When swell is on the way and it’s time to put the head down and go, saddle up the Big Horse.

With a global R&D program that delivered dozens of Traktor Team favourites that eventually became the Schooner, the origins of this board model came from several different prototype boards ridden by Kauli Vaast and Ramzi Boukhiam in quality, barreling reef breaks.

And while the Schooner eventually went in a different direction with the wide point pushed forward in the outline, another board model began to emerge when one of Ramzi’s best tube riding boards found itself in the hands of Tai “Buddha” Graham.

Having grown up on the Gold Coast before moving to Bali, Buddha’s spent most of his life between several of the most wave rich regions on earth chasing barrels. And his initial reaction after riding Ramzi’s board was that he’d found the best tube riding weapon of his life so far. After realizing the potential on hand, Buddha and JS continued refining this board model into the brand new Big Horse.

Ridden even thicker again than your Schooner or FMN3, the Big Horse has an incredibly unique foil to hide excess volume in the middle, while dropping down to a refined rail. In Buddha’s words “this board paddles like nothing else in the market, yet maintains a rail edge you can trust in any situation.”

We’ve taken a lot of the processes and R&D that went into other good wave boards and have settled on a deeper single concave in the middle of the board, running into a shallow double concave between the fins. This bottom contour helps with overall control at high speeds, to let you make adjustments with confidence. Big Horse is ridden at 3 to 6L more than your standard shortboard dimensions, and approx. ¼” to ½” thicker. It sounds extreme, but it’s an extreme leap forward in paddle power and drive in serious conditions, and you’ll still enjoy rail height close to your regular volume to give hold and reliability.