Today; The sunny side of life!

If yesterday was pretty today was beautiful!

YDA. VIKINGA PRE WISHES ALL A PEACEFUL END TO 2009 AND A 2010 FILLED WITH ENERGY, JOY AND SUCCESS!

Winter today

Winter in Sweden when as its best, today was one of those pretty days!
Intimidad Cen

'Inma', prefers being glued to you but I did get these pictures, she is such a beautiful queen with her big Donoso-baby-belly, so much looking forward to see this foal!

Betty

Swedish christmas home

Betty is not a trained dog but she does know the STOP for picking her up, for photos and even for dress-rooms, it would'nt be possible to get a dog into the shops in Sweden but in Spain we have tried out H&M and a few other open minded shops.. Betty is from Granada, Spain.

Self-deception

"A messenger was sent on a urgent mission to a distant city. He saddled up his horse and set off at gallopp. After passing several inns where animals like him were normally fed, the horse thought: 'We're not stopping to eat at any stables, which means that I'm being treated, not like a horse, but like a human being. Like all other men, I will eat in the next city we reach'.
But the cities all passed by, one after the other, and his rider continued on his way. The horse began to think 'Perhaps I haven't changed into a human being after all, but into an angel, becuase angels have no need to eat'. Finally, they reached their destination and the animal was let to the stable, where he greedily devoured the hay he found there.
'Why believe that things have changed simply because they do not happen quite as expected?' he said to himself. 'I'm not a man nor an angel. I'm simply a hungry horse'."

- from 'Like the flowing river' by Paulo Coelho -

Spanish olive swedish christmas tree

Spanish-olive-swedish-christmas-tree

This is one example of how I integrate cultures in my life. Spanish horses, swedish values and english communication suits me. I do not value one country being better than the other, in the end we are all the same anyway. I come to think about the frequent comparison of the warmblood horse versus the Iberian horse. Personally I find this comparison totally unessesary, it only proves that we are not clear of what is a good ahtlete horse when it comes down to good movement, composition, temperament. Our personal likings are not interesting for the sport, even though these make our horse-world more colourful and diverse which is great, but good movement is purely good movement, irrespectively of what race of horse is moving. Just like red has a objective quality of being fiery, warm and provocative, good movement has its objective qualities. I have my criterias very clear but I think there is a need to clarify which the objective qualities for dressage are and agree once and for all, so we can move forward and stop being racist about it, one cheek said to the other - 'let's stop this nonsense and get together!'.

Poem

'There are those who do not believe,
that a single soul,
born in heaven,
can split into twin spirits
and shoot like foreign starts to earth.
Where oceans and continents,
with their magnetic forces,
will finally unite them back into one.'

- Don Juan de Marco -

Soul food

'If you want to be happy, be.'
- Leo Tolstoy -

Very Merry Christmas!

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is the meaning of success.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson -

Christmas Soul Food

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not darkness, that most frighten us. We ask ourselves, 'who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are part of the universe, you playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

- Nelson Mandela -

Thank you all!

Thank You clients for coming to us with a positive attitude and making our job fun and interesting!
Thank You breeders and veterinarians for a year of great collaboration!
Thank You Kerstin o Jan for taking care of our horses and for being so involved!
Thank You Eskil!
A warm Thank You to swedish breeders for choosing Donoso VII as the father to your foals!
Thank You Jade for being a great home to Donoso & Start!
Thank You everyone for Your support and well wishes at SICAB, we truly appreciate it!
Thank You all for writing us your sincere thoughts and comments on email, Blogs, Facebook and Youtube, they are always welcome and very appreciated!
Thank You friends and family for keeping in touch even though you haven't heard from us for a long time!

Yeguada VIKINGA PRE wishes everyone the very best christmas and a 2010 full of happiness and success!

Too much and so little

Jade today
This little snow is the cause for total spanish chaos. Betty and I were in the airport for 5 hours the reason being - WEATHERCONDITIONS = 1 cm snow and some fog. I was many times asking myself how can it be that 1 cm snow is such a big deal, it falls every year in Madrid and EVERY year it is the same - the journalists make it sound like it is some kind of nature disaster like a earthquake or else! So funny, however in airport waiting with dog is not so much fun, no. Some had it worse, no plane at all or delayed to next day. We did arrive, to a wintery Sweden where people are setting themselves up for christmas and enjoying the thought of a white christmas, spikes on wheels and off we go!

