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| Druze horsewoman and trainer Raja Kheir leads a horse back to the stables on her ranch -- the only Arab centre in the area -- in the southern foothills of Mount Hermon, north of the Golan Heights (AFP Photo/Jalaa Marey) |
Majdal
Shams (AFP) - The grey horse rears its head, rocking left and right, kicking its
legs wildly. Sensing danger, Raja Kheir throws herself off and rolls on the
ground.
The
slender, brown-haired 32-year-old in white jacket and jeans tames horses -- not
in itself unusual on the picturesque plains of the Israeli-occupied Golan
Heights.
What makes
Kheir different is that she is an Arab woman, among the few, or perhaps even
the only one from the area taking the reins.
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Druze
trainer Raja Kheir trains a stray
horse on September 17, 2015 in the
southern
foothills of Mount Hermon,
north of the Golan Heights (AFP
Photo/Jalaa Marey)
|
Born into a
conservative family of Druze -- an offshoot of Shiite Islam -- in the Israeli
village of Beit Jann in the Upper Galilee, she now lives and works in Majdal
Shams near Syria.
Horses are
an important part of the culture in the region's ranches and cattle farms
spread among the rugged hills and plains.
Since dawn,
Kheir has been in a battle with three-year-old Qamar -- the moon in Arabic --
and eventually succeeds in getting a saddle on her.
When she
rides Qamar for the first time, she focuses all her concentration but the horse
bucks, causing her to throw herself to the ground.
Hours
later, Kheir is making progress. She places her feet in the stirrups and digs
her feet gently into the horse's side, repeating this several times while at
the same time tapping the animal's stomach.
"It is
not enough to put a saddle on a horse to tame it. The important step is to ride
it," she tells AFP.
Days in
the wilderness
Qamar still
isn't ready to listen fully, and many attempts end with another roll on the
ground.
But Kheir,
who has been riding since she was six, is not discouraged. When she was a
child, "everyone called me a tomboy because I wasn't afraid of
anything," she says.
She used to
spend days in the wilderness near her grandfather's home in Beit Jann, where
horses roamed.
There, she
says, "my relationship with riding began".
Her journey
into taming horses really started eight years ago, when she took a course in
the town of Pardes Hanna near Haifa in northern Israel.
Since then
she has earned multiple diplomas: she can ride horses, train them and teach
them dressage.
Along with
a partner, she decided to set up a taming and training centre. Most of her
clients are families who have bought horses and need someone to train them for
them.
She also
trains stray horses found in the Golan.
With Qamar,
a stray who arrived only a few days ago, Kheir is in the initial stages --
convincing the horse to accept her presence and to enter the stable.
Horses
"like to be free. They don't like to have anything on their backs,"
she says.
"So
when I ride her for the first time she is afraid of me and I am also afraid of
her. She doesn't know my reaction and I don't know her.
"When
I feel she is going to hurt me, I throw myself off."
- 'Courage
above all else' -
Once this
hurdle is overcome, the slow process begins of teaching them to be ridden.
 |
Horses are
an important part of the culture in the ranches and cattle farms
spread among
the rugged hills and plains of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights
(AFP
Photo/Jalaa Marey)
|
"After
you place the saddle on a horse it takes two to three weeks to tame them,
though not to be able to ride them," she says.
It can take
many more weeks for a former stray to get used to everyday things such as the
sound of cars.
Kheir
awakes at dawn every day to feed the 15 horses at her school in the Golan, near
where several other centres are based.
They need
to be fed by 7:00 am at the latest, she says, because something as simple as a
late meal can upset a horse's stomach and even in rare cases be fatal.
For Kheir,
the most important asset in a trainer is courage.
"If a
horse feels your fear it will not accept you," she says. "But if he
feels you love him, he will protect you."
Once
confidence is gained, the rider then has control, she says.
Being a
woman and from the Druze minority, she admits it can be difficult in the
Israeli equine world which is dominated by Jewish Israelis and men.
When she
and her partner set up the ranch -- the only Arab centre in the area -- they
even faced acts of sabotage, with a horse and a foal poisoned and pressure put
on some people not to sell to them.
"There
was a real war against us," Kheir says, deliberately not naming the
alleged culprits.
"But
we've got all the official papers and our school continues."
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