What is it that they say about the best made plans? I'm not actually that sure to tell you the truth which is why I tend to not make too many plans! If you had said to me two months ago when I was leaving New Zealand that I would end up with Wookie in Barcelona I would have laughed at the idea - but now it is a reality...
In my previous blog in France I knew I needed to go somewhere to work on Wookie's piaffe / passage. And many people recommended I needed to go to "the expert" Agusti Elias, who travels globally teaching some of the world's best riders and horses for the piaffe and passage. When I met the flamboyant Spaniard at the show in France his answer to everything was "No Problem!" ie can My horse come to your barn? Can I come too? Is there somewhere for me to stay? Can the horse go on your lorry tomorrow? Can I travel with him too? To each question I got the "No Problem!" answer. I got the feeling I was going to like it in Spain!
The slogan at Barcelona Horses is "The place to be" and they are not wrong there... It is a fantastic equestrian complex about 20 minutes from Barcelona city. It's the home and birthplace of the two brothers Agusti and Lucas Elias and their gorgeous wives Nuria Vila and Annabelle Collins. All four train and compete at Grand Prix level. That in itself has got to be unique. But what also makes this place special is the grounds. There must be well over 100 horses stabled here. There's a great indoor school and two huge outdoor arenas, a wonderful indoor lunge arena and a state of the art walker. A magnificent club house overlooks the grounds and the whole place is in a park like setting, with mature Olive trees everywhere and superb landscaping. Although it's not quite finished there are like 5 builders here working 6 days a week to get it done, and in the few short weeks I've been here the progress is outstanding.
There's an interesting collection of animals here - some strange looking dogs for instance and the builders all have pet birds in cages they bring to work with them! There is a resident goose or two and a peacock up at the restaurant. There seems to be horses filling every other available space - and it's not unusual to see horses heads appearing out their windows onto a balcony above the grooms accommodation.
Poor Wookie struggled at first with the big electric horse walker here - it changes direction every five minutes or so, and the panels are "hot" to keep the stallions in check. Well Wookie I don't think had ever been on a walker that changes direction and I caught him on more than one occasion running backwards for 20 metres as the gates came towards him! After he was rescued he soon figured it out - you have to turn around... He's a pro at it now and it's a good thing as he spends a good hour a day treading he rubber bricks in the walker!
Oh, and I don't think I mentioned the best part about living here at Barcelona Horses - there is an exceptional Catalan restaurant here too - run for many years by the Elias family. It serves up some amazing grub from the region, including the best BBQ spring onions and artichokes you have ever tried! (Trust me on that one!) The restaurant is open 6 days a week for lunch and dinner. On weekends it's completely packed out with huge family gatherings that seem to last five hours!
The staff and riders at Barcelona Horses are fantastic. They are a bunch of great riders from Morocco, Holland, Sweden and different areas of Europe. Lucky for me a lot of people here speak English as my Catalan is non-existent! I was only at the stables for a few days before I had to leave for 10 days to the UK, and Wookie was entrusted to Agusti's understudy Jonas from Morocco. Jonas loves Wookie maybe more than I do, and thru various intriguing techniques of both ridden and in hand work he has been able to get some great work from Wookie - totally changing the frame of the horse and what his little legs should be doing as well.
I get to ride a few horses here each day which I really enjoy - especially the Baroque style ones - one horse in particular that I love is Opus, a young PRE / Lusitano cross stallion with a world beating passage and half passes simply to die for! I have even learnt to do the nice long Spanish style plaits that I saw so much of in my first trips to Spain and Portugal - they are easy when you know how!
Now that Agusti is back from training horses in Florida, I manage to get a lesson each day. I head off to my next big show in just a few days time, with Lucas and Nuria there to help me for the first week and Agusti and Annabelle arriving the following week so I am in good hands! The show is in Toledo - just outside of Madrid. One of my best friends in the whole wide world is flying across the globe to join me here - read about how it all unfolds in my very next blog!