Posted - January 17, 2007

SICAB 2006 - The National Breed Championships of the Pure Spanish Horse
Kimberly Van Kampen Boyer
Hampton Green Farm

Germany #1 Exporter of the Pure Spanish Horse

SICAB is also a meeting place—all the latest news and gossip in the ever-growing world of the PRE. The reception for the Foundation for the Pure Spanish Horse, sponsored again by Wellingtonian Alex Zilo, drew even more Americans, primarily PRE breeders. (Alex had to leave SICAB early to join his wife Lily in Doha, Qatar, where she was competing in the Asian Games for the Hong Kong National Dressage Team.) In the lobby of the Sevilla Congressos Hotel is the bar where deals are made and stories told.

For dressage riders, the big news is the spread of the popularity of the breed and the sudden rise in the German demand for the breed. I have heard from several sources within the equine promotion and exportation business that in 2006 Germany was the #1 exporter of PREs from Spain, with France in second place. In the past, German clients bought these horses for pleasure riding, but this has changed and the horses are being purchased now for both dressage and breeding.

Trained horses with show records go for a premium, at times higher than their warmblood counterparts for two simple reasons—1) piaffe and passage, and 2) supply and demand. The young stock at the SICAB auction drew prices at levels similar to Northern breed young horse auctions, with the top horse fetching E27,000.00, a four-year old bay stallion with desirable bloodlines for dressage movement. America is still somewhat behind the rest of Europe in their appreciation and utilization of the PRE, often evidenced by the lack of basic knowledge of the breed reflected in popular dressage publications.