He was a true Warrior

My beautiful horse Warrior has died.

Everything possible was done for him.  African horse sickness is a cruel and terrible thing.  It can take the very strongest and the very best.  Warrior was all of that. 

I learnt so much from Warrior.  We crossed the desert together.  We bonded.  We shared so much on our journey to the ancient cross on the Atlantic Ocean. 

There’s many stories I could tell but there’s one story which I wish to relate:  Namibia had had seven years of drought and then the rain came and at the beginning of this year the desert flourished.  From a barren and waterless wasteland, flowers bloomed and beautiful grasses grew on millions of hectares of what had been totally barren and devoid of life.

There were no animals to eat the grass because those that had been there had died in the drought.  When Warrior and I went through the grass was golden and swaying and sweet and Warrior had an absolute plenty that was unimaginable.  It was like a horse heaven. I imagine him there now amongst those endless golden grasses swaying in the wind.

Eventually however, as we headed west, we got to where the grass did end.  There was no more grass. 

We headed into the waterless wasteland on a compass bearing.  For Warrior we were heading out of heaven into hell.  There was nothing on the horizon at all: not a tree, not a shrub, not a blade of grass.  There was not even a rock to steer towards.  It was simply featureless desert with no food and no water and no shelter from the merciless sun.

Warrior wanted to head back to the right.  Then he wanted to head back to the left.  Then he wanted to head back to the right. He was restless as a wandering wave on a troubled sea.  Each time he started to head off course I pulled him back onto my compass bearing. 

I talked to him constantly:  “Warrior, where we are going is good.  Trust me.  We just need to go in the direction I am steering you in.  I know it seems crazy; but there will be water.  There will be food even.  It is good.” 

After quite a long time he settled down.  He stopped wanting to go to the right or go to the left.  In fact he carried on on the exact compass bearing that I was steering him on. 

Soon I relaxed the reins and then I realized I could let them go completely.  I hitched them on my horn and we carried on in a straight line neither going to the right or to the left.  He had got it.  Without any landmark to steer for ahead and nothing that we could see he ahead except desert, he was going on the exact compass bearing I had set him on - heading towards the well.

The rest of the story is history.  After some hours we came to a place where the ground started to fall away gently before us.  Below us was the dry riverbed that we were steering for along with the well where there was water.  The dry riverbed had grass from water that had been washed down from way above us in the catchment.  Not only was there grass but there was an Albida tree that had ripe protein- rich pods littering the ground and the branches. 

It was here that I was also given a miracle fish - in the middle of the desert - by the Damara family who were living near the well.

And so Warrior is with us no more.  But the lessons I learnt whilst I was with him live on.  The lesson about the straight path in the desert is a poignant and important one. 

There is great sadness;  but I shall remember Warrior in that desert place which God made come to life, a great and grassy golden heaven.

Ben Freeth

18 January 2026