Wild life | 9 March 2017

Laikipia

On Tristan Voorspuy’s hell-for-leather riding safaris across Kenya’s savannah, he cracked a bullwhip at predators that tried to eat his guests. One time a lion chased American actress Glenn Close on her horse and Tristan said, ‘We nearly lost her.’ They all joked about it that night around the campfire. Tristan was among the last of the stylishly mad people in Kenya. He once rode his horse into the bar at the Muthaiga Club during a stag party. From the saddle, he toasted the groom, his steed defecated on the parquet and off he trotted between astonished drinkers into Africa’s night. Tristan was a gentleman and well read. He walked with the stiff, bow-legged gait of a man who has fallen off a polo pony too many times, he had a wild temper and he threw unbelievable parties with his wife Cindy at Deloraine, their tumbledown pile in the Rift Valley.