Melissa and Merlin

I think I’m ready to get a new horse but, I think I want something silly, like an Andalusian,” Melissa confessed to Marsha while they were watching a friend take a lesson. “I’m afraid to tell Allida.”

“Don’t be. She loves Andalusians. She’ll be super excited,” Marsha said.

Marsha feels that some secrets are made to be shared and couldn’t wait to tell Allida that Melissa was ready for another horse. She also told Allida that Melissa was feeling a little embarrassed to tell her that she wanted an Andalusian. “Why? I love Andalusians! I think they are a great choice. I’m excited,” she said and immediately sent Melissa a text message telling her that she fully supported the plan.

Melissa is a confident horsewoman, so when she said she was “thinking” about getting an Andalusian, she was really well into the research phase. As a scientist, who moonlights as an equine body worker, she had a very clear idea of her requirements. “I was after a P.R.E. youngster that I could take my time with and start for a dressage career. I wanted a more modern type with some height and good forward movement. Most of my horses are a little on the goofy side, so I wanted something with some smarts and a spunky personality. I was also specifically looking for good conformation with sufficient bone and good balanced hindquarters. You know, just a unicorn.” She had been looking at domestically bred P.R.E.’s and felt that the quality wasn’t what she had hoped for the money. Allida suggested that they go directly to the source and shop for an Andalusian in Spain or Portugal.

Allida reached out to her contacts and started putting a trip together. She sent Melissa videos so they could get an idea of the quality of horses that each breeder had available. Melissa picked the breeders she liked best. Most of the horses they were interested in were in Spain and eventually they narrowed their focus to the central and southern part of the country.  Melissa wanted maximum flexibility in the trip, even leaving open the possibility that they might spend a few days in Portugal, if they didn’t find what they wanted in Spain. Melissa said, “Allida found some prospects and lined up plenty of horses, I booked some flights and we settled on a rough agenda that had plenty of flexibility built in, so we could follow our noses depending on what we found over there.” Marsha arranged to meet them, at Madrid airport.

Over the next week they looked at dozens of horses, from foals to four-year-olds. During the day the group would look at horse after horse and at night, they would eat delicious Spanish food and drink wine, while they discussed the prospects. When the time came to make a decision, in Melissa’s words, she “was not left wanting for choice.”

After seeing dozens of horses, the yearlings from the first barn they visited stuck out in her mind. They had all recently been brought in from the pasture, were mostly wild, and were very nervous being in the new environment. They were being held in a side paddock and the breeder released them into the arena one at a time, to show off their gaits. The first one got a collective gasp. The second one got the same reaction, so did the third through the fifth. They all had gorgeous floating trots and uphill canters and they all had the balance and body control that is typical of  P.R.E.’s.

There were three that Melissa strongly considered. She carefully evaluated their conformation and we talked about what we saw in their personalities. Of the three, one really stuck out as having the whole package. He was a little bit shy. He seemed to be carefully considering things, rather than just running around like a wild beast and…He. Could. Move.

Allida arranged for a vet check with the best vet in the area. The flexions were good, the x-rays were sent to two vets in California, the blood was sent to the lab in Germany. The colt, who Melissa was already calling Merlin, got the thumbs up on his vet check.

Melissa relied on Allida’s experience with shipping and importing horses. Merlin’s import took longer than expected. Nearly all of Spain goes on vacation during the month of August and the wheels of the bureaucracy that exports horses, come to a grinding halt. Once everyone came back to work, the horse was quickly released from quarantine and trailered to Amsterdam, where he was loaded onto a KLM flight bound for Los Angeles. Horses shipped from Spain spend three weeks in quarantine in Spain, but do not have to spend any time in quarantine once they arrive in the US. There is usually a 36-hour delay while the blood is drawn and tested, but as soon as the results are confirmed, the horse is released and sent to their new home.

Looking back, Melissa is thrilled with her experience shopping for horses in Spain, and would definitely do it again. She recognizes that even though she’s comfortable buying horses in the US, when it comes to buying horses in another country, having the expert help made the trip much more successful, and saved her a lot of time and money. “I probably could have done this on my own, but it would have been miserable, and likely would have taken multiple trips before I got it right. I would have ended up spending a lot more money, as I would not have found the grass roots farms Allida found thanks to her connections, and I would have ended up at a more commercial level barn.”

Melissa is in heaven with her new horse. He’s growing into a beautiful young stallion and he will soon be under saddle. “I got my unicorn,” she says. “Even down to the personality.”