Andalusian Blog Horses in Spain

A real life collection of horse stories and blogs, together with my andalusian blog from spain. Written as it happens. Unique videos, photos, stories, and horse diaries of our horses from Yeguada Peregrino who are now spread across the world. see left hand menu.

Anything and everything to do with life and iberian horses in spain and across europe. Thoughts and Fun, Ponderings and Opinions. Reads from most recent post.

’About Us’ in brief in the Jan 11 entry below.

More background here, and the Peregrino Vision here.

The 2009 blog archive of Horses in Spain

PLEASE do write in and give us feedback on our horse stories, fotos, videos and blogs.

This is a site, carved out with enjoyment. Every thing you see is hand coded, with original fotos and original writing. Encouragement is good for our morale!

July 26 2010 Hot and Laid Back

Summer in Southern Spain is HOT.

We carefully erect shadecloth and they stand outside it.

Peregrino Mares in 2010

BARQUILLERA	QUIJOTITA

SERRANILLA	QUERIDITA

May 23 2010. Spring is Busy Time

Spring is foaling time, and Arcoiris is the first Peregrino babe to arrive.

At the same time, spring is the time for the final stallion decisions in the 2011 breeding program.

We are still using outside stallions to firmly establish the stud lines, and we prefer live cover wherever possible, so there is quite a lot of travelling, loading, obtaining of permits and on and on. . . . .

I will post more news and pictures of all the participants soon.

April 18 2010. Three websites

This is one of the three websites we maintain. One of the sites is spanish, and deals mainly with tack an correct turn out. The two english sites are both centred around the horses of Spain, and our stud.

I am designer, author and overseer of them all. The basic design of the english sites is similar, a design I have developed over the years that works for me.

It can be seen that the two are related. But are they twins? By no means. They have developed like two children of the same parents, into two distinct characters.

More work is coming up on www.andalusians-for-you.com as I continue to unearth the stories that have been shared. Here is an extract from Alison’s marvellous encounter with the lusitano stallion, Opalino
- forgive me if that page is not yet formatted into the new design, I am working on it!

‘You are late’ said Opalino stamping an elegant foreleg on the ground. ‘Sorry’ I said, ‘Forces beyond my control’.

Opalino ground at his bit and laid his ears back momentarily ‘The Maestro was not pleased, he is busy, this lesson was very much a favour’. Feeling nervous and a little embarrassed I untied Opalino and led him to the outdoor school and the mounting block.

‘What do you want me to do?’ asked Opalino ‘Just move over and stand quietly whilst I get on, dear one’ I said, ‘I am too creaky to get on from the ground and my back problem gives me difficulties with my hips, I am very stiff and cannot throw my leg over the saddle’. Opalino was silent but let me get on.

continue reading about Alison and the lusitano stallion, Opalino

March 18 2010. Remembering the Basics

One aspect we continually reiterate is that a horse is best placed for progress when he works from well-established, clearly explained basics.

A showy movement, a flashy seeming-piaffe, a dramatic spanish walk - they are often seen. Allow the initial impact of beautiful horse, long mane and épris to flow over you, then pause . . . . .

This perceptive comment in a forum I frequent, struck me, and with permission from the author I reproduce it here. The author had just returned from a clinic run by Rosalie Lewis. see box.

"It really bought home to me how small gaps in their foundations can become huge gaps when the going gets tougher, and that irrespective of the situation these do need to be dealt with effectively to ensure safety and compliance, allowing the horse and rider to move forwards in their training without having to constantly revisit issues from their youth.

The clinic really changed my expectations from my horses as I learnt how those with the pure pursuit of riding as an art form expect as a result of the training of the young horse, not just one schooled technically in the basics paces and positions, but foremost one that is schooled emotionally to work politely with their rider."
Debbie Survila, amateur rider and student of Rosalie Lewis

March 10 2010 Things are Happening

The re-vamp of the site is flying. The major sections are identified, and a lot of pages are already assigned to their new locations. As ever, I keep discovering things I had forgotten I had written. Some articles need updating, some are incisively pertinent, and some get quietly junked.

The 7 major sections are now in the Top Menu. Then as you click to each section, there is a Section Menu on the left hand side.

The Section Menu takes you to pages particular to that subject. Occasionally a page is referenced in 2 sections, but on the whole it is a distinct delineation.

There are now close on 300 pages on the site.

Feb 23 2010 Buying a Spanish Horse in Spain

I was recently asked for input for an article about buying a PRE from Spain These were among the points I made, which could be considered relevant also if you are thinkng Luso in place of PRE

• Buying from Spain is advantageous because of the sheer number of pure spanish horses there are here. The choice becomes very wide.
• The linked disadvantage would be that ’outsiders’ do not know where and how to locate these.

