Goodson’s Travel Photos

The Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art Foundation can be found at www.realescuela.org

If you watch the introductory presentation, rather than hit entrar, (as that will take you to another web site), hit skip presentation (bottom right hand corner) and that will take you to the Foundations home page.

This is an incredible website that you can visit to check out all of the information about the School and Foundation. It offers virtual tours of the facilities and the grounds. You can also find out the history of this magnificent place. We had the opportunity to visit this Royal School, Carriage Museum, Museum of Equestrian Art , stables, tack room, as well as watch a training session of some of the horses. We could not take pictures within the arena and in the museums.

The Las Caderas Palace (now the Equestrian Arts Museum) was spectacular! Construction began in 1860 by the French Architect, Charles Garnier, and was finished in 1866. We were told that the roof is made from slate, not found in this region of Spain, but from Northern Spain. To think that this was brought here at this time in history is amazing. This was the original home of Frenchman Julian Pemartin Laborde, who settled in Jerez as a sherry producer. His love for botany led to the surrounding of the Palace with extensive gardens.

It is in the gardens of the Recreo de las Cadenas that the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art Foundation has built its facilities - stables, exercise arena and tracks.

This is a four year training school for students- training courses for riders, carriage-drivers, harness and saddle makers, clinical assistants and stable hands. The students could be observed wearing green jackets, while the trainers were dressed in blue jackets. We were told that there were 125 horses and 13 trainers. The horses are trained for 30 min. every day, followed by their shower and outdoor drying. There was a constant coming and going of horses on the grounds as we passed by.

The carriages that we saw in the first Carriage Museum were absolutely beautiful. One of them has been used for the King & Queen. Others have been used in weddings, funerals, etc.

We were not able to stay and watch the performance of, “How the Andalusian Horses Dance”, but from what we saw in the training sessions, it would have been remarkable to watch! We will definitely go back to watch one of their shows.

If you have a moment, or two, check out their website. It is one of the best that I have seen, and it is in English.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 16th, 2007 at 6:22 pm and is filed under Andalusian horses, Jerez Spain, Spain, carriage museum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.