Field Journal

In Conversation with Louis D Hall
Interview & Photography by John Summerton // Written by Daniel Neilson
Produced in Partnership with Blundstone

At just 18, Louis D Hall rode with Mongolian herders and discovered a new way of seeing the world: on horseback. Since then, Louis has crossed the Ligurian Alps, travelled the length of Britain, and journeyed more than 4,000 miles on horseback, meeting people and raising more than £100,000 for mental health causes through his charity, The Big Hoof. John Summerton met Louis and Sasha in Fife to hear his story.

‘A Mongol without a horse is like a bird without wings.’

Louis D Hall was just eighteen when he first rode with the Tsaatan reindeer herders in northern Mongolia. He’d travelled to the country after hearing about the healing practices of the people. He found it, but not in the way he expected. Riding these half-wild ponies through larch forests and tundra, he slowly began to see horses, and a life with them, as the great companions to humans, as they were before the Industrial Revolution.

He returned from the Steppe with a new perspective on horses, and one that has resonated through his life ever since. Alongside his horse Sasha, Louis spent 111 days riding across Europe, over the Ligurian Alps. He’s since travelled down the UK on a Highland pony called Irelanda, raising £38,000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, and then began The Big Hoof, a charity using long-distance horse travel to support mental health and wellbeing. To date, it’s covered over 4,500 miles and raised more than £100,000.

But Louis isn’t interested in the heroics. He talks instead about kindness he discovers in people who connect through his horse, the interactions he enjoys and, through The Big Hoof, encourages others to join him to find their own path.

At his stable in Fife, Louis was readying Sasha for another journey, one that would see Louis lead seven horses and 14 people for a week through the Fife landscape, camping at farms and meeting locals along the way. As he did, he spoke to Sidetracked’s John Summerton about his story – one that is full of hope and kindness, and occasionally, wolves.

In Conversation: Louis D Hall

The stable on the farm in Fife is filled with the smell of hay and earth. Sasha is a kind and patient horse, with an almost human-looking reaction and a tendency to cock his head like a listening dog. The connection between the two, who have shared so many adventures and met so many people, is vividly apparent.

‘He’s originally from Poland, but I found him in northern Italy,’ Louis tells me. ‘I was working in Naples, training stallions for free, with the promise of a gelding at the end. But three weeks before I was meant to set off, the guy mugged me off. So I looked elsewhere – I went North. When I first saw Sasha, he couldn’t even make a full circle when I tried him out. But the owner said, “This one won’t stop.” And I thought, that’s perfect. We’re going in a straight line.’

And that was it, five days later, Sasha and Louis, both as inexperienced as each other, made their way out of Siena and headed into the Ligurian Alps on little-used trails. Louis hadn’t factored in the snow, nor the wolves. ‘As soon as we arrived in the foothills of the Alps, it started snowing. It was then I realised that this would be a bigger task than I had considered.’

One evening, joined by his sister, they stayed in a rifugio, opened especially for them. It was from the owner that they first heard about the wolves. Sasha was tied up underneath a shelter of a pine forest while they chatted.

‘And then she starts talking about the wolves,’ Louis recalls. ‘And that evening, I ended up camping right next to Sasha. We were being circled all night by wolves, and in the morning, we woke up to find a horrible circle of paw prints around us. And from then on, I started seeing paw prints everywhere. We were always being watched.’

It’s doubtful that they would have attacked either of them, but they could have frightened Sasha causing him to bolt, which is particularly dangerous in the middle of the night. ‘I didn’t know how to react except for just to keep going, but when you’re going through what we went through, it’s difficult not to forge a bond; we were relying on each other.’

For Louis, the love of horses came after a trip to Mongolia at the age of 18. I was trying to find the Tsaatan reindeer herders, and the only way to get there was on horseback. I didn’t have much understanding of ponies before, I thought they just belonged to a certain section of society in the UK.’

But in Mongolia, Louis realised they were companions. ‘There was something in the bond, something in the way that you were forced to not think about yourself, and instead put all your energy into another animal. It planted that seed.’

In 2020, as the lockdown lifted, Louis felt the need to prove that adventure still existed. He rented a Highland pony called Irelanda and rode from John o’Groats to Land’s End and raised £38,000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.

‘What stayed with me was how people would come out of their homes just to touch the pony. Conversations would start from there. Stories would be shared.

‘I thought this animal was like a magnet and a catalyst for crossing boundaries that wouldn’t usually be crossed if I were just on my own as a young man travelling. You’re with this animal that just connects you with the people that you can’t even speak the same language with sometimes. And the histories, the cultures, the stories, the individuals themselves who think it’s a good idea to house a stranger and a horse, those are fascinating people as well.’

It’s something that Louis writes extensively about in his first book, In Green. ‘It means being in the state of the now – a small, rugged piece of something much bigger. Seeing the world through the horse’s eyes, looking for water, grass, shelter, it forces you to be present. The sound of a river, a storm, becomes overwhelming, vivid. You’re right there.’

Inspired by his UK ride, it was after this journey across the Ligurian Alps that Louis registered The Big Hoof charity in Scotland. It’s an organisation that organises long-distance journeys with horses, ranging from a few days to a couple of weeks. The participants don’t need to ride, but it’s about walking together, camping together, being together, and enjoying the interactions that come through being with horses, travelling the lesser-known parts of the UK.

‘It’s about coming together as strangers from all walks of life,’ Louis explains. ‘Some people come for fun. Some because they’re suffering from mental or physical issues. Some people go because they want an adventure. The youngest has been eight years old, and the oldest 72. Everyone is united by a common goal: the horses come first. We also discover beautiful parts of the country that you wouldn’t usually get a chance to see.

‘We often use pilgrimage trails, old historic trails and drovers roads, to try to create a bit more of an understanding of the history of where we’re going. It gives us a chance to feel rooted in this country that often people don’t know a lot about, or don’t have access to that knowledge.’
We’re also joined by a common goal because we’re raising money for a local charity. But most of all, it’s an adventure. It’s about exploration, whether that’s in Fife or Cape Finisterre.

‘Adventure for me started as a kind of self-discovery, a self-analysis, a self-digging, and it still is, just in a different direction.’

And Louis is a passionate adventurer, one who enjoys the research and planning as much as the journey itself. I asked what might be next for Louis and he hints at a new project based in Portugal – no phone, no watch, just a compass and two mules.

‘I have become fascinated by mules because they can pretty much live off water and air. They’re so strong, and appear throughout history in some really, really critical moments. Plus I don’t really want to be going through a village on top of a horse.’

With Sasha saddled up, Louis jumps on his back, riding high through the woodland. I ask one more question: ‘Do you have a muse or a guiding light in all this?’ Without skipping a beat, he replies:

‘Don Quixote. Even if your goal is imaginary and what you want to achieve is so far away, even if you don’t reach that point, you’ve still made so much ground in trying to get there. What you create is probably not what you wanted, but what you needed all along.’