When we came out from Maya’s house (which I blogged about last Saturday), Babaye, who is the horse trainer of Maya’s neighbor (a politician with a deeper interest in horse racing who has about twenty horses stationed the Zinder region), wanted us to come inside and see his boss’ latest addition. At first, I thought they had gone and bought Gamji - the former champion who scared Sahara out of her wits, but it was a horse from the same family.

Although I appreciate the Sudanese horse for it’s broad figure (it has the very non-Nigerien capacity of putting on weight!) I have a problem with the Sudanese mane fashion and would never buy a grey or white horse over a true reddish-brown Nigerien barb with black mane! But that’s only my personal preference.

Babaye also took us to the inner courtyard and showed us this nine month old foal, whose long and proud Arabic name I have unfortunately forgotten.

He was a cute little fellow, but under-developed for his age. There was food in his bowl but he had no interest in eating it.

I talked to Babaye about the importance of letting young horses interact with older ones, and that this particular little guy wasn’t growing because he wasn’t inspired to eat. As I am getting known as the wild horse owner with a million ideas, Babaye immediately took me up on my suggestion and let the little guy out for a leg stretch. He was thrilled and that was really fun to watch. I’ll let you know if he ever becomes a race champion!