.: About us...

Not really interesting but since it provides the reader with some perspective to the text there is no way to avoid writing something about ourselves. In the mid-80s, I heard the coin 'you get what you reward' drop. A few years later I learned about operand conditioning and 'clicker training'. Training birds of prey was especially instructive because why would a free flying bird come back to you?! Another valuable experience was taking care of really big crocodiles. It makes you aware of the evolutionary 'programming' of all animals. In this case you are either more clever or food.

Only after our relocation to the mountainous heart of Andalucía did our circumstances change in a way that we considered them suitable to keep horses ourselves. For us it is essential to keep horses in a family group on a meadow and this includes a stallion. A logical consequence is them living unshod and also that they wear no headstall, et cetera.

We are located in a fairly, relatively speaking, high valley surrounded by mountains. The local climate is harsh with large fluctuations in day- and night temperature. We registered a difference of 60 degrees centigrade between summer day and winter night.

We mainly ride on gravel covered tracks and off-road through the terrain which at its best is a medium soft earth with stones but is typically a rougher terrain. Riding with temperatures of 40 degrees C. is no exception. Since these circumstances are fairly demanding we decided to source locally bred and herd-raised horses. All are what I would call ‘Campo-Andalucíans’: partly-bred Andalucían - Barb Arab. Our only goal is to enjoy our wider natural surroundings from horseback. This means quite a lot of trekking through really rugged terrain undergoing extremely high temperatures for the working horses.

To ride relaxed 'a-la-brida' is the least stressing and taxing for both rider and horse. To best carry the load on its back and also improve its manoeuvrability the horse best carries its centre of gravity further back, with more weight on its hind quarters. We experience schooling and riding ‘without resistance’ to be the safest, and R+ the most enjoyable way.

Riding unbridled has never been a goal in itself nor should it be. When developing skills in the picadero it was obvious that my mare Arabella felt better without a headstall and bridles and one day I decided to give it a try in the real world. That felt like riding a Pegasus. It was also like learning to ride a bicycle and it proved to be an open door to a new world of unimagined riding experiences. Unbridled riding in of itself is just a vehicle in this case. For gently training your horse to be ridden collected without resistance using a bitless bridle is just as good.

At the moment we have a 'herd' consisting of a stallion, four mares, a molly mule and foals. The mare Arabella and stallion Capricho are my personal riding horses which is more their way of looking at it than my own. Arabella is a nervous and 'dominant' horse; the lead mare while Capricho is a confident harem stallion who does not hesitate to attack a passing pack of feral dogs if he considers them a potential threat.

Besides horses we have a modest mixed farm: we make our own goat's cheese, we work an ecological vegetable garden and grow most of the hay on our own land.