“All is Love. With love comes understanding. With understanding comes patience. And then Time stops. And everything is Now. “

  We celebrate one who has left this life, to gain his rainbow wings, and to roll in green pastures full of mares and carrots! Our dear Trovador (Truvi) succumbed to a severe colic at age twenty-seven.

  Trovador came into our lives at Jorge Gabriel’s Casa Lusitana sale. We were helping to put on the sale. He was introducing us to the horses, when we came to this big gray stallion whom he introduced as a “schoolmaster”. I could almost see Sallie‘s ears perk up like an excited horse. We had been striving to learn to ride the movements of the classical dressage horse, piaffe, passage, pirouette, and flying change. Jorge pointed out that Truvi had all that. Moreover he had done it sidesaddle!Shortly thereafter we became his new owners! Trovador moved from Boston, Massachusetts to south central Texas to begin working on the ranch making colts,  and doing dressage exhibitions, as well as continuing as a schoolmaster.  This son of a Portuguese bullfighting stallion and Spanish mare, born in Canada and registered in Mexico as a Lusitano was our international stallion. Truvi had performed in Equine Affaire doing grande prix dressage sidesaddle. Then at age fourteen he had carried Jorge’s four-year-old daughter! Such a generous personality and a true gentleman he was!  However, he was not above begging, nay, demanding,  where carrots were concerned! Many’s the time I’d be bumped rudely from behind while standing in front of his stall talking to clients as if to say “Hey, Glenn! don’t forget ‘bout my carrots!” I sure will never forget this incredible horse who taught me and my family the flying change, passage, and collected canter, as well as how a horse can be so expressive without verbal speech. Well, aside from his whinnying and pawing at steel pipe stall doors that is. Truvi leaves us a legacy of dignity and nobleness as well as our herd of very fine Lusitano-Spanish sons and daughters whom we ride and enjoy daily. Adios, compadre, y gracias por tu gracia!

“In Texas, if you don’t like the weather, wait fifteen minutes!” An old country saying.

  Sitting here on the front porch wearing my Carhartt  jacket, and slurping steaming black coffee, I realize that I’m still reeling from the last two months. I also realize that I have experienced all four seasons of the year in the last twenty-four hours.  Only one day ago I was dripping wet from tropics heat and humidity in a polo shirt. t

Then came a cold rain. Now a thirty degree drop in temperature later, it feels like what we have come to call winter in central Texas. We’ve even had our first frost, which killed some of my garden -before the end of October!

Through all these radical weather changes, these long hours of travel by plane and truck and trailer, the horse shows, the cattle roundups, the trail rides, and the intense moments of preparing for performances, we worked as a team. My family, friends, and neighbors have all pitched In and pulled together! This is the real news. Contrary to what we get from television and radio, what’s really making up the majority of our days and weeks is ordinary folks working together, playing together, arguing with each other, and enjoying each other, and celebrating life!

Now as we glide, or bounce, into autumn, we look forward to a bit slower pace of life. we really DO want to watch grass grow, mares get fat, and see young horses gradually get started under saddle. we also anticipate fireplaces and toddies! Now is the beginning of the three really good seasons of Texas weather! Next summer seems wonderfully far away.

“Philosophy; the Love of Wisdom, better still, the other way around.” David E. Bates MD.

Early this year one of the organizers of the National Peruvian Horse Show called me to ask if I could bring one of our Peruvian horses to Fort Worth in October and “Do that cow horse demonstration that you used to do. We want to show that Peruvians can do more than just go around and around the arena smoothly.”  I replied that the horse who used to do that had died, and all I had were a bunch of young, very green Peruvians. I told her I’d see what I could do.

Sorting through half a dozen colts and fillies, I settled on one chestnut gelding. He was a little bigger than the others and though green and a bit spooky, I’d ridden him in the pasture checking cows and fences. He was also pretty smoothly gaited. Interestingly his name was the same as his predecessor – Alejandro!

We started a program of daily work and he caught on fairly well. He learned to gallop (not easy for one as well gaited as he) and he learned seat bone, leg, and rein cues enough to do the Peruvian reining test called the enfrenadura. He began turning on his own and actually laying his ears back in response to working the cattle in the the arena. He even dealt with the use of the lariat rope. I felt he was ready, so I called in to say that we would do the demonstration.  We loaded Alejandro and two of our Corriente roping steers in the trailer and headed for Fort Worth in the middle of October. Saturday night arrived. Our demonstration started with Peruvian music and a version of the enfrenadura.  I was wearing the traditional Peruvian hat and poncho covering typical cowboy clothing and tack.  At a break in the music I removed the poncho and sombrero, revealing the traditional cowboy garb beneath, donned a cowboy hat and rode toward the gate to petition for the cow.  When the two steers trotted into the arena, the crowd’s reaction was beyond my expectation: a low inhalation of breath and a murmur rippled across the stands.  The music changed to the rip roaring country song “The race is on” by Sawyer Brown.  Alejandro moved the steers, split them, worked them “down the fence” and then circled them in mid arena to a standstill! The steers then proceeded to bring the show to a standstill with their own grandstanding performance—refusing to leave the arena! Two more horses and about half a dozen “feet people” later, the two steers finally  informed us of which gate they desired to be let out and we gladly complied! All in all, whether or not it was classy or informative, it was sure fun, and got a good crowd reaction! And as of yet, I haven’t yet been excommunicated from the Peruvian Club or the John Justin Arena!

“I love deadlines; I especially like the whooshing sound as they pass me by” – loosely translated from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Yes, I was flying low yesterday. Trying to get back in the saddle on this blog. It’s like the guy on the radio used to say “these are the headlines, now for the details.” Keeping up with three horse breeds, a small training stable, a cattle operation, and a group of young riders, not to mention a paying job, is a challenge! And we love it!

This year I rode in Dressage, Doma Vaquera, and cow horse performances,  most of them in one month, October.  Sadly, we missed the National Reined Cowhorse Snaffle Bit Futurity, held in Texas for the first time ever! That remains on my bucket list. We did, however succeed in getting our Azteca gelding , Cyrus, to the Andalusian Nationals.  Cyrus was sired by our gray Lusitano stallion Trovador out of a big, bay, quarter horse mare of Hancock, Leo, Poco Tivio bloodlines named Poco Nuez. He is over 16 hands tall, gray, and a handsome dude. He’s been working on the ranch, prowling pastures, checking fences, and calving cows. He’s penned cows, sorted cows, roped and dragged calves to the branding fire on several ranches. Cyrus also ponies colts in training, and gets used as a student horse for equitation lessons. For the last three years he has been helping me to learn academic equitation from our two teachers, Donna Meyer and Manuel Trigo.  He and I have been learning (or learning at ) Spanish walk flying changes, Piaffe and Passage, and we are trying to do it with collection, straightness, and lightness!  Try patting your head while rubbing your tummy and whistling Yankee Doodle all at the same time! Well, Cyrus did himself proud at Andalusian Nationals. He won National Champion in Doma Vaquera. This is a Spanish cow-horse riding test but with a level of collection more reminiscent of dressage. Best of all, he won the jackpot musical freestyle with a flair! Using Flamenco guitar music, we put on a three minute abbreviated version of the Fantasia de la Garrocha. Some describe it as a mounted version of a pole dance.  We did, however have clothes on! I’m pretty proud of our boy Cyrus.