The Dangers Of Endurance Riding.

As Endurance Rides are part of our program at Selati Horseback Safaris, I would like to share the following story.

I attended a Endurance ride with a friend on 19 - 20 Feb 2016. She asked me if I would like to ride one of her mares, and without even hesitating I said yes. Always fun traveling together to the rides as it is very social. Arrived on friday offloaded the horses and got them settled in. The afternoon around 17:00pm it was time for the pre-vet checks. The horses where pumped up and ready to go as her mare  got very busy, such a go getter! It took two different Vets to evaluate her. After that we took them back to their paddocks and set them in for the night. We where nervous and anxious for the following morning. It was a early start, we got up at 03:00am and went to the ride base at 04:00am. Anxiously waiting to saddle up the horses and to start the race. Our start time was 06:00am. So I took the mare and started saddling her. As I pulled the bridle over her head she jump up high on her back legs. Settling down I got it on, second step was the saddle. The saddle was on her back, as I tightened the girth she jumped up again and as instinct I ran a few meters forward to get out of the way. As I was running I heard a loud noise, it sounded like a gun shot. As I turned around there she was on the ground, the only life that was left was the last remaining kicks in her back legs. I ran as fast as I could not being able to contain my tears to call a Vet.

Ultimately when she jumped up she fell backwards on her head and she was dead on impact. The only thing we could do was cover her up and wait for someone to remove her. It was a very distroughtful scene and could never in our wildest dreams imagine that something like this would happen.

RIP beautiful Mekadesh Mikayla.