Griffin’s Horse Archery sits amid the rolling hills of the Agulhas Strandveld outside the quaint town of Wolvengat, on the far tip of the Western Cape province of South Africa. A coastal ecosystem within the greater fynbos biome, it is one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth. The soil is sandy, shaped by its proximity to the ocean and covered in wiry indigenous grasses and low fynbos bushes that ripple in the wind. In that open landscape, it’s easy to imagine you’re standing atop the Eurasian steppe, the place where the art of horse-mounted archery was first mastered hundreds of years ago by the nomadic Scythians. The farm – a meeting point of wildness, skill and tradition – feels fated for it.
A rotating target on the archery range on Daniel Griffin’s farm near Wolvengat, Overberg © Carl van der Linde
Daniel Griffin rides into view at a canter, bow drawn. His horse moves in effortless rhythm, hooves thudding softly on the sandy track. He releases the arrow; when it hits the target with a dull crack, he smiles almost imperceptibly. Precision, not spectacle, is what he lives for. His connection to riding predates memory; his first conveyance was a donkey named Zizani, who became his trusted steed when he was 18 months old and his mother could no longer carry him Zulu-style on her back. He grew up spending his holidays riding on his grandfather’s cattle farm in the Natal Midlands; in his teens he studied horticulture and followed in the footsteps of his father, Ian Glenny, a potter trained in the Anglo-Japanese technique. It was a life of constant apprenticeship that would form the foundation of his passion for aesthetics, accuracy and perfection.
