Behind the wheel of the Mazda CX-90, Zoom-Zoom heads to New South Wales’s Byron Bay to experience the concept of Jinba Ittai – “the horse and rider as one” – in its truest form.

Words James Jennings / Film and images graingerfilms.com

 

Home to 30km of pristine, clear-water coastline, subtropical forests, and almost year-round warm weather, the beachside town of Byron Bay has long attracted surfers, divers, and whale watchers with its unique topography.

It’s partly why around two million visitors drop in on the town every year, boosting its comparatively minute local population of 9,000. Yet plenty of visitors make tracks for the area not for its marine life or rolling waves, but for its horse riding hotspots.

 

Driving the versatile Mazda CX-90 with a saddle, bridle, and riding equipment stowed away (an easy task with up to 2,025 litres of available cargo space), I now count myself among these adventurists. Driving north, I follow the SUV’s smart navigation prompts on the crystal clear active driving display toward Zephyr Horses, a unique coastal horse ranch that offers trail rides through stunning woodlands and along the seemingly unending Australian coastline.

As I gently pull the CX-90 Touring off the highway and switch into off-road mode, I approach Zephyr’s 40 acres of coastal ranch. Here, I’m surrounded by dusty trails, stunning woodland, and, just a short canter away, the picture-perfect North Belongil Beach. Zephyr’s elegant and immaculately groomed horses populate the tranquil grounds. There are over 40 horses on site, including Percherons, Australian stock horses, and Clydesdales, and a few of them are already being tacked up – saddles positioned, reins fastened, and stirrups adjusted – for another day’s riding through the ranch.

 

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“Everything else melts away.”

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While these horses remain unaware of a direct link between my chosen four-wheeled steed – itself equally captivating in Platinum Quartz – and themselves, the commonalities are undeniable. It comes down to Jinba Ittai: the key philosophy at the heart of every Mazda.

The term acknowledges the sense of ‘oneness’, or harmony, between a rider and their beloved horse as being the ultimate bond – a relationship in which both parties are reliant upon the other. Just as Mazda drivers form a connection with their vehicle based on trust, loyalty, and reliability, so too do Zephyr’s talented riders and their dependable horses.

 

 

This special bond is something Grace, a trail guide at Zephyr, understands deeply. Introduced to horse riding as a child by her mother while growing up in New South Wales’s Blue Mountains, she recalls a particularly special horse that helped her through her formative teenage years.

“Gordon, the horse I had then, carried me through so much,” Grace says, as we mount up. “Without him, I wouldn’t have been able to be so happy as a teenager. We spent so much time together; we were just one. If I was sad, I would come to him in the paddock, and he would put his head on my shoulder, or we’d lay down in the sun together. He was my best friend and confidant.”

Grace’s colleague Cammy, a trail guide at Zephyr for the past five years, lights up when talking about Señorita, a horse she owned while growing up in France. “I was a trainee at a show jumping place and I fell in love with that horse,” she says. “I was taking care of her. She was three years old and I had her for eight years. We entered show jumping competitions and would ride trails together, and I’d ride her bareback. We just had this connection.”

As for myself, I’m riding Fireball, a stallion named after the cinnamon-coloured whiskey that has a similar hue to his shiny, healthy coat. As Cammy explains, Fireball is a “very steady, very calm, very trustworthy, and reliable” horse, meaning I’m in capable hands (or, indeed, hooves) as I make the transition from the CX-90’s steering wheel and accelerator pedal to Fireball’s reins and stirrups.

 

 

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“It’s a freedom like no other… a feeling of pure joy and excitement and gratitude.”

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With Zephyr providing over 1,000 rides a year, Grace explains that her work as a trail guide has taught her how to read the body language of both people and horses, which helps her sync up personalities before each ride.

“When you see a horse and a rider connect, it brings me so much joy because I know what they’re feeling,” she says. “They’re feeling this innate sense of connectedness to the horse, to the environment that we’re riding through, and, therefore, to the larger collective. The sense of exhilaration you get from that is unmatched.”

We set off along a gorgeous forest-to-beach track, ambling through serene woodlands as I get a feel for Fireball’s movements, patting his neck in appreciation and working towards forming a bond of my own with this magnificent creature – fostering a unique biological reaction, Grace explains, between human and horse.

“Your hearts would have synced up by now,” she says. “Horses can hear a heartbeat from four feet away – they’re incredibly intuitive and can read how you’re feeling.”

 

 

This harmony is only heightened once we reach the white sand and water of North Belongil Beach – our horses dancing in the ocean, the air crisp and the sky clear. The philosophy of Jinba Ittai, has never felt more real and immediate.

“That sense of becoming one with the horse, it’s a freedom like no other – a feeling of pure joy and excitement and gratitude,” says Grace. “Everything else melts away and you must be present in the moment. That has really helped me in all aspects of my life – it has made me a more patient and thoughtful person.”