The Club Hippique du Quercy in Cahors, in south-west France's Lot department, organized a night-time horseback ride on Wednesday, 19 August 2026, taking seven experienced riders through forest trails between 9:30pm and 10:30pm under the guidance of instructor Cloé.
Riders met at the club at 9:30pm and saddled their horses in the last light of the day. No beginners were allowed in the group, since a night ride requires riders already secure in the saddle. Cloé gave the group a short briefing before they set off, signalling that this outing would be unlike any other.
The account was reported first-hand by a journalist for regional newspaper La Dépêche du Midi, who took part in the ride alongside the other six riders.
The light fades
The first minutes of the ride looked like any other outdoor outing. The sun sank slowly behind the hills of the Quercy region, and the landscape turned first orange, then grey. Within minutes the outlines blurred: trees became silhouettes and the path a paler strip on the ground.
Angelina, who rode a horse named Baghéra that evening, had covered the same route in daylight the day before. She said seeing the surroundings by day had not prepared her for how much the night ride would surprise her. Riding the route at sunset and then in full darkness on consecutive outings, she said, gave her a new perspective on it: near silence broken only by the sound of hooves, and a feeling of total connection with nature.
Trails you can no longer see
The trail climbed and then dropped steeply in places, with riders often unable to see exactly where their horse's hooves landed. Stones rolled underfoot, and low branches appeared without warning, brushing riders' faces and shoulders. Riders had to learn to lean and guess rather than see.
By the final stretch, night had almost fully fallen, with visibility down to roughly two-tenths of what riders could normally make out along the paths. With no visual landmarks left, riders relied on the silhouettes of the horses ahead of them and on trust in their own mounts to sense obstacles and adjust their stride.
Angelina said having total trust in her horse was truly what she felt during the ride, and that this trust was what set the night outing apart from an ordinary daytime ride.
Galloping in the dark
The most striking moment of the evening came when the group broke into a gallop through the forest in near-total darkness, with no visibility of the ground and only the rhythm of hooves and the horses' instinct to guide them.
Angelina described a feeling of freedom and adrenaline as the group galloped through the woods. Higher up, the sky cleared enough for riders to see stars above the hill. The group was riding between the villages of Pradine and Cahors.
At 10:30pm the riders returned to the club, their horses tired and the group left electrified. The hour-long ride was enough to transform their perception of the area, since the same trails ridden in daylight the previous day felt entirely different once night had fallen.
Angelina said it was an experience she would definitely repeat.
