Horse Games: One man’s search for the tribal horse games of Asia and Africa

From the buzhashi horsemen in Afghanistan and Mongolia, to the dancing horses of Mali and the mounted Oromo spearmen of Ethiopia, Bob Thompson has spent decades travelling to the most difficult outreaches of the world to discover the last remaining tribal horse games of Asia and Africa. He covers gilgit polo, visits the Ethiopian national stud, watches cirit and tent-pegging, and his journey takes him to such exotic places as Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Iran and Pakistan. Bob Thompson travels to some of the world’s most remote places to fulfil his passion for seeing, while they still remain, the last vestiges of the skills of the war horse. AUTHOR: Robert started riding when he was six and rode in his first point-to-point on his way back to boarding school when he was just sixteen. He was commissioned into The Life Guards (Household Cavalry) in 1966. He left the army to be the horse-coper for an expedition looking for the lost city of Firozkoh in central Afghanistan. While watching a game of Buzkashi he was told that a banned ancient horse game was still played somewhere in Eastern Turkey. This initiated a lifelong quest. 110 colour and 10 b/w photographs