Until Sunday evening, when I arrived in Sanlucar, I had had no contact with the man who owns and runs the picadero, Guillermo Macias Guerrero. I’ve been organising things with his girlfriend, Marta, who is sunny, open, and gorgeous. Even having met Guillermo, he’s still an enigma.
Guillermo and his parents all live at the picadero. His mother invited me for breakfast this morning. When she asked me what time I woke up, I wanted to sound like the go-getting country girl that I’m trying to become. So, I said, “Eight?” Silence. I continued, “Seven?” This received a peal of laughter from Guillermo, the mother and the father.
“Honey, nobody around here wakes up at seven. We’ll see you at eight thirty.”
This morning, the simple act of getting dressed was the first of many unforeseen challenges. When Guillermo and Marta greeted me yesterday they were dressed for supper, so I had no idea what to wear. There’s enormous variety amongst horse people, especially the Spanish. Is it rude to turn up to breakfast in your riding boots? Would I look like an over-dressed wally turning up in my very clean jodhpurs? On the other hand, would a pair of old jeans be too casual? I didn’t know whether I’d be riding or mucking out stables.
Jeans it was, and of course I walked in to find Guillermo in his jodhpurs (dirty jodhpurs, at least). Thankfully he decided to take me to the supermarket before we went riding, and I pretended to have thought that that was always the plan. I think he believed me.
The picadero consists of a smallish schooling ring, surrounded by a concrete walkway, and 35 stables facing inwards towards the schooling ring. All the stables are occupied.
“Get the horse out of number 7.”
I do as I’m told.
“Put on its boots.” (These are protective cuffs a horse wears around its ankles).
I asked if it needed boots on all four feet, and chuckled to myself when Guillermo replied, “No, solo en los manos (only on the hands).”
I do as I’m told.
Guillermo comes out of the tack-room.
“You’ve put them on backwards. And on the wrong sides.”
I had fallen at the first hurdle, and in a big way. At this point I was hoping that the earth might swallow me up. “It’s okay,” I thought, “There’s time to recover.”
We tack the horse up, and thankfully everything I didn’t know was excused by the fact that we were using Spanish saddles. I was given the choice between Spanish and English, and opted to learn a bit about Doma Vaquera, a Spanish discipline akin to dressage.
Having seriously called into question any confidence Guillermo may have had in my familiarity with horses, I was keen to get on the nameless Horse Number Seven and prove my worth. Seven was pretty tall. Suffice to say, I’m glad I did gymnastics when I was younger. I was able to get my right foot in the stirrup (about level with my chest), pull myself up, and swing my leg over without any trouble. A truly terrible rider wouldn’t have managed.
Off we go. First thing, apparently I’m holding the reins wrong. Great. This is even worse than putting the horse’s boots on backwards, because I am at least supposedly able to hold reins. That’s one aspect of riding that is fairly cross-cultural. I must look like a complete idiot. Apparently I need to close my hands much more tightly, as if I’m holding a little bird that wants to escape. I suppose I’ve got lazy, riding my well-behaved ancient horse, who more or less sleep-walks as she goes along.
We’re taking the horses on the dusty roads between other farms and picaderos. I begin to understand Guillermo’s emphasis on keeping your horse alert and attentive when yappy dogs start leaping out of nowhere to give the horses a fright.
Next, I need to put my feet deep into the stirrups. This is absolutely Not What We Do In The UK. Nor do we keep our bottoms on the saddle when we trot, nor lean back when we canter. But, this is the Spanish way. I fought all my instincts and did my best. We maintained a slow canter for a long while, only stopping to begin cantering again on the other leg. Unlike English horses, these are trained to go from a canter to a complete halt in a single stride. I, on the other hand, did not receive such training.
“And stop. And again. Canter on the left. Now stop. On the right. No, that’s the left again. On the right. That’s it.”
After an intense hour and a half under the Spanish sun, I was quite ready for a shower and a siesta. My horse got a shower, and I continued on the steep learning curve as I discovered that there is in fact a wrong way to hose down a horse. My horse got another, correct, shower.
“Get out the horse out of number 3.”
Three was a beautiful dappled grey stallion, with a long black mane, and the biggest balls I’ve ever seen. I brushed him and, as Guillermo walked out of the stableyard, he asked me put the stallion’s tack on. I was flattered that I could be trusted without supervision, but Guillermo was gone for a long time. Was I supposed get on this horse and go to the outdoor schooling ring to find him? I couldn’t just leave him standing there, as he was only tied up by his reins. Number Three began scratching his ear on a fence-post, and then Ivan (the stable-hand) started up the little tractor. Three got a fright, and used the post to pull off his bridle. He’s now completely loose, and, as a stallion, he’s stronger and more volatile, and he’s more likely to pick fights with other horses. Great.
I think to myself, “This is why English bridles have a throat-lash. It’s so exactly this doesn’t happen.”
The stallion then spots a stack of hay in across the stableyard, and, as he reaches it, in walks Guillermo. Fantastic. Now I’ve really blown it. I wished I could explain that there had been a long period of total control before this, and that the stallion had only escaped in the last four seconds.
Guillermo caught the stallion, and then instructed me to get on.
“Me?”
“Si, monte.”
Here goes nothing. I can already feel his strength just walking him around in the schooling ring while Guillermo prepares another horse. Before I know it, Guillermo is opening the gate and inviting me outside again. Again? It’s now 12:30, and my legs have already started ceasing up from the first outing.
The stallion was much more receptive, and I felt as if I had made some progress. The ever enigmatic Guillermo even went so far as to say I was riding muy bien. About an hour in, we passed a big black mound of rubble next to the railway line. The stallion spooked and starting walking backwards and sideways as I tried to make him pass. Pull hard with the right rein, push hard with the left leg. Sit tight. Fight the mental fight and think really hard that you are not going to let him get away with this. Success.
“You’ve been riding since you were very young?” asks Guillermo.
“Yes.”
“Se nota (It’s noticeable).”
At last! I did something right! I had been beginning to doubt that I knew how to ride at all.
Back to the stables. Wash down. Dry horses. “Maybe lunch time?” I dare think, at 2 o’clock, after hours of hard riding.
“Number 20.”
What again? Surely not. Guillermo gestures to a hanging rack full of miscellaneous leather straps.
“Put that on him.”
At this point I had to confess I had no idea what he was asking me to do. Guillermo assembled the tack himself, and when he was done I still didn’t know what I was looking at. The horse was wearing a weird bridle, and a wide girth around its middle, but no saddle, and its reins were attached to its stomach.
“Do you know how to trabajar con cuerda?” My vocabulary was lacking here, but, after some gesturing, we established that we were going to be doing lungeing. Incidentally, no, I do not know how to lunge. Lungeing is where the horse is attached to a long rope, and runs in circles around the person holding the rope. I have done it twice, and both times the horse decided (without my consent) that we would no longer be doing lungeing.
Guillermo leads the horse into the schooling ring, past another rider who is practising at quite a pace. The horse knows exactly what it's doing, and starts trotting around in a circle before it’s even asked to. This is much easier than trying to lunge my spritely, un-broken overgrown foal. It’s all fine until the other rider starts clicking at his horse. Clicking makes your horse speed up, whistling makes it slow down. My horse thinks the clicks are intended for him, and sets off at a gallop. It’s still nothing on my idea of what lungeing can be like. The horse was still running in a circle, for a start. I did my best to look totally unfazed, and I managed to hold my own.
At long last, Guillermo told me to slow the horse down to a walk, to hose it off, and come for lunch.
Next blog: This is Andalucia
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