After the disappointment of not finding a stallion I headed home from Europe with my new partner in crime Vicky Slater, a lovely Northern Irish girl who wanted a 5 month stay in New Zealand to experience a new part of the world and to learn as much as possible about equitation science and learning theory. Vicky is a great asset here, perfect for helping break in horses and she soaks up information like a sponge. I'm sure she will be a great asset to the Northern Irish equestrian community when she arrives home...
After just a short month or so in NZL though, I had to leave Vicky behind to mind the horses at home as I headed back up to Europe to - you guessed it - look at more stallion prospects and to attend the ISES conference and the Global dressage forum.
I flew Emmerates direct to Gatwick, staying overnight and catching an early morning flight to Porto in the north of Portugal. Here I was greeted by my ever patient agent Nicole Giger and my Australian friend Sarah Warne - both of whom are at this stage desperate to get me a Lusitano stallion!
Our first stop was to look at a very interesting stallion we had seen on video - I had a feeling it was going to be a super mover but a big time project to retrain correctly and quietly - I was absolutely right! He was the kind of horse I would have loved to have trained had I been based in Portugal, but he was too much of a risk to bring home to NZL.
Our host for the few days was Nuno Oliveira who is a super guy with some lovely horses - check out the pics below of his lovely black and the awesome coloured chestnut!
The next stallion I looked at was Zico - a seven year old grey prepared for sale by Sergio Martin and his partner Vanessa. We had all fallen in love with the video of Zico - he's pretty spunky and special. Has nice paces and is a real "barbie-doll" horse with a super temperament. I found him quite easy to ride and he was put on the "possibles" list.
Then we travelled back down to the seaside town of Cascais where Nicole and Sarah reside. Here I got to ride the lovely big bay 6 year old stallion Ali-Baba. He is simply incredible. His repertoire of tricks include spanish walk, two time changes and an amazing piaffe and passage. He has been trained exclusively by Carlos, one of the riders of the Portugese School of Equestrian Art - and the bloodlines of Ali Baba go back to those same magnificent bay horses at the school - the Alter Real breed. I loved riding Ali Baba and I think he would make a great stallion to bring back here for breeding and at a later stage competition. Highly intelligent and a very fast and clever learner - he epitomises the Lusitano breed. Check out the artwork on the walls of the indoor school - amazing tiles! And look at that Spanish Walk - apparently he just taught it to himself!
The final photo in this blog is of a lovely horse I met in my travels born with a birth defect that affected his ears - I have never seen anything quite like it before...