeses, olives of course, sun dried tomatoes, pickled squid, fruit, soft drink, even Spanish beer for the particularly thirsty.

Only one day was just too long in the saddle. But we all made it with few complaints, and it was well worth it as the next day there we were, galloping on the shores of the Atlantic! Well, everyone else was. I was doing a slow trot at the rear as Reiner took her time. But it had its bonuses. I was the only one to get a good, long look at the naked German tourists sunbaking on the beach who stood to attention, so to speak, when they heard the galloping hooves pass them by.

That was just the first day of galloping on the beach. We had another in store! This time, I swapped horses with one woman who found her horse a little too strong for her. She loved a quiet stroll on Reiner, and I relished several good, long gallops and didn’t care about missing the nude bathers. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all!

We of course rounded the trip off with the compulsory dinner in a fine restaurant with not so fine Spanish wine in Malaga. My lasting memory? Cindy galloping past me on the last day whooping with joy, swearing this was the first of many horse riding holidays.

I rather fancy the idea of horse riding in Africa. If we can survive Spanish fighting bulls without incident, why not up the ante and see if we can survive the African wildlife.