Andalusian News Spain

Andalusian News Spain

Andalusian news spain is the year in a nutshell - a combination of the original Spain Diary page and previous weblog articles.

As ever on this site, enjoy the journey through our homeland - browse and read at your leisure.

Oct 2007 - My Horse My Friend

The story of Juan Paco and Brujo is documented in the joy and affinity that sparkle out of their video - link to that below

Juan Paco is one of �Jo�s Boys�, the precious shining young riders I film - and sometimes feed -, smile at and love. They are the heart of Spain, the guarantee of a future for our horses.

The ones who rise at three to clean stables and ride, as Juan Paco; commit to four years of hard work and study at the Escuela, as Emilio and Abel; determine to be the best groom in Andalucia as Carlos, or a handler with tact and lightness as is Lazaro.

They are the youth who give us grace, who do not despise our years and slower steps. The ones who ever have time to bend and greet with a kiss, to pause in their routine to talk of new discoveries, who smile tolerantly at my camera and go out of their way to help in a shoot, who never fail to give the hug that says we are one in our love of the horse.

Today my heart breaks for one of �my� boys.

Brujo is dead. A colic, and Juan Paco has lost the friend he worked with, cared for, made his mistakes with and loved.

Pause for a moment when you go to your horses, and think kindly of Juan Paco tonight.
video - My Horse My Friend

Aug 2007 - Spain from a venta

I'm sitting in a small town in the Sierras - the beautiful wide open area that sprawls across Spain and Portual, much of it decared Natural Reserves.

Here you find cork trees and deer, widespread isolated farmhouses, and little pueblos such as this tucked away in the protective curving shadow of a hill.

And pigs - many, many pigs. This is home territory for jamon - the uniquely spanish form of salted and cured ham.

Go into the local ventas and see dozens of succulent legs of jamon hung from the ceiling. Ask which is best and you have a dozen opinions from those at the bar - and probably the life history of each pig.

But it is delicious - with cheese, with bread, with a copa of wine - or just with another tissue-paper this slice of the same. All part of what makes up the totality of spain.

July 2007 - Is a website art? For me, yes.

I do everything on our two sites - from design, to HTML to photos, and all the text. Everything is original - no copied articles, or that eternally repeated piece about andalusians in cave-paintings (Aaagh).

The sites are about performance, not competition. (Truth is, the way the internet runs, every man's pet chicken can start a website in half the time it takes to boil an egg, and I never was much good at egg-and-spoon races).

The sight of me with a laptop in the front of our Mitsubishi 4x4, working there while Andres is working on horses; or anywhere and everywhere with the cameras, is an accepted thing.

Gradually a group of our associates began quietly approaching us about carrying their horses on the sites, but in a different mode. These are the riders we know, the ones you see on the videos and meet in my posts. (Sometimes I have to use pseudonyms, because my mother would have frowned on name-dropping, and I respect their privacy.) These are people who know horses, know riding, know their strengths and limitations - and saw how creativity in a website could be a strength for them.

The second site grew out of this, out of that eternal desire to keep creating, growing, moving, in those life-thread-circles.

It carries horses for sale � we know every one of them. That's one reason we can do the video diaries.

June 2007 - Our Ethics policy on filming

In effect, that policy says we will show the truth, and - in as much as is possible - visually present the whole story.

We will edit film, but not doctor it. We will not use slow motion to conceal defects, poor movement or lameness. We will not use slow motion to try to make a horse look to be something he is not. We will not use colour enhancement effects to misrepresent the coat of a horse.

We will show when a horse tried, even if he failed. We will show horses ridden by everyday people in everyday clothes, as well as the show ring spectaculars.

We will respect our viewers, knowing that you are following your dream. You do not deserve to be dazzled by a magician's illusion so that your dream becomes a nightmare.

We will glory in the beauty that is the Spanish horse, and strive to make videos that do him justice.

We will adhere to copyright laws and ethics, especially with respect to music. Our filming ethics

May 2007 - we rank high up in Alexa

According to one survey - over a sample base of 10 000 000 websites - we are possibly the world's leading website on the andalusian horse.

Yes, I know statistics can be skewed to a required direction (ask any politician!), but this is still quite gratifying. We are being recommended more and more for our information content about the horses of Spain, and our videos are bringing wonderful responses.

The videos of andalusians that we show are not always for sale purposes. The latest is a bit of a scramble - short clips of one of our PRE fillies. Not an art production, but just an intro to a very lovely young lady. Yes, she is for sale - and free of piroplasmosis! Her video link