Having owned PRE horses since about 1990, starting with a beautifully bred gelding, it has become a lifelong aim to breed our own special stamp of PRE horses that are able to compete successfully in the National and International arenas alongside their European counterparts.
It has taken a huge amount of time and effort to establish ourselves as a premier producer and breeder of Spanish competition horses. As with any business, there have been highs and lows but our philosophy is 'quality, not quantity' and our horses are some of the best available in the UK today.
All of our horses descend from either Olympic competitors, or National and International dressage and show horses. We have tried to base our bloodline selection on using proven competition horses together with very traditional showing lines, selecting quality mares with old, mainly Carthusian, bloodlines.
The Carthusian (or Cartujano) horses are some of the oldest (and purest) in the breed and descend from the original PRE horses that were 'saved' by the Carthusian Monks during the Spanish Civil War, when the breed was threatened with extinction. This is the Bocado (often referred to as Terry) Stud which still operates from Jerez de la Frontera in Andalucia, Southern Spain and is operated by the State, under the banner Yeguada de la Cartuja. The Terry bloodlines are highly prized by all breeders of PRE horses throughout the world.
We normally have just a few foals or youngsters available for purchase each year as we do not want to over produce. Our horses are given the best of everything to get them started correctly. We feed pure sun dried lucerne (alfalfa) to our broodmares and growing youngstock which is imported form the USA and is what they would be fed in their native Spain.
The foals are handled from birth and so by the time they are weaned, they are able to be led, they are used to farriers and vets, can load and unload in trailers or lorries and nothing seems to faze them. They can go to their new homes with us knowing we have helped them to begin their life journey to the best of our ability.
In 2008, the culmination of years of hard work and dedication came to fruition when we made history by winning both National Champion mare, National Champion Stallion and National Champion Colt. It was a very proud day.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so alongside are some photographs of some of our horses. Hopefully, the pictures will speak for themselves.
