Oman has been two years of unexpected pleasures. Yesterday was no exception (of course I wrote this at least two months ago* and then got busy and visited Australia, so you'll just have to wait for the Australia visit blog). On a Tuesday morning I general host a little "Stitch and Bitch," but today I went along with a group of about 30 other to see the Royal Guard Stables; oh what a splendid time it was.
We often go to the Lulu's hypermarket to shop and that sits slap bang in the middle of the Royal Court area, which is made up of a vast array of building, gardens, racecourse, palace, and, of course, the stables. The supermarket itself used to be the Royal Guard's quartermaster's store. You get very used to seeing the red bereted royal guard all over the place and very familiar with the walls that surround everything...lots of walls...lots of everything. Today I discovered there was also a Royal Guard motorcycle squad who rode large black motorcycles, wore rather sexy black leather and red helmets to match the berets. I'd never seen them anywhere before, even in cavalcades. We often muse about what might be hidden behind the walls. Well, today I found out about one little corner.
The group (a new ladies group called Phoenix) had arranged a tour of the stables and we all were told to meet in the Lulu's carpark at 7:30am so that we could be picked up and taken into the grounds. We all duly arrived and hopped into the bus, drove through the gates right in front of us and around a couple of corners...there we were. We didn't know quite what to expect and what we got was a little taste of some of the things that go on behind those walls. Starting with watching the new music recruits learning to ride. They will all eventually play on horseback for ceremonial events.
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| Some of the new music recruits. Being able to ride is not a prerequisite for joining. |
Some of the lads looked at ease on horseback, some looked nervous and some looked like they were convinced the horse was going to eat them. Round and round and round they went. While we watched some of the more senior riders running the competition horses through their paces.
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| This is their world champion dressage horse, who apparently likes to jump. Unusual in Arabians we were told. He's being trained for showjumping now |
And of course Omani's love their bagpipes, so there is a mounted band, including the most gorgeous drum horses. They were huge.
The new recruits had to hold their horses steady while the band walked slowly past. They looked even more terrified than when they were moving.
Then we went to watch the farrier hot shoeing a horse. Considering this large group of people were hanging about exclaiming and taking photos, the horse was pretty chilled. The farrier was pretty chilled too. Holy cow he was a big bloke.
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| Preparing the shoe |
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| Hammering the still hot shoe on - with bare hands..... |
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Yes, definitely hot-shoeing
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Then for our big treat of the day. Last week Oman hosted the world tent-pegging championships and the Royal Guard makes up a large part of their team. They were all still there so they gave us a demo. Seriously cool to watch. They use spears (javelins really) and swords, and it's not very difficult to imagine what tent pegging used to be very good training for...............
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| The Royal Guard Tent pegging team |
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| The Mascot. Definitely very handsome and not for eating. |
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The latest addition to the stables. 3 months old and full of fun
*Um errr, make that substantially more than two months. Here it was sitting in drafts.........................................
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