A Spanish Horse Show

Let me start off this blog post by declaring that it is officially Summer here in Spain.  Or at least I'm deeming it Summer based off the beautiful, hot weather we've been having.  And in Spain, the month of May is the start of all things fiesta y festivals.  Not only are the balconies and walls of houses decked out with flowers, each weekend is filled with different events.

Take Granada and Cordoba for example.  This weekend they celebrated "Las Cruces" aka "The Crosses."  And next weekend is the famous "Patios" in Cordoba.  And then there's Feria (aka "fair") in different surrounding towns and cities.  As for Priego, we had our own mini feria last weekend.  And yesterday there was a horse show!  While I can't surpass my Mother's love for horses, I still enjoy them and love to go see shows.  Unfortunately, none of my friends found this event of interest, so I ended up going solo.  (Which for me, I don't mind at all!)  The event was held in Priego's bull fighting ring.  Which if you have ever been to a typical bull fighting ring, you will know that it is based off of the old Roman amphitheaters right down to the stone seats.

Having never been to the bull fighting ring in Priego before, I didn't really have any idea on where to go.  Thankfully there was a group of old men walking in front of me.  So I followed them (at the pace of a snail), and they led me to the ring.  The event was free so we had our choice of seats which is great because in this weather, no one wants to sit in the sun (for fear of actually melting).  And to sit on the side with the shade, you typically have to pay more money.  But with a free event, you are allowed to sit where ever you want.  I continued to follow the old men up a hill into one of the entrances to the audience seats.  Trusting them, they led me to the balcony seats, and I sat with a direct center view of the arena.  The event was supposed to start at 5:30, but in typical Spanish fashion, it didn't start until 6:00.  But boy, when it did start, I was blown away.  All of the horses were Andalusian.  The first horse out did dressage or "doma" in Spanish.  While dressage isn't my favorite thing in the world to watch, it was fascinating to see the horse and rider getting along so well.  The rider barely had to gesture, and the horse knew what to do without fault or resistance.  The routine was flawless.  Then the horse was joined by another one and they performed a "dance."  This was a beautiful performance because I have never seen two horses work so closely together before.  Literally they were touching!  A lot of the Spanish dressage involved side stepping, circles, backing up, changing feet, etc.  (Sorry Mom and Pamela, I'm not being very technical.)  These two horses first did the circles together touching heads.  AND THEN they did it again but this time they were touching rump to rump which if you know horses is amazing because horses don't like that and tend to kick or move away from whatever is behind them.  But no; these two horses touched rump to rump and spun in a perfect circle before breaking away and continuing their synchronized dance.

Seconds after they had finished spinning in a circle with their heads touching

After the dance, another horse came out and performed more dressage.  But this time, the rider only used one hand.  I might add that the horse was beautiful.

Another thing you don't normally see with horses is them running backwards.  They usually move pretty slowly when it comes to getting them to walk backwards.  But all of these horses RAN backwards!

After the black horse, another one came out with a flamenco dancer.  The two of them danced together around the arena which I have never seen before.  And aside from the lady pulling on the horses front hair (ouch!), it was really cool.

After the flamenco performance, there was more dressage and another lady flamenco-ing with a horse. Then there were two men who entered the ring and with their horses they had them doing the jumps in the air (all four feet in the air, mind you).  After this was my favorite part of the show.  They had a man on a donkey perform.  The donkey was BRILLIANT!  It did all of the same things the horses could do but a million times better!!!  They even had the donkey do jumps.  I must say it was kind of funny watching a donkey perform dressage.  But it was literally perfect!  At one point, the rider had the donkey sit down on the ground while the rider remained sitting on it.  Then the rider got off, had the donkey lay down, the rider laid down next to it, and the donkey gave it a hug by wrapping its leg around the rider!  Then both rider and horse got back up and continued to perform all of the tricks that the other horses did including the jumps in the air and bows!

After the donkey and rider departed the ring, two horses came out pulling a Roman-like chariot.  They ran around the ring kicking up dust and doing donuts.  They also had to navigate around cones without knocking them down which was pretty amazing considering how long two horses and a chariot can be.  After them, four horses came out pulling an even bigger chariot. They had to do the same thing.  All of the horses during the night's performance were on incredible behavior.  They all performed perfectly, and you could tell none were anxious or resisting the rider.  However, one of the horses pulling the chariot was clearly not happy about sharing the lead spot with another horse, so he kept hitting the other one with its neck and trying to push it over.  This caused them chariot to hit some cones.

All in all, aside from my butt and back hurting from sitting on blocks of stone for two and a half hours, the show was amazing and different from any other horse performance I have seen!!  I wish I had taken more pictures but I was so wrapped up in watching, I totally forgot.

Sidenote:  Happy Mothers Day to all the Mothers out there from Spain!!  (Manana is Mother's Day here!)

Sidenote #2: Happy Birthday Uncle Danny!!

doma=dressage