Horse Riding

The horse stops before you notice why. Two steps further on a slab of rock lies at an angle in the slope, wet with meltwater. Armenian mountain horses are small, tough and sure-footed, and they read the ground better than any rider sitting on them for the first time.

The riding is in the Aragatsotn highlands, across the pastures below Aragats. The forest ends here; what remains is rock, short grass and snowfields that hold into summer. From the saddle you see further than from a car, because you sit higher and move more slowly.

No prior experience is needed. Before mounting up, the horses are matched to the riders; the riding guide goes by what you tell him about yourself and by the first twenty metres. If you have never been in a saddle you get the calmest animal and spend the first hour at a walk.

Downhill you do not ride the horse, you let it work: long reins, weight centred, the animal picks its own footing. The first time it feels wrong, and it is the most important thing you learn all day.

Four to seven hours in the saddle is a physical matter even though you are sitting down. Inner thighs and lower back speak up more clearly on the second day than on the first. Long trousers without an inside seam spare you the less pleasant half of that.

For handling the animal: never walk behind a horse without speaking to it, keep the gap to the horse in front, do not dismount suddenly. Helmets are provided and worn. If you forget all of that in the yard, the riding guide tells you kindly the first time and briefly the second.

At midday the saddles come off. The horses graze, you lie in the grass, and for an hour nothing happens. Then it is back, usually by a different route than the one out — which one depends on where the herds are standing.