South African Endurance Race - Cradle of Mankind

[IRMurphy@aol.com]

I've seen a few posts about the endurance race scheduled in South Africa for this coming weekend.  Last year I flew to South Africa and took part in the race.  This was one of the most enjoyable races that I have ever been to!  The facilities were fabulous, the people were very friendly and the terrain was VERY different.
While we didn't ride with elephants and giraffes (none located in that region unless the reserve has expanded) we did ride with Hippos, Rhinos, Springbuck and all sorts of horned interesting animals.  There were two times the horse I was riding spooked, once at the ostriches that were running with us and secondly next to the predator's camp when the lions and cheetah were pacing next to the fence.  Don't know how they could train to ride with any of these animals since I saw very few wild animals outside of the reserve.
For those interested I put many pages of pictures from the trip on my website http://www.maverick-stables.com/ under photos.  I also wrote an article about the entire trip but email me privately if interested!
One note, because of the African Horse Sickness there are very strict import/export requirements on the horses.  Since even the vaccine for horse sickness requires careful monitoring and no excessive work with the horses I don't plan to bring any of mine to South Africa.

Regards,
Irene 
www.maverick-stables.com