Saqaf the wonder horse

10th April 2021

Saqaf is the name of the Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) first horse. It means running water, and he was named due to his speed.

Saqaf is also the name of my new horse, or rather the one I started riding a couple of weeks ago.

I saw a post on a fb page saying: “Any expats interested in riding lessons? WhatsApp this number for further details.” I surreptitiously WhatsApped the number under the table whilst we were dining out on Saturday night.

Monday afternoon found me gripping the wheel of Gary’s ‘kampung cruiser’ (village car), a rather dull, grey, totally inconspicuous car. I hurtled along the highway out to Sungai Buloh, where all the plant nurseries are, away from the city and into the fresh air of the countryside. I passed a sign saying ikan bakar (a grilled Malaysian fish dish) as I came off the highway, even though we were miles from the sea. Waze then told me to turn left (by the pineapple stall) and I’d arrived somewhere in the middle of Bukit Rahman Putra at the rather grandly named Rahman Putra Equine Centre. I had no idea what to expect.

I’d arrived in Malaysia with just one suitcase and no riding gear (apart from one Ariat polo shirt) so I was just dressed in cropped jeans and my rather worn out jungle shoes.

I drove up a bumpy, unmade track to the brow of a hill, where I spotted a rather smart-looking sand arena with floodlights to my left. I carried on down the hill past the small stable yard with some six horses tied up and ready to be ridden. Six beautiful horses – not the stocky Gypsy cob types you so often see in riding schools in the UK these days - these were proper-looking sport horses!

I parked the car at the bottom by the round lunging pen and climbed up the steps to the stables, inhaling the sweet smell of horses, and met Denny, the owner of the yard. Denny turned out to be a young-ish, 30-something Malay guy, with long hair swept back into a ponytail, shaved at the sides and with a black cap on his head. He was dressed in a smart polo shirt bearing the name of the stables, jeans with an Argentinian polo-style belt and rubber riding boots.

“So, when do you want to ride?” he asked. “You can ride today, if you like!”

“But I haven’t got any riding gear,” I replied. “Can I borrow helmet and boots?”

“Sure, no problem, you ride today.”

A couple of others had turned up – Catrina, an Aussie lady, and Din, an older Malay guy, neither of whom had ridden for many years. We took it in turns to ride and be assessed by Denny, to determine when we should ride next, and with whom. He decided I should ride the following day, at 8am, which meant getting up at 6:15am, and I would ride Saqaf.

There are only a few horses in the yard, maybe half a dozen plus a couple of ponies, of which three are privately owned by some rich guy who only appears once a month. I’m wondering if he needs any help…

I’m introduced to a professional coach who is here to ride these horses. It turns out, not only does he do dressage and endurance riding, but he also trains the king’s horses – the ones that stand so still in the stifling heat guarding the enormous palace.

Saqaf, it transpires, is an interesting horse, a former racehorse who can be quite stubborn and doesn’t like any contact on the reins. After riding him three times in the first week, I come to realise he doesn’t behave like a normal racehorse. He doesn’t whip round when one of the lads starts up a strimmer right under his nose, or startle at all when a Malay girl, dressed in flowing black robes and hijab, along with riding helmet and boots, accidentally scoots out in front of him without looking.

“Denny, I don’t get it,” I say, “Saqaf doesn’t seem scared of people, or noise or anything. He seems almost bomb-proof!”

“Funny you should say that,” Denny replies, “but he literally is bomb-proof. A couple of years ago we sent him off to be trained by the army, the ones that control the riots. He was trained to cope with crowds of people, and he can have a smoking bomb on the ground by his feet and not react!”

I never dreamed that the words ‘ex-racehorse’ and ‘bomb-proof’ could be used to describe the same horse. Saqaf, you are a most remarkable equine. And I’m left wondering if Jesus ever rode a horse…