Testimonials

Dear Dawn

I cannot thank you enough for enabling me to buy Alboroto (Albi). He popped up on your website which I was only looking at as I wanted to see Spanish horses generally  at a time when I was looking for a horse and had said to myself, “never another young horse, never another grey horse and NEVER buy unseen”. I most certainly wasn’t intending to buy through you!

However, I had been looking unsuccessfully in the UK and I just fell in love with Albi who was rising 4 years old, grey and in Spain when we couldn’t travel there! I emailed you on the off chance to see if he had been sold (I think he had only just gone on your website so I was lucky) and to ask the price and you replied really quickly. I decided to trust my gut and go for him. Suffice to say that things then moved very quickly and, within a week, he had been vetted in Spain, I had seen the video of the vetting, my vet had seen the x-rays and Albi was booked on the next load to the UK!

Throughout this unplanned process you so held my hand and organised and explained everything, now made more complex post Brexit! I would never have done this without you and I am so grateful to you! Albi is still a very young and green horse (hence he is with my trainer, Kirsty Farren, in the best interests of his education) and he was more wobbly than shown on the sales video – which is typical of his age. However I am delighted with him. He is quite confident, very sweet and very beautiful. He is very calm and easy to work with in the stable. Kirsty says that he is one of the easiest young horses she has ever worked with ridden!  He is incredibly quick to learn and the benefit of him being with my trainer is that he could very easily learn the wrong thing if given the opportunity.  We must make sure that he is only shown the right things. Plus she makes sure we stop when he has done enough  for a baby horse because he  is so happy to work that it would be easy to ask too much of him! I am having to learn to tone down my clunky aids as Albi is very sensitive but in a positive way! He needs just the tiniest, lightest of aids and corrections. I am used to asking for more, more. Now I am saying slow, slow  –  although Albi is not silly or fizzy. It is like a whole new sport for me! He is totally different to the many that I have ridden over the decades and his balance is very good for a young horse.

I am amazed by how well he has adapted. We are still being careful to increase his grass gradually but he came from Southern Spain to very strong winds and  a period of very wet weather and probably only worked once in the dry in his first few weeks. However he trotted through all the ponds and puddles in the arena with his legs and belly being splashed and really didn’t worry about any of his baptism by water! We think he is just lovely and will turn out to be even more so. My only regret is that I am now reminded of my wisdom in saying “never another grey horse”.  As with all grey horses, Albi is now delighted by mud which our weather since his arrival has given him ample opportunity to discover!

Best wishes

Sally and Albi