Trainer Rachel van der Graaf, 39 years old, practices horse riding with her trainees, such as her 11-year-old daughter Noa, at the riding school Die Flardingha Ruiters in Vlaardingen, on October 12, 2023. That association has existed since 1949.
Van der Graaf developed a love for horses at an early age: “At the age of six I was told that I had epilepsy. My doctors then advised me to start riding horses.”
People in the Netherlands ride horses for sport, or their health, or for fun. Or a combination thereof. There are competitions and shows. Of course you also have the mounted police. But horses that are used for work, hunting or on the battlefield are no longer available in the Netherlands. It is mainly equestrian.
From Afghanistan I remember that horses are used in a traditional heavy game, a folk sport: goat grabbing or ‘buzkashi’. Rivals on horseback compete fiercely with each other to grab a goat carcass and deliver it to the target, a circle on the ground.