How can a visitor obtain a true full view of the spanish scene, when they are working from a distance with limited resources, and most likely a language barrier.

Use agents? Go to YouTube? Browse the internet and advertising sites?

That only lets you touch the fringes. Those are the fringes that everyone else is touching, and sometimes these fringes can get quite tangled.

So that set me to work again, and the Buy Wisely Guide is rapidly taking format

All the material is here, years of answers and article and case studies. I just have to co-ordinate it.

Feb 15 2010 Price of a Spanish Horse

There are a lot of adjectives we can add to ’price’ when it comes to andalusians. Descriptive words, such as ’realistic’, ’hopeful’, ’my absolute limit’,(or, to get facetious, ’what my friend paid for a horse she bought over the internet from the friend of a friend’ - which has been known to translate into ’and is hoping to get back because she cannot ride what she got . .’)

Does a Spanish Horse have a Market Price

Yes and as in any other market, it can be summarized as the price paid by a willing buyer to a willing seller.

I would like that to expand to a Fair Market Price, which would be for a horse with no hidden aspects, surprises, faults or vices.

Spanish Horse Prices are part of a reality checks system. Both seller and buyer must acknowledge and accept certain realities.

Andalusian Horse Prices - Putting a Figure to it.

Putting a price to a Purebred Spanish horse from Spain is a bit like saying a Rubik’s cube can only be red.

A horse is not static. He is not a manufactured object, like a car, which has a starting price and a set devaluation rate.

On the contrary, a horse can as easily increase in value as he can lose it. As more factors come into play, the price reflects it accordingly.

What Decides the Price of a Spanish horse then?

That is a question I have been asked more times than I can recall. So in the process of archive sorting that the rainy season brought on, I have started to co-ordinate my writings on the subject

You are invited to visit visit the Articles Section and enjoy a ramble around this and the many other subjects we cover.

Jan 25, 2010 Talking of Mares

Mares are very much in our thoughts and conversations at present. Queridita, the Little Darling, is close to foaling down with her first foal.

Fathered by a strong Bohorquez line stallion, possibly the only surviving son of the legendary Albero II, the new arrival is the subject of endless speculations.

Colt or filly? What colour? - Mama is still greying out from a very bay appearance, Papa is a picazo with much bay in his ancestry. And what about movement? Queridita is a floating dream. Will she pass it on?

Ridden PRE mares

The older line of thought here is still that it simply IS NOT DONE to ride PRE mares - they are for breeding.

Of course that is not to say that no-one rides them - we make no claims to the omniscience of always and never - but it is an exception.

One notable exception I know is a big, beautiful grey mare owned by a friend who is a leading practitioner of garrocha - the work with the long pole and cattle.

She was his best horse for a long time, and watching them flow together was reminiscent of the intuitive horsemastership of the rejoneadores in the bullring.

He is one who loves his horses, lives for his riding, and it shone out of their partnership. She would twist, turn, snip sideways, speed and slow at what appeared to be no more than a thought from him.

He never tires of praising her. Whenever we visited we could be sure of a glowing step by step description of how she had moved, thought, reacted as they galloped in the fields . .

Now she wanders peacefully around those same fields, with her second or third foal at foot, and he sits on a short tailed jaca, watching her with the indulgence of a proud grandfather.

Jan 11, 2010 A Look Back and a Look Forward

The internet has become so much a part of life that we can sometimes forget how recent it is in the overall plan of things.

We began the website journey with our first site, andalusians-for-you as an exciting adventure into a new form of creativity, and as a wonderful opportunity to share what we had.

What we had was our horses here in Spain, and an inside view of the spanish horse world that very few others could attain.

At home in Spain I travelled with Andres for a number of years, continuing in my media-bent as I recorded horses and people on camera and video.

At the time we little realised what a unique record this could be of our world. A chance comment by a friend stimulated interest, and so began the venture into the web.

Keeping Focused

The web idea was exciting, and as I addressed it enthusiastically, it became a snowball, gathering impetus as fast as I wrote and published.

We are horse people, breeders and trainers. We live simply, our hearts committed to the Peregrino Vision. Sufficient for all our needs has always come in from Andres’ work, and my books.

How it Topsy-ed - from the Outside In

We made this statement early on:

That is just what we did. We began to share, the website hit the search engines, began to gain rankings, and the readers came in.

More and more came questions from people eager for information, requests for help, and sadly, the occasional stories of people who had been misinformed (or deliberately deceived) in their quest for a spanish horse.

How it Topsy-ed - from the Inside Out

At the same time, our spanish associates, friends and fellow breeders, asked us if we would help them to reach the outside market. Andres is brilliant in his control of languages. As well as his native spanish he speaks perfect english and portuguese, and Afrikaans from our stay in South Africa. I add to these french, and get by in all except portuguese.

