Catherine Reda has successfully taken on Morocco’s male-dominated equine industry – and this perseverance has led to her horse’s starring role on Netflix.
“If I meet a French person, I speak French. If I meet a German, I speak German. If I meet a horse, I speak horse.” Catherine Reda is being serious. Through a series of hand and wrist flicks, through her eyes and head movements, through her breath and posture, she speaks to horses. It’s a marvel to watch her work.
READ: The Italian Host with the Most
“The communication of horses is a non-verbal [and hierarchical] language,” says Reda, an equestrian artist specialising in wild horse training and equine behaviour who lives in Morocco with her husband and two children. “It’s an animal that lives in a herd and is led by a chief. To have clear and precise communication with the horse, you have to be a leader, a very strong person, but very calm. It’s a relationship of trust.”
Reda used to be a fashion marketing executive in Belgium until she took her weekend hobby of equine arts into a full-time pursuit. The small-scale Cirque du Soleiltype shows that she performed around Europe with her husband, a renowned Moroccan horse trainer, only to go back into the office on a Monday, simply wasn’t enough.
So, when an offer from Morocco’s Royal Society of Horse Encouragement (SOREC) to promote Moroccan purebreds came for the Redas, they jumped at the opportunity.
READ: Does Emirates Have the Best Overall Business Class?
“We wanted to preserve and keep our image as equestrian artists, but in Morocco, it was very difficult at the beginning because the horse sector [didn’t have an open mindset] for me as a woman in the man’s world of horses. It was complicated,” she recalls. Reda – blonde, white, European, and clearly out of place – didn’t back down, though. She continued to train her own horses alongside working at SOREC and began to build a reputation that she feels was won by keeping her head down and doing the work, showing her worth through her talent.
In 2019, Reda was offered the coveted position of horse manager at Selman Marrakech. The luxury hotel provides upscale amenities to its guests who travel across the world to enjoy such pleasures, including the stately Arabian thoroughbreds housed on-site in five-star stables designed by Jacques Garcia, which are almost as well-appointed as the guest bedrooms.
READ: Hong Kong Cuisine 1983 Launches Shunde Seasonal Menu
In Marrakech, the horse training and showing industry is highly competitive. The Arabian thoroughbreds are demanding horses to work with, and so are the men who run the show, literally and figuratively. Reda’s fierce determination and deep love and respect for the animal has proven her worth. But it nearly fell apart after her beloved Spanish stallion, Bandolero, whom she’d moved with from Belgium, had to be euthanised on the spot after an accident at the hands of others left his right-hind hip completely fractured.
“I wanted to stop everything, change my life, change my profession,” says Reda, still with tears in her eyes five years on as she recalls the groomers who mishandled Bandolero when she was recovering from spinal surgery. “The death of my faithful friend felt too hard to overcome.”
After a few months, a friend told her about a 14-year-old Lusitano stallion for sale in Portugal. And so, Reda reluctantly replaced her beloved Bandolero with Apolo in the hopes that this horse, of Portuguese royal lineage, might help her find a forever friend again. As she stood in front of this fearful but beautiful giant, she could see he’d suffered. “For nearly his whole life he was manipulated by bad hands – too hard and too hurtful – enough so that you can notice all the scars on his body,” says Reda. She brought Apolo back to Morocco but was still consumed by sadness over losing Bandolero.
“My heart didn’t want to take care of this new horse, and I thought I’d maybe find another family for it. Then, one day, my husband said to me, ‘Catherine, give this horse a chance. He deserves it.’ And I knew he was right.”
The bond grew between animal and human. Reda tapped into his emotional scarring through touch and sense, through listening by watching. Apolo would tremble at the sight of a man and was confused about its relationship with people. Reda worked closely with Apolo over two-and-a-half years until his confidence returned. During that time, though, Reda often found herself on the ground being pulled by a galloping horse. “Honestly, it was as tough a test for him as it was for me,” she recalls.
READ: Eight Tips on How to Buy Sustainable Jewellery
Apolo’s progress was so transformational that he was hired to perform in the third season of the Netflix series The Witcher. They filmed last year in Erfoud for three weeks, having rehearsed for a whole month beforehand. The scenes Apolo starred in focused heavily on wild horse technique and Reda was nervous at first, but found Apolo to be a natural actor: composed, diligent, and professional.
“That is my proudest moment,” Reda says of watching her horse get to be in a popular TV show, a first for Reda, though some of her horses have previously done print and commercial ad campaigns. “Today Apolo is 19 years old; he is super fit, and every day I say to myself ‘Wow, what energy.’ You can say that I changed his life, but he also changed mine.”
