Waterskiing With… Horses?
Now here’s an interesting (read: weird) idea, and not neccessarily one we can see taking off over here. And before the images of horses on waterskis start to set in your brain, i’ll explain that the horses aren’t actually the ones doing the surfing. :P
A member of the BlueZeal office has just returned from Paris, and mentioned the French having come up with a bizarre little sport known as Horse Surfing. It’s waterskiing, but not as we know it (sorry, can’t help it), because the horses are the prepulsion. With harnesses attached to the horses backs, the ski and rider are pulled along behind in the shallows. It’s certainly one way of overcoming the sustained speed problem when you’re not riding a wave, although it brings to mind hilarious visuals of using the donkeys on Exmouth beach to acheive the same thing. And who says they wouldn’t be good at it? It would just look very stupid, is all.
Come to think of it, it’s along the same idea as using your dog to pull your skateboard. Although, with a dog you’re unlikely to be able to get it to stop when it decides chasing one of it’s mortal enemies is more interesting than taking you to the shops for a paper.
As you can see from the photo though, these guys take it pretty seriously, and it does look like a heap of fun for everyone involved. So if you see a group of people gathered around a disgruntled donkey this summer, trying to get it to haul a ski through the exmouth waters, it’s us. Bring carrots.
(we found the photo at a website with loads of other interesting information on this sport… if you can read french. if you can’t, just look at the pretty pictures like we did)
