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A ride to heaven: Why Sumba maite Sandalwood pony | Art and Culture News

Sumba, Indonesia – Named the fragrant trees that once covered the island, the Sumba Sandalwood horse is the only horse breed within Indonesia’s local economy, culture, and religion.

With a lively and agile animal, good endurance and friendliness, the Sandalwood horse is also the only Indonesian horse breed to be exported abroad: baby ponies in Australia and Singapore, Malaysia and other parts of Southeast Asia. They are also looking for slaughterhouses in Indonesia’s Sulawesi province, where horse meat is a delicacy.

But Sumba is also proliferating engines with a persistent drought, some 800km (497 miles) east of Bali, forcing more people to move from rural to urban areas and some concerns about the horse being left behind to migrate.

“Motorcycles are now more valuable than horses on this island,” says Claude Graves, an American hotelier and philanthropist who has lived and turned off Sumba for 40 years.

“Culture is dying. Only the pasola has kept going, “he added, referring to the annual festival held at the beginning of the rice planting season, where riders mounted by spears seem to fertilize each other with human blood. The spears are blurred but the deaths of pilots and spectators still occur.

Petrus Ledibani, assistant director of Nihi Sumba, a luxury resort that offers a variety of horse-riding activities, says his father was a young man who could ride all the children in Sumba.

A sandalwood pony gallops across the beach on Sumba [Ian Neubauer/Al Jazeera]

“But now a lot of kids don’t even sit on horses. Only families who have horses or are involved in horse racing know how to ride,” he said.

Horse trading

One of the eight official breeds of horses in Indonesia, Sandalwood ponies have small ears, a short muscular neck and an unusually long back. Their lineage VIII. It dates back to the time when Chinese traders visited Indonesia.

“They’re called sandalwood ponies because the Chinese exchanged Mongolian ponies for sandals with the natives,” said Carol Sharpe, an expert on natural riding in Australia who created Nihi Sumba stables. “Later they brought traders from the Middle East to raise Arabian horses. The Arabian is naturally a very elusive horse, the Mongolian is fast but strong, so it’s a very good mix. But they’re not good for work because they have a low level, probably due to centuries of malnutrition. is on the island, but most of it is not nutritious. “

But Sumbanians sprinkled with Catholicism or Islam with animism found many other uses for pottok: transportation, status symbols, dowry payments, funeral sacrifices, and vehicles for storing wealth.

In the 1930s, Dutch settlers introduced circuit-style horse racing to the island.

The race that crosses Sandalwood ponies with Australian puruburs also created a horse-breeding industry and is now dominated by Indonesians with Chinese heritage. Many Suma breeders do not have much concern for the welfare of their animals, according to Sharpe.

“Crosses have a lot of back problems because the race starts too early. I saw 12 or 18 month old foals on the track. They also interfere with them, inject steroids and give them energy drinks or coffee before the race, ”he said.

The grass offered in Sumba is not particularly nutritious and is believed to be one of the reasons for the small size of the Sandalwood ponies. [Ian Neubauer/Al Jazeera]

“Others also let their horses roam wild in times of need to save money on feed. They won’t last long. We had a terrible drought in 2019. Horses fell like flies.”

Instagram sensation

Despite their poor overall health, Sharpe acknowledged the larger built Thoroughbred-Sandalwood crossbreeds are better suited for activities than the Sandalwood ponies at the resort, and went about building a team.

“They were ready to train using fear tactics so they had no control at first. Anyone who tried to walk would end up on the ground,” he said. “That’s where I started my work in natural riding. I helped slow down the evening walks along the beach. I gave the boys stable skills.”

Sharp also learned new skills from his stable boys, specifically how to clean animals by surfing, sometimes with riders on their backs. Over time the bathing rite became a dedicated activity at the resort.

When guests take photos and share them online, swimming horses go viral on Instagram.

“Indonesian Sumba has always been known as a land of horses,” said Jonathan Hani, a horse breeder in his bedroom in the Sumbai capital Waingapu. “But when the guests from Nihi started swimming with horses and people saw the photos abroad, the show was very good for us. Sumba has been put on the map. We’ve got a lot more international tourists.”

Station manager Madlen Ernest also acknowledges that horses keep their property afloat in the credonavirus pandemic and put food on the tables of more than 300 workers.

“Before the pandemic, because almost all of our guests were foreigners, we had to close when the international travel ban was imposed in April,” he said.

“Four months later we reopened to the Indonesian market. At first we didn’t know for sure if it would work, but things went much faster than expected, as some Indonesian influencers who stayed here reposted photos of horses swimming on Instagram. “

Journey to heaven

The Sumba Foundation, a charity for about 35,000 people on the island that provides drinking water, health, food and education, has also benefited from tourists ’esteem for Sumba’s horses.

“The kids from the villages came down to the beach with their races on horses. Tourists bet on buying tickets for their favorite and focused on all the profits for specific projects,” said CEO Patrick Compau. “In our last race, we raised $ 4,400 for a little girl with rare genetic defects in her intestines. She needs surgery in Balina to save her life.”

Adds Claude Grave, charity founder: “We’re seeing kids as young as eight competing, all proud. It’s great that we can raise money, but for me children’s racing is about saving culture.”

Although there have been changes in Sumba life lately, the Hani horse breeder believes that the Sandalo horse will always be part of the island’s culture.

“They’re already being used by most people for more convenient transportation engines, but they’re still being used in every part of our culture,” he said. “When a boy wants to marry a girl, they have to give horses to their parents. When someone dies, the family has to sacrifice a horse because we believe it will take their soul to heaven.

“Horses are our best friends in Sumba, a part of the family,” he says. “Having one is a symbol of pride. If a person has a horse, it means he is of good character. “




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