Although Tanout (the least developed area in Niger) was always Eden’s main target area, villagers from the Zinder bush approaches the project nearly twenty years ago with the desire of setting up their own Eden Gardens, and were given advice on how to do it. As a result, the entire Zinder bush has changed colour, and everywhere I ride, I cross Eden Gardens in the making. For the past few months, I have been spending much of my working time outdoors, visiting Eden Gardens throughout the area and talking to their caretakers.

There really is no better way to see the Eden trees than to ride out into the heart of the bush on our hard-working ambling horses, who love the bush and are eager to discover new places at a pleasurable speed. The ultimate test for me as a horse trainer was when I was able to take Staffan and Inger for a 4 hour tour in the bush; even though both of them were over 60 years old and Inger had up to that week never ridden a horse before.

With our two barb mares constantly in use, and with an entire bush awaiting discovery, it was suddenly time for an equine expansion.

Sahara - our naturally ambling barb mare - was the role model as Yaronbaba (our jockey and now trainer) and his assistant went out to scout the Niger inland for pristine, ambling horses.

On his first journey in the Nigerien inland, he came upon one of Sahara’s cousins, who was five years old and had the same comfortable four-beat diagonal gait as Sahara. Having already one mare from the “House of Sahara”, and knowing just how dominant Sahara and her relatives are, I asked him to keep looking and to find me two horses from different families than Arwen and Sahara. Speed was not an option, nor was age, but they had to have that natural pristine ambling that is unique to the Nigerien barb, be generally well-behaved and preferably of a different colour than the four we have at home - but not grey.

Yaronbaba went back again, scouted through the bush and settled upon two mares. The first was a petite but well-proportioned three year old dun mare with a black dorsal stripe and a sweet temper,

…and the other one was an larger dark-brown five year old who was in dire need of fattening up.

The darker mare - now called Ebony - arrived yesterday morning. She settled in immediately and started eating without distruption, and is what she is still doing today, twenty-four hours later. She is a tall and quite mare with a beautiful face and sweet personality. Her back is totally dreadful and I can’t wait to see some meat on those bones!

Our second mare - named Ivory - came later in the evening, and she truly is a little sweetheart. A petite little thing, she will make a fabulous ride for children and smaller people. Nigerien barbs are like Icelandic ponies - you really cannot count their strenght in size. As she is already three years old (but shorter than our Isolde, who is only 1 year and 3 months), I am not sure if she will grow in height, but regardless of which, she will be a fine horse. Both Yaronbaba and Anette are completely taken by her, and I have a feeling that this might be the very horse that will teach my young niece Tabita to ride. Her colouring is very rare amongst Nigerien barbs and horse dealers have already approached Yaronbaba to ask if they buy her from us (to take to Burkina Faso or Nigeria) - but little Ivory is here to stay. Both mares will be dewormed, treated for piroplasmosis and fattened up and can now look forward to a long life with good food, constant equine company and regular activities.