Dunfermline adventurer and actor Louis Hall rode deep into the heart of Europe on horseback to raise funds for refugees. He shares his experiences – hairy, scary and life-affirming – with Gayle Ritchie
Louis Hall was teetering on the brink of a treacherous mountain ridge in the French Alps when his whole life flashed before him.
His horse, Sasha, had stumbled on a loose rock and was hurtling towards him, a look of sheer terror in his eyes.
“That was a close call,” reflects Louis, 26.
“I really thought I was about to be thrown off the ridge to my death by my own horse. I thought that was it.”
Louis was mid-way through his epic 2,800km mile trip across Europe, travelling from Italy to Spain on horseback to raise money for Ukrainian refugees.
Fife roots
Originally from Edinburgh and having moved to a farm near Dunfermline with his family in his childhood, Louis set off from Siena in Italy in March with his trusty steed, Sasha.
The pair made their way through Tuscany to the Ligurian mountains, on to Basque Country, through the Pyrenees, a mountain range straddling the border between France and Spain, and on to the famous Camino de Santiago trail before completing their journey in Cape Finisterre on the west coast of Spain in July.
Louis, who juggles charity challenges with work as an actor, riding instructor, and drums and piano teacher, started riding when he was a young boy – on a pony named Chunky.
“He was really badly behaved – nobody wanted to ride him because he was quite dangerous,” he recalls.
“I was 11 and thought of it as a challenge. We kept him on the farm in Fife and my main memory is that he loved to go really fast.”
Mongolia
However it was a trip to Mongolia in 2014 to help a friend struggling with mental health issues that cemented Louis’s passion for horses.
“I’d heard about this tribe who helped people with mental health through horses and thought it might help my friend,” he explains.
“We bought three horses and rode around Lake Khovsgol in northern Mongolia, and hung out with the tribe.”
It was this trip that made Louis rethink his views on horses and how they should be treated.
“In the UK, there’s a competitive mindset around them – they’re domesticated and cared for to within an inch of their lives,” he reflects.
“It was incredible how in tune the wild horses in Mongolia are with themselves and each other, and to see the amazing effect they have on people. My friend got better when he was around them. That whole journey re-educated me in horsemanship, and how to be around horses.
“Instead of competition and control, it became about connecting and developing a strong bond and a spiritual, grounded relationship.”
After returning from Mongolia, Louis began working in a stable in London, then becoming a riding instructor in the city’s Hyde Park, while also auditioning for a string of acting roles.
The Big Hoof
In 2020 he founded The Big Hoof, a charity which organises ridden fundraising challenges for unique causes and aims to “promote adventure and well-being through the power of the horse”.
During Louis’s first big charity ride, on an “incredibly strong” Highland/Connemara pony called Irelanda on loan from Ormiston Highlands in Kingussie, and in memory of his friend Leo who had died aged 26, Louis raised £38,000 for UK-based charity Cystic Fibrosis Trust. And last year he rode 100 miles from Cornwall to Devon to raise £3,000 for Afghan refugees.
Inspired
The idea of being free to travel, meet new people, and experience new lands and cultures, was what inspired his adventures.
“When things started to reopen after the worst of the pandemic, I sensed some of the magic seemed to have gone in people’s imaginations around the possibilities of what you could and couldn’t do,” he muses.
“So many things didn’t seem viable. I wanted to prove that it was still possible to create a bit of magic, a bit of hope, and that dreams could become reality.”
Planning an epic ride
Louis began planning an epic ride, and was drawn to the idea of a three-month expedition from Italy to Spain, raising funds for the charity Anma which supports refugees suffering from mental drama, including those fleeing the war in Ukraine.
He hopes his trip will inspire people to get out there and follow in his footsteps, even if those footsteps are taken in their own back yards.
“Mental health was at the core of the ride, really,” he muses.
“But I really hope that people can think – ‘if this idiot’s capable of riding through the mountains on a horse he’s just met, then I can do something a bit wild, strange and inspirational, too’.
“It’s also about helping everyone who’s suffered at the hands of Russian aggression.”
Pilgrim routes
Louis mapped out his journey, following off-road tracks and pilgrim routes where possible, although he was forced to go off-piste in the Ligurian Alps of northwest Italy.
He wanted his route to be accessible, so that friends, a film crew, and social media followers could join him along the way.
“Europe is great because it’s linked by all these accessible, stunning pilgrim routes, which helps, because I get lost really easily! And the Pyrenees really are a horseman’s paradise.”
Let down
Planning the adventure was no mean feat for Louis, who didn’t even have a horse three weeks before he set off.
He had been promised one, along with money to make a documentary by an Italian company, and spent months trying to fund the project and get sponsorship.
The company, however, turned out to be fraudulent, leaving Louis with no horse, no money and no means of making a documentary.
“There was no way I was giving up so I hired a car and drove across Italy, visiting eight stables to find a horse,” he reveals.
“I eventually came across Sasha, a 15.2hh Arab gelding. We had just half an hour together but I knew he was the one.
