Elegant Enchanting Lusitanos - aka Unicorns

06/27/2024

Happy 11th Birthday to the beautiful Lusitano mare Icara🎂🥰🦄
Loved and owned by Golega DoRoyal and Ron Ducharme💜🦄💜

04/24/2024

Guess who had their 2nd Birthday 🎂 yesterday?
Surano!!!
Urano VO's amazing c**t. I love watching him grow up💜🦄💜
Daddy is very proud💜
Another Unicorn 🦄 getting ready to dance with his mom Denise Berry-Hanna she loves him and is having fun as he grows up!

01/31/2024

I had the privilege today to film Julie Ann Powers-Martin and her beautiful Lusitano Mare Havana's lesson with Kenny Direks!
I so totally love this mare (Godiva's full sister!).
Session 01 - Havana & Julie Martin - 31 Jan 2024 - Lesson With Kenny Direks
We are going to follow the beautiful Lusitano mare Havana and
her mom Julie Martin as they
work on their beautiful dancing partnership...
Havana was born in 2012
Sire: Larapio Dam: Perola
January 31, 2024
Lesson with
Kenny Dierks
"Working on the Bending Horse"




https://youtu.be/3FI0u7huOfY

01/27/2024

Guess who is coming back to the Super Bowl this year?🐴?🐴?🐴

Anheuser-Busch said the iconic horses will lead the charge during the ad airing on Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024.

01/25/2024

🥶Brrrrrrr! Stay warm and safe today, Watch out for the Fog!🥶
SPRING 2024 Countdown!
Finally above Zero this week a whole 35'!!!!!
Only 55 days until the 1st Day of Spring 2024!
Ursa the wonderful Lusitano School Master at McCrar Farm Classical Dressage in Grayslake, IL!

01/17/2024

🥶Brrrrrrr! Stay warm and safe today🥶
SPRING 2024 Countdown! It's STILL below ZERO here!!!!!
Only 62 days until the 1st Day of Spring 2024!

09/16/2023

About nosebands and cavessons…

Pamela has decided that it’s time to turn her life around. We’ve been quietly applauding her efforts because, well, it’s never too late for any of us, right? It's easy to head ourselves down the wrong path.

A lot of what’s been helping our teenaged race horse has been in the way of encouraging the mare to shed stress. Rather than winding herself up tighter and tighter, she is allowed to stop and drop her manure, to stop and rub her nose on her knee, anything rather than press on. She is learning that she is not always ‘ten minutes late’ and that it’s okay to stop, take a big sigh and think about life.

Some of us would do well to join her but that’s a whole other story.

This ‘allowing’ and encouraging the mare to release and self-sooth is really showing up while in the bridle, too. During her last ride, Pamela often had her tongue hanging eight inches or so from her mouth. She’s slurp up her tongue and then yawn and yawn and yawn, before dropping her tongue out, again. All throughout, she was trotting along and guiding nicely.

I know for a fact that there are people who would have put a cavesson on her, ‘before that tongue got to be a problem’.

Here’s the thing. Man or beast, if we can’t sigh, yawn, or breathe deeply, we are going to panic. Too many of us are riding horses who cannot—who are literally not allowed to—due to the snugness of their nosebands on their bridles. If my horse cannot keep his mouth closed while working, I want to know this! I need to know this, so that I can figure out why.

While cavessons are a safety issue on such things as driving bridles—they keep the cheekpieces and blinkers close to the horse’s head—they are not necessary for most of recreational riding or horse sport. Yet, a look in most any tack shop will show that the standard English headstall now comes with a crank noseband. If I show my horses in a flat, ordinary, old-fashioned cavesson with the standard two-finger adjustment for looseness, there will always be many comments on how unusual this is, any more!

“Old school!” they wink and comment, as though I’m hopelessly out to lunch and too cheap to get on trend.

Before anyone tells me to chuck the bit entirely, we need to know that bitless bridles can do much the same thing, due to the pressure points they put upon the horse’s head. Best thing to do is take a good look, either through a trusted set of eyes from the ground or with pictures and videos, really concentrating on how the horse is holding his or her lips while at work. Is the mouth relaxed into a soft half-smile, or is the horse pursing his mouth with the top lip prominent? Are the eyes and ears showing soft relaxation?

So, our horses’ tension and ability to release can be hindered, no matter the headgear with which we choose to ride.

