My trip to Spain

I am starting my trip home from an amazing 5 days in Seville, Spain. With thanks to Kim Boyer of Hampton Green Farm, I know much more about the Spanish Andalusian horse, saw some lovely Spanish countryside and was awed by SICAB (Salon Internacional del Caballo PRE), the daunting trade fair/breed and performance national championships/exhibition, etc. all celebrating the PRE (pure Spanish horse). I joined Kim and her husband Fred, their business manager Joan, and Courtney and Jason Dye. We had a blast!

The flight over was uneventful although we bumped all the way across the Atlantic. On the flight from Madrid south to Seville I got my first glimpse of Spain. The only other time I was in Spain was in 1969 when I went by ship to Italy for my college Junior year abroad – we stopped for about three hours in Malaga. The countryside was mostly flat with some hills, very dry and barren looking at this time of year. After leaving New York at 6 PM we arrived in Seville about 7 AM (about 1 AM home time and needed to stay up until about 10 PM (4 PM home time). I used to be able to pull all nighters but can’t any more. Only last night did I get a decent sleep – my body could not figure out what time it was.

Alex Zilo (who owns a champion PRE) and his wife Lily, who competes for Hong Kong) had gotten us wristbands so we could go anywhere, although mostly that meant we could get in free and get into the warm up ring. Everyone could go everywhere else.

There are about 1000 horses there and everyone wanders through the stables. The breeding mares are all in stalls in one wing of the convention center – really they are in pens so their heads can hang into each other’s stalls. They are there for at least a week and I never saw one being taken out for a walk. The stalls are no more than 8 x 8 and some even had rather large foals with mom. In general mares are not ridden (keep ‘em barefoot and pregnant). You can quickly tell a mare under saddle because her mane will be roached and her tail cut often just below the bone. The other stables are in tents and anyone can go there, peer in the stalls, pat the horses. Actually you could go in the stalls because, at least during the week, there are very few people around the horses. No one worries, which is a testament to the temperament to the PRE stallions. On the weekend when the place was truly mobbed – as in, one literally could barely move through the crowds – it wasn’t unusual to see a small child riding a stallion piaffing through the crowd. Amazing!

Another wing of the convention center has the stud farm stands many with a stallion or two in a tie stall right there with the crowd. This was definitely the place to be at night – the parties started in earnest about 11 PM with much camaraderie, drinking, and flamenco.

Another wing of the convention center was for a trade fair with everything imaginable for sale, and on the end was a sort dressage arena sized ring where on three sides people could hang over the rail. On the weekend the crowd was 6 or 7 people deep and the grandstand along one side was packed. Here they had the morphology classes – in hand classes – mares and stallions separate from age 2. In these the handler has the horse on a halter or small lunge cavesson. He walks the horse down the center line, then canters the horse on a lunge circle and jazzes him up, then the handler runs down the middle of the ring while the horse does extended trot down the side (on a lunge length lead), canters a few circles, runs the long side at trot – several times. This way the judges see the horses at all three gaits – unlike us who never see the horse canter in hand. The handlers are 99% men in VERY tight pants, little Spanish jackets and hats – they were as fun to watch as the horses. I watched one class of 21 stallions. They all stood next to each other along one side and then one at a time they do their in hand work. They had to be there close to an hour – side by side and I never saw one be disobedient. They stood absolutely quietly – then perked up for their performance and then stood very obediently again.

The top horses were taken from each age group, age 4 and up– stallion and mare groups, then performed in the Functionality test – sort of a first level test in the Dressage arena. The champions are the ones with the highest scores from each test. This way they don’t have so much the problem that we have in the US where the most gorgeous in hand horses in all the breeds often never become great performers.

Other classes included Prix St. Georges, Intermediare Kur, Grand Prix and Grand Prix Kur, FEI 4, 5, and 6 year olds. And four in hand and pair combined driving, show jumping, and levels of Doma Vaquera (4 – 6 year olds, and 6 and older) alta esquela and concurso de exhibiciones). These were held in the smaller ring and the horses were ridden in traditional Spanish attire (tack and clothes). The saddles sit high off the backs with simple decorations and cruppers. The bridles were either a pelham type set up or a combination curb hackamore with the top rein attached to the noseband. The manes were French braided and the tails were tied up in what we call a mud tail. The best I can tell is the riders are given about 4 minutes to do whatever they want showing walk trot and canter. Some did lots of quick transitions trot, walk about 6 times in a row. Lots of circles (most with very good bending, lots of counter canter at a very brisk canter, some sort of sliding stops, long distance rein backs, poor flying changes in the more advanced classes. They do dressage movements plus Spanish walk in the highest levels. My impression is that those without the quality work required in a dressage test do these tests: not so correct in the contact, unevenness in movements, weak extensions, poor walks (all by dressage competition standards). Still they were fun to watch and I saw some really nice horses who with better riding could be wonderful dressage horses. It wasn’t uncommon to see a horse who wouldn’t do well in the dressage arena due to poor contact, resistant transitions, etc. and then he would do a gorgeous piaffe and/or passage.

We saw no young riders in competition and very, very few women – although a woman won the Grand Prix Freestyle. During the week I would say that more than 90% of the spectators were men. On the weekend everyone was there – lots of families. I think the stands had more people watching the in hand classes even that the Grand Prix Freestyle. They take their horse breeding very, very seriously.

