Surfer dude.

Huge surfing horses.

We had a toddle around the woods with our friends, a wander down to the cliffs to watch the waves, then went back to their house for coffee. Great, relaxing, no pressure, no hassle, fantastic view overlooking Porthtowan beach; the water is quite broken with a NW breeze about 20-25 knots.

An hour later a horse box showed up, grab the camera and head for the beach.

There is an elderly gentleman who lives locally who brings his horses down to the sea, for 'medicinal purposes.' Apparently these huge shire type horses suffer from sweat irritation, especially on their legs, so into the oggin (Naval parlance for seawater) they go. The young lady leading the chestnut out of the water, prefers to wade alongside the animal's head, giving it confidence to go in amongst the smaller waves. She meanwhile gets soaked up to her chest bumps. The horse in the deeper water is being ridden by an ex-instructor with the Blues & Royals, each time a wave came along he simply raised his legs level with the horse's neck. Both are only wearing normal clothes, no wet suits or anything fancy, get in, get wet, get out and sort the horses out.

This happens on a weekly basis, it's wonderful to watch the animals enjoy themselves. I promise the dark horse is huge, looked at me with such patience and let me approach to stroke his face. I am constantly in awe of these huge, generally placid beasts.

Then I ran out of memory card! The chestnut hurled itself on the sand and did a great impression of a terrier rolling in fox poo. I missed it, learn another lesson.