So we formed a Private Group of breeders and trainers, and opened www.pure-spanish-horse-spain as a new website to feature our horses. No outsiders, no agents, just our own horses and these that we know.

And we were inundated with queries and inquiries. Now people were asking Andres’ professional opinion on horses that had been presented to them. They found it expedient to fly him across country to review a horse before risking importing it unseen, or going to the expense of a trip to spain.

Pause and Review

Exciting years, and we met many great people and made enduring friendships.

Today is Andres’ birthday and as the sum of years passed comes closer to 60 it is a good time for us to pause and review.

What of 2010 when it comes to the horses?

• We will concentrate on our breeding program, on working with Emilio in training the PRE, on presenting the studs in our Private Group, on finding specific horses, and on helping where we can.
• We will not expand beyond the personal involvement that has been the central point of the success of Pure Spanish Horse Spain.

What of 2010 when it comes to Peregrino?

Our hearts are set. We believe that a man must work. Our work is the work of the soil, work with people, especially children, and work with our horses.

We will continue to live with joy and expectancy.

January 6 Los Reyes, the Day of the Kings

Reyes - Jan 6th, is the ’Day of the Kings’. Traditionally, it is the Kings who bring the children’s gifts, rather than a certain red-suited visitor.

Each city and every little pueblo has street displays on the night of Reyes. The ’kings’ arrive in a multitude of ways - on horseback, on camels, on elephant, on tractors. This year, for example, it was three boats, decorated and horns a-blaring, that brought their three seasonal actors into the port of Barcelona.

As close to the 6th as is possible, (usually on the evening of Jan 5th) the ’kings’ and their assistants traverse the main streets. All dressed up in cavalcades and on floats, they pass through the crowds made up of the families out to enjoy the tradition together.

From start to end of their journeys which can cover anything from 1-6 km, they throw out thousands of sweets to the children. Barcelona last night threw out 15 tons of sweets.

Some have got health conscious and now toss dried fruits.!

So after another late night, we have a holiday on Monday , and then finally things will return to Spanish normality.

NB - That is not an oxymoron! !

Andalusian Blog and Horses in Spain - the Last Day of 2009

December 31, and tonight we ’take the grapes’, the spanish tradition of eating a grape each second as the clock from Madrid strikes the 12 chimes to midnight.

Again a time for family, but on this night it does tend more to the younger ones to stay wide eyed and energetic into the dawn of the New Year.

From us here in Southern Spain to all wherever you are, Feliz Año Nuevo and may 2010 bring you Joy and Hope.

Twas the Day After Christmas . . .

Orange and red alerts, flights cancelled, flooding and general Christmas fun.

Christmas Eve

We set out to go to family for Noche Buena (Christmas Eve, evening meal, traditional time of celebration).

Out the gate, turn right, down the dirt road, dip to cross the bridge. Pause: what bridge? Trees, water, mudslide. No bridge.

Reverse, backtrack. Pass gate and continue in the opposite direction. Still on the dirt road, taking a longer route that goes past the lake.

See the lake ahead. Turn the corner to where the road borders it. See the lake in abundance. No road, no indication of where the road was or is.

Reverse. Backtrack. Go home.

Discuss with neighbours. Much nodding of heads. José Carlos remembers there is a back route that goes through Manolo’s cauliflower fields and bypasses the bridge. Further discussion as to exactly where that road begins, then once more out the gate. Find the cauliflower-field road, and eventually reach the tar road, at which point it is too late to go on to the family. Come home.

Christmas Day

We exit via the cauliflower-field-road, and enjoy a Christmas-brunch-that-was-Noche-Buena-dinner.

It has not stopped raining since Christmas Eve, and the river that runs alongside the farm is rising. Starts to overflow the well that provides our water. Christmas afternoon is spent removing the pump and taking it to safe ground.

The river overflows the well. Water is running inches deep outside the back door, and flooding in. I make up sand bags in plastic rubbish bags with wet sand from the arena to try to staunch it.

The Day after Christmas

We have no running water, (except that flowing merrily under the door) and the electricity is more off than on. It is still raining. Place buckets strategically to collect rain water.

We cook the evening meal - chicken in a pan over coal in a bucket. Have the meal by candlelight, which is great, because I can’t see the utter havoc that now constitutes my kitchen.

Woke up this morning to amazingly beautiful clear skies and a shimmering river - which is still running smugly over the well.

A by-the-bucket washing up and cleaning marathon is in progress, can’t do washing, and my drier has died, but life is still GOOD!

. . . . . . . . .The River at Sunrise . . .

Well and Pump House lower Right . . .