“He was an ex-endurance champion, so was good on flat ground, but that didn’t mean he’d be good on mountains – most horses would struggle with unforgiving terrain like that.
“I wanted a horse that was forward-going and energetic, one I didn’t have to encourage to keep going. And Sasha was exactly that – always keen, always ready.
“I had to actually be really careful we didn’t go too far because he never complained.”
There was no way I was giving up so I hired a car and drove across Italy, visiting eight stables to find a horse.”
LOUIS HALL
While Sasha and Louis spent the first quarter of the trip alone, his sister Mariella travelled some of the route with them by car, dropping off food and supplies along the way.
Major honour and responsibility
“It became all about caring for and keeping this amazing horse safe and healthy, as far as you can,” says Louis.
“It was a major responsibility and honour. But you could tell Sasha enjoyed it – he was looking for me, and after just a day’s rest, he was keen to get going.
“It’s amazing to think he started out as a flighty Arab, getting cuts and wondering where this weird guy was taking him.
“By the end I wouldn’t even lead him; he’d just follow me. If I went into a bar, he’d wait for me outside. In three months he grew so much as an animal.”
Perilous
While the pair very nearly met their end in the French Alps – after a track petered out and they landed up on a perilously steep mountain ridge – they also had to watch out for wolves.
“They can really scare horses so I camped outside with Sasha to make sure he wasn’t terrified,” says Louis. “We didn’t see any but I was on high alert which was pretty exhausting.”
One of the most gruelling points of the trek was a 20 day period where Louis was unable to ride Sasha due to tough terrain and bad weather.
“We both got a lot of cuts and small injuries but we had to just keep on going,” he says.
“Because of the pandemic, the roads hadn’t been checked to see if they were safe, and there were fallen trees from storms.
“It would’ve been hugely dangerous to attempt to ride up through those mountains so I walked. I was walking one metre, waiting for Sasha to follow, then walking another metre, waiting for him, and it went on and on like that. We didn’t stop.
“The going got really bad on this big mountain. The path turned to mud, the mud turned to rocks, rocks turned to boulders and before we knew it we were jumping from boulder to boulder.
“The ridge got steeper and when I looked behind me, I saw the whites of Sasha’s eyes as he stumbled towards me.
“I really did think I was going to be knocked off the ridge by him. How we didn’t fall off, I have no idea. We were incredibly lucky.
“But after that moment everything changed. Our bond was stronger than ever.”
I saw the whites of Sasha’s eyes as he stumbled towards me.”
LOUIS HALL
The real deal
While many people contacted Louis, who charts his adventures on Instagram, asking if they could join him on his travels, he says “about 1%” followed through.
So when he received a message from a girl called Kiki living in Amsterdam, he was understandably sceptical. However, when she kept on messaging, he realised she might be the “real deal”.
“Kiki lost her sister in August last year and was seeking some sort of escape,” he explains.
“She quit her job and bought a horse in the Ligurian mountains, and we spent a few weeks trekking together.”
While Kiki plans to move to Scotland later in the year, Louis is reluctant to put a “label” on their relationship. But it seems the future is looking bright.
Both Louis and Kiki’s horse are happily hanging out in the Pyrenees with 14 wild horses and “lots of cows and sheep”, waiting for the next adventure.
Normality
It’s been hard to get back into normal life since he returned to Scotland in July, but Louis’s already planning his next adventures – and looking forward to moving to Wigtown in Dumfries and Galloway with Kiki.
“I fell in love with the area while we were filming Stella (he played the lead role in this feature film set in 1937 Scotland, due out later this year), and it’s very far away from London, which is a good thing!
“I’ve got a job in a book shop so I plan to write about my adventures for a book, and it’ll give me time to reflect and plan more trips.”
While the focus of The Big Hoof has been to raise awareness of certain charities, Louis, who has family in Moray, says it’s evolving into something “bigger” than he ever imagined.
“It’s a vehicle of hope for others,” he muses. “If people can get on board, perhaps by joining me on future journeys, or by doing something new for themselves, then it feels like we’ve achieved something pretty amazing.”
In October, the latest instalment of The Wee Big Hoof, an 100-mile ride challenge from Devon to Wiltshire geared towards riders of all levels and capabilities, will take place to raise funds for Cancer Research UK.
Thereafter, Louis plans to head back to the Pyrenees in April to recreate his epic journey, before riding through the Hebrides to raise funds for Cancer Research UK in May. Meanwhile, he’s raising funds for a big trip, possibly to the USA, in 2024.
A documentary of his Europe challenge is being edited by a film company and Louis hopes it will be ready by January. His book is a work in progress.
Information
- The Big Hoof supports charitable causes through ridden challenges. Louis’s latest adventure is raising money for Amna (formerly known as Refugee Trauma Initiative), supporting Ukrainian refugees and their trauma and raising awareness for sufferers of ill mental health everywhere. thebighoof.com
- In 2019 Louis won the Best Leading Actor award at the Rome International Prisma Film Festival.
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