Courtney and I did an interview for the PRE Magazine. They were especially interested in what we thought of their breed, how they could improve it, and about their training. Kim was telling us about how they are working to improve the walks especially for their sport horses – length of stride never meant anything to them. Their horses have very active walks but not very long strides. And the younger horses do have better walks.

After watching the Grand Prix, Courtney and I agreed that there wasn’t a horse in the class we wouldn’t like to have in our stable – either as an amateur horse, or a nice competition horse or…there as one that we both felt could be a top international horse – wow, he was fabulous – good walk, very supple, very good extensions, super scopey half passes, and excellent canter work and piaffe/passage.

Every night they have the “espectaculo” – performances of all types for entertainment. I went twice and had a blast. There was a very good pas de trois (Grand Prix level). There was a really very good couple who did a tango on horse back…lots of riding knee to knee, one facing forward the other facing backward and one horse would back while the other walked forward, sideways, turns – it was fun. They had a driving exhibition. All in the ring at the same time: a single, a pair, two horses one in front of the other, one horse with two behind, a four in hand, two horses in front and three behind, one horse in front (not pulling anything), and two and two behind. They all went around the outside one behind the other and then one carriage at a time they drove figures through the middle. The 2/2/1 carriage, the lead horse who only has reins to him, no harness, sort,of drifted about in front of his four behind him. Then when they went into the middle the driver turned the coach so sharply that the front horse almost touched the back of the carriage.

Raphael Soto and Invasor, the most famous Spanish dressage competitor did a very effusive freestyle to finish the performances one night – dressed in traditional Spanish attire. He’s a real showman.

There was a Hungarian group on little horses – an older man with six students who did a liberty, trick riding, roman riding (standing with one foot on each of two horses) that was extremely entertaining. They did some wild vaulting type moves on their horses while they galloped fast around the ring with no bridles. The best was when one girl was roman riding at trot and three loose horses, one behind the other galloped up behind and between the two horses, under the rider’s legs.

There was a flamenco dancer --I have to say I have a hard time appreciating flamenco singing (yelling) and dancing, but they probably don’t understand the twist ☺. They did a lovely performance with her and some traditional riders with a long pole that the horses work around, and at one point the rider holding one end of her shawl. It was very well done. There were also horses doing airs above the ground that were pretty spectacular. One of the horses who did the capriole would jump in the air three or four times before he got the kick-out – sort of saying I know I can, I know I can, I know I can – there! I did it. He was so focused and trying so hard. Then there was one horse who stood straight up on his hind legs and hopped backwards and at the end he reared straight up and stood there for about 15 seconds.

One horse/handler from the Spanish National School did a very good long reining demo.

By far the most exciting and unique were the Moroccans. Apparently every year SICAB partners with a country. The Morrocans had a large booth in the breeders tent. There were three artisans working on their equipment. One man was making rifles (real ones), another man was doing the inlay on the stirrups, and a woman was doing the incredibly elaborate “embroidery” that covered all their tack.
During the exhibitions they came in in Moroccan warrior gear – flowing robes and head gear, saddles that literally put them at least a foot above the horses backs, knives at their sides. They started in a long line, about 15 of them next to each other and came down the arena at a???? canter? That was no faster than I could crawl. It was sort of three beat, with a little up and down hopping. Three of the horses did more of a canter but continually rotated left and right, sort of quarter pirouettes, non stop down the arena, sort of running into each other. After coming all the way from one end to the other like this they did a little quadrille type performance – not a lot of polish. They ended up at the far end of the arena and once again did their little canter almost in place, then all of a sudden with blood curdling yells went flat out toward the end of the arena. Just as you were sure they would run into the wall, the rifles went off and they slammed on their brakes – lifted everyone right out of their seats. The first night I was seated quite high up in a corner – I had gone alone while the others in our group went into the city for dinner. The second night we had very VIP seats and I was seated in the front row, floor level with nothing but a little flimsy fence between me and the arena. During the performance there was one horse who was a bit out of control. Of course I knew what was coming at the end and I noticed that the horse who had been difficult was directly opposite me. It was all I could do not to sneak into the back of our section and hide – but let me tell you with the bits they had in their mouths those horses were going to stop – and they did.

On Friday Kim, Fred, and I dove to Malaga, on the Mediterranean with Danny who rides a horse Kim bred and owns who is doing PSG. We drove through endless olive groves and over the mountains to the sea. It was interesting to see a typical Spanish stable – right in town, one “paddock” about 30’ x 60’, riding ring with just enough sand footing., an old building, nice stalls with straw bedding. I am sure there are many days the horses don’t get out of their stalls. They are given two big flakes of hay on the morning, and get an oats corn mixture three times a day. At the show we saw many horses without water buckets. They obviously get watered at certain times.
I gave Danny a lesson – here he is one of the better FEI riders in Spain and it was his first help in over two years. He started out riding doma vaquera as most of the riders do and then switched to dressage (doma classica). Danny treated us to a delectable seafood lunch – the first time I had seen fish cooked completely encased in about a ½ inch of salt. One night in Seville I had fish and it was heavily salted so that one actually crunched down on chunks (not grains) of salt – too much for me. But the fish is Malaga after they broke the crust and peeled the salt off with the skin, was scrumptious.

So now I am on my way home, having missed Thanksgiving for the second time in my life. The first time was in 1969 while I was studying in Rome. I spent the Thanksgiving weekend in Vienna at the Spanish Riding School. This was such a special trip and a great break. Thank you Kim and Fred.