By Brittany Redemacher and Anne Brien

Hacienda dos Olivos:

Today we started an early morning off and traveled to “Hacienda Dos Olivos”.
This is an old style farm in Spain that focuses on natural horsemanship, training, and modeling authentic Spanish culture. The farm works as a bed and breakfast and also hosts working students. Walking up to the house we were greeted by a small pack of friendly dogs along with the owner, Joanna. The house is modeled after a Roman style home, with an enclosed courtyard and the house and other building surrounding the courtyard. As the name suggests, the property has many olive trees which grow table olives, called “little apple” or “manzanilla” in Spanish. We recieved a tour from Joanna. She showed us the property, including the stable, built also with a center courtyard (a style which I love), the horses, paddocks, corral, and outdoor riding space where they keep the horses they are training engaged by working them over natural obstacles such as trees, logs, etc. Like many horse owners in Spain, they own Pure Spanish Horses, all Stallions, and focus on training using the method of “centered riding”; striving to make the connection between horse and rider. They explained to us there horse management, feeding, and training as we received our tour. Following this, Lucy Rees, a renowned equine behaviorist in Spain who works with Hacienda Dos Olivos, came and spoke to us about her methods, ideas, and the research she does studying wild horses and about the knowledge she has on how to connect with horses. It was amazing to see how passionate she is about ensuring horse welfare and understanding. After visiting with Lucy, we were all treated to an authentic Spanish lunch (for all people in the US, lunch occurs much later in the afternoon here than we are accustomed to at home!), with salads, bread, and “Paella” – which is a dish made of rice, chicken, sea food, and a tomatoe type sauce (definitely more fresh sea food than we see in North Dakota and the midwest!) – it was delicious! Visiting the Hacienda Dos Olivos was great, our host Joanna was very gracious and I really enjoyed hearing Lucy speak. I have never been anywhere like it and would definitely suggest it to anyone visiting Spain!

Feria de Jerez:

We also got to go the horse fair in Jerez. I thought it was similar to the Minnesota State Fair with all of the people everywhere plus the Minnesota State Hose Show combined into one. There were a lot of horses with single and double riders. There were also many carriages giving people rides around the streets. The streets were lined with bars and restaurants on each side and on the end there was a bigger area for rides that were similar to carnival rides at county fairs. There were also lights lining the streets that looked amazing at night once they all were lit up because they followed all the streets and were in very pretty patterns. Many of the people were very dressed up in suits and fancy dresses and they all looked very professional.