Horses, horses and more horses

 12-May-2022

Today was horse day.  We started with a visit to Yeguada la Cartuja which is the modern version of a horse breeding farm originally established by Carthusian monks in the 15th century.  The monks bred fighting horses for the king and they were pretty good at it.  And you thought they only made brandy.

The folks at the horse farm breed a modern version of the Spanish horse that  was spread around the Western hemisphere after Columbus.  Nowadays they are bred for show horses doing dressage and cart work. 

Unlike the bull farm, these guys use artificial insemination and surrogate mothers to speed up the production of colts and get a better handle on lineage.

These colts are newborn and are just learning to walk.  They are kept in a pen with the brood mares. The colt in the pic is only a few days old.

This farm sells Carthusian horses  to  private buyers so we saw a German grandma and grandpa looking at samples with their horse loving granddaughter. The horse they select will be flown home on Lufthansa, horse class.

To continue the horse theme we took a bus ride to the Jarez horse fair (may be in Spanish, look at the pictures).  This is an event where everyone gets all dressed up and the folks with horses bring them out and parade around. 

That dude on the left really does have a blonde on the back end of his horse.

Most of the ladies dressed up like  this.

It is a huge party and we were only there for an hour or so.  It will really rock when the sun goes down.  We even saw the President of Andalusia who is a crook according to Santiago our bus driver.

There was sherry all around because this is sherry country and TioPepe sherry is a big sponsor of the fair.

Very few gringo tourists around, easy to spot because they were the only ones wearing shorts.
Here's a picture of one.

A fine, horsey day.