Warm & Cold

Today in the sun - smiling

Javier before he froze to ice, not smiling

Already frozen to ice, definitely not smiling

Wow, time flies when you are having fun, have not been writing here since 1rst of December, we have been working alot but now it is christmas holidays, hurray! Today was a glorious sunshiny day and after having bought a christmas pressy for our superstar-stablegroom Hector we sat down at our local village-bar to have our 'aperitivo' outside in the sun, lovely. Then we went for a ride - yes, correct - WE, Javier and I, went for a ride, in the mountains, NO rocky roads though, only exclusive-legs-friendly ones, cold but grand landscape that you can't see as our fingers were frozen stiff taking them. We passed some enormous bulls and horses did the 'I-see-bull-bullfighting gesture' and they probably thought THAT is what our genes are for, how did this dressage come into the picture? I once visited a studfarm where they gave the horses freshly squeezed orangejouice on a daily basis so now when it is christmas I give D & S oranges for being good - they love it - peel and all, so no lack of vitamin C.

Javier had to endure the long food-mineral-vitamin-new hay-alfalfa-blanket-windows open-windows closed-discourse as I am going to be away 10 days that is a very long time. We left Donut quietly eating, Start being the tyrannousaurus rex because of the new exquisite hay that he absolutely loves and naturally has to protect best way possible.

Going home

So finally all was over, abit like the christmas-is-over-feeling you get when opened all the presents. We passed by Cárdenas on the way to meet up with some people and to see a stallion I had fallen in love with when we visited the farm summer 2008. Unfortunately we did not see good representatives of the Cárdenas brand, the quality of the horses were low, we saw toed-out, heavy head, fallen underlip, broken neck outline, defined cross mark and long backs. There was one horse that moved ok and had a correct conformation but the others had irregular movements, hollow backs and shuffling hindlegs. There was also a small correct stallion but he had ponylike looks. Not good. We then found out that at least two of the stallions were already sold, the deal was settled beforehand and the bidding was a set up and not real. Very disappointing. Mr Cárdenas would do better not only selling the horses he does not want, after all they are representatives of him. 
We got home to a snowy Madrid late in the night.

The champions SICAB 2009

This is Udon, Champion of Spain 2009 and Donoso's next door neighbour

The Spanish National Champions were crowned - the champion Udon is a tall, blonde, quite slim modell spaniard. Very handsome. My favourite of all is Kabileño VIII that won Functionality (rideability & movements) and got title Best Movements (by hand). This is a 'importantissimo' horse, a spanish M. Tootilas that takes your breath away when he moves, watch out for this one, he is special and what a representative for the PRE race. He has been on our home, we saw him competing last summer and no matter how you hold that camera you get good shots of this one. He is also in the Horsespre blog, I compared him to M. Tootilas.

Then I rode Donoso and showed him to Victor Álvarez, he had to share space with the marockan guest-horses (guest country Marocko this year) with hundreds of bells, marockan men that walked around in spooky white dresses and a horse that bolted, it was all a bit too much so I said I can't do much here and went to another arena.
Victor Álvarez

Saturday

Saturday was a great day, we saw the final of the functionality and there were three worthy and professional presentations, the rest was not very impressive as the horses simply did not move but ran through the test. This was also reflected in the scores that varied with a difference of 20%, there were the three 'top' horses, the rest were 'fill out' and could really not compete with the others which is not acceptable, in the final we want to see more than three good horses/presentations please. Again, the horses need to have moves for dressage and not for carriage driving.
We saw the Grand Prix Kür, wonderful artistically, some really went for it with great composed music and advanced tecnical moves, it seemed like the artistic quality was favoured instead of perfectionism which was uplifting and inspirational! Enjoyed it!
I tried the horse we have for sale see Nr 357, excellent sporty PRE for dressage that has all moves for Prix St George + tempi twos and ones, a swingy passagy trot, lovely canter pirouettes, half pass and a good walk. It is a ambitious little horse, abit accelerated from pressure from rider, very very talented and uncomplicated to ride, I liked him alot, he has the electricity needed to do the upper level dressage. Therese rode 'Donut' meanwhile, did a very good warm-up job on him and I finished with some piaffy/passagy moves that is coming on great. Donut was admired in SICAB, Therese walked him around and had several people asking her if he was for sale, one person offered me 50000 Eur for him but he is not for sale. He loved the atmosphere, the horses and the people, I see a important horse in him, he is growing!
Therese & Donoso VII