Brutus, my designated mount for a week of riding on the beaches of southern Mozambique , had a speculative look in his eye as I approached him. Fair enough, because the stocky Basuto pony tied to a rail under a tree was a long way from home. He was born 10 years ago on a farm in Zimbabwe to classically minded owners – his fellow foals included Caesar and Roman – but his timing was bad. With elections to face, President Mugabe was keen to persuade any citizens who might not vote for him that they would be better off elsewhere.
As the situation deteriorated, farmers Patrick and Mandy Retzlaff, Brutus’s owners, were evicted from their sixth property in three years. They decided they had had enough and settled on the idea of fleeing the country to establish a horse-riding business, choosing Mozambique because horses were already common in Tanzania, Botswana and South Africa. But when they rounded up their foals and yearlings for the journey, neighbours in similar situations began to offer more, on the grounds that the animals would otherwise be abandoned, and probably eaten. So in 2003, the Retzlaffs arrived in the frontier town of Chimoio with 104 young horses – and no obvious place to go.
