Horses

The Moors organised an army with a light cavalry consisting almost exclusively of Spanish horses. This cavalry was important in the Arab expansion in Spain and they admired the virtues of the Spanish horse. Their aim was to preserve and enhance the characteristics of the breed, creating important studs and even sending horses as gifts to Constantinople, Baghdad and other major cities of the Islamic empire.

The modern day Spanish horse is the product of the first genetic project in history undertaken in order to obtain a breed of horses with certain specific morphological and mental characteristics.

It began with the Royal Warrant of the 28th of November 1567, by which the King, Felipe ll , ordered the royal horse master in Cordoba, Diego Lopez de Haro, to purchase 1,200 mares and the stallions necessary to create a new breed of horse that would be obtained through crosses between the different types of horses existing in Andalusia at that time.

While up until that moment, man used to look for specimens that would serve only as means of transport, attaching little importance to aesthetic, King Felipe ll embarked on a task to create the type of horse that had been idealized for centuries.

The model of the horse to be obtained was developed some four hundred years before Christ by the ancient Greeks such as Simon of Athens, Xenophon, and later on by Columella and Saint lsidore of Seville among others, who maintained that the perfect horse should possess features such as “a small head, black eyes, tiny and straight ears, flexible, thick and not too long neck, thick mane, wide chest, round belly, elevated movements, long, silky and wavy tail and a round croup”.

This model of horse, non-existent in reality, was represented on drawings, engravings, paintings, and in sculptures by all known civilisations as the ideal aesthetic for an equine.

Precisely this model, mythified for over a thousand years, was the one King Felipe II ordered to be achieved in the city of Cordoba.

King Felipe II laid the definitive foundations for the Pura Raza Española, more commonly known as the Andalusian. He achieved this through the creation of the Caballerizas Reales de Córdoba (Royal Stables of Cordoba), where he grouped the best stallions and mares of the Andalusian provinces that border the Guadalquivir river, which at that time, were the most prolific in breeding horses. This is how the Yeguada Real (Royal Stud) was born. These stables are still in existence today.

These horses became much desired in all the European courts and were greatly valued. Every King, Queen and Emperor desired to ride and own Spanish Horses. In 1580 King Felipe gifted 27 mares and 9 stallions to his nephew Maximilian, Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian empire. These horses were taken to the region of Lipica (now in Slovenia but formerly part of the empire) and a breeding programme was established. The cross of the Spanish horses with the autochthonous breed, eventually gave way to what we now know as the Lipizzaner horse.

These horses were the ones chosen to perform in the Newly formed “Spanish Riding School” in Vienna, the Spanish blood of its horses, giving the school its name. But there are many more horse breeds that originate from the Andalusians. Like the Friesians, the Royal Horse of Denmark, Neapolitan (when Naples was under Spanish rule from 1504 to 1713), Austrian Kladruber, the Irish Connemara and some of the British breeds, notably the Cleveland Bay, Hackney and possibly the Welsh Cob, to name a few. The Lusitano only separated as a breed from the Spanish horse in 1960 when the Portuguese stud book was developed. Prior to this, Spanish horses born in Portugal were registered as Andalusians, from 1960 on, they became Lusitanos.

At present, the world population of Purebred Spanish Horses registered in the Stud Book amounts to over 185,000 specimens, in more than 50 countries.

It has been a tradition for many years in Spain for male horses to be ridden and mares only to be used for breeding.

Males will commonly have the characteristically long flowing mane, forelock and tail, not forgetting that distinctive thick neck.

Breeding mares were left out in large herds to produce their offspring. Their manes are customarily shaven off, as is the top section of the tail.

Over the years there has been an increase in the number of mares competing in dressage or just used as general working horses, as breeders are starting to realise that the mare must also prove her functionality as breeding stock and not just the stallion. In addition, some prefer the slight fineness of the mare’s body for competing, not to mention their character, which can be considered stronger than that of the stallions.

Many breeders are also opting for a slight change to the morphology of the breed, breeding finer built stallions and mares to create a more refined shape of Pura Raza Española, similar to that of a Central European sports horse, ideal for competitive dressage.

About 50 percent of Purebred Spanish horses are the well known grey colour, most of the rest being different shades of bay and black. There are also more and more chestnuts, dunns, cremelos and albinos, since the absurd ban for these coat colours was lifted from the stud book in 2002. Roans and piebalds are still totally excluded from the Stud Book.

The Andalusian or Purebred Spanish horse has great natural beauty. This is combined with a kind and generous nature, a willingness to please, great trainability, and a calm outlook on life.

These qualities are why the Andalusian is frequently the horse of choice for cinematic work. His willingness to stand, unfazed, amongst the clamour of a film set all around him, and to then instantly morph into a stunningly beautiful, fiery looking mount, whose presence steals the scene, is unsurpassed.