The bit shown here has been an experiment for me, one I saw online and decided to try with my green horses who show obvious discomfort in jointed (even French link) snaffles. There are more horses who feel this way, than many of us would care to admit.

Dubbed ‘the missing link snaffle’, this brainchild of western horseman Pat Puckett features a hand-forged snaffle with a copper cricket in the mouthpiece, right where the joint(s) would be. So far, I’m impressed. My c**ts and those older ones having ‘restarts’ are really using the roller to release tension and find calm comfort, instead. If you’re interested, the bit is available online at www.thedisciplinedride.com.

In the bottom picture (and you might have to tap on the photo to see the entire image), Pamela’s ‘coin purse’ lower lip and soft eye are telling us that she is starting to figure this new lifestyle out, a little bit. Yes, I want soft acceptance and quiet mouths in my horses as they carry their bridles and go to work for me… but I don’t want to muzzle their emotions, or mask their ability to tell me their truth. No. Never that.

Most days, I say no to the noseband.

***

There are some pictures of how Pamela is working, in the comments. Cheers, Lee.

07/28/2023

Hoof care education!

03/04/2023

Welcome Julie!
For tickets: https://equinepromotions.net/northwest-horse-fair/event-details/tickets/
For full schedule: https://equinepromotions.net/northwest-horse-fair/attend/schedule/

08/27/2021

Oh how my gosh! How stunning “Li’l Herc” has become💜🦄💜 proud momma Suzanne Kopp-Moskow has loved him since they first met and he became hers at 6 months old! Bruno Gonzalez Horsemanship your careful training and patience has paid off, Hercules truly fits his name now🥰 Wonderful job, can’t wait to see more. Love following “Li’l Herc’s” journey.

08/09/2021

07/10/2021

Lusitanos ROCK 💜🦄💜

🥇⭐️𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐋𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐎𝐥𝐲𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐜 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐓𝐨𝐤𝐲𝐨 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟎!⭐️🥇

📣More wonderful news for the Lusitano! Fourteen Lusitano horses, part of the teams from Portugal, Brazil, Spain, Australia and Mexico are on the road to Tokyo. Which includes two Para Dressage riders!

In a statement from the Associação Portuguesa de Criadores do Cavalo Puro Sangue Lusitano (APSL Cavalo Lusitano), "It is a great victory to be able to participate in this event where, to get here, the combinations had to participate in several top-level competitions obtaining averages that allowed this qualification. It is, therefore, a victory taking into account the great supremacy, especially of the Nordic European countries that have a vast, history of experience and results.

Obviously, we have great expectations for now taking into account the great value that all the combinations have, but we believe that it is in the medium term that we can, with everyone, consolidate this great achievement of the Lusitano in the high international equestrian competition.

It is through the assiduous presence in Championships and competitions of this magnitude that we can consolidate the image of our Lusitanos and also the national equitation, proving the functionality and capability of our horse.

All this is only possible with each one of us, together, recognizing that the work developed by each one counts for the whole."

USLA wishes the teams all the best! Go Lusitano!

𝗧𝗘𝗔𝗠𝗦
🇵🇹𝗣𝗢𝗥𝗧𝗨𝗚𝗔𝗟:
João Torrão & EQUADOR MVL (Breeder: Coudelaria do Monte Velho)
Maria Caetano & FENIX DE TINEO (Breeder: Juan Manuel Cordeiro)
Rodrigo Torres & FOGOSO (Breeder: Coudelaria Torres Vaz Freire)
Carlos Pinto & SULTÃO DE MENEZES (Breeder: Dannielle Lahaye)
Vasco Mira Godinho & GARRET (Breeder: Sociedade Agricola da Foz do Alviela, SA)
(Para Dressage) - Ana Isabel Mota Veiga & CONVICTO LV (Breeder: Coudelaria Lobo de Vasconcellos)

🇦🇺𝗔𝗨𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗔:
(Para Dressage) Victoria Davies & CELERE (Breeder: Coudelaria Fragoso da Cunha)

🇪🇸𝗦𝗣𝗔𝗜𝗡:
Claudio Castilla Ruiz & ALCAIDE (Breeder: Sociedade Agricola Oliveira Martins)
Claudio Castilla Ruiz & FOGO DE LYW (Breeder: Coudelaria La Lyra e la W SL)
Juan António Jimenez Cobo & EUCLIDES (Breeder: Sociedade das Silveiras)

🇧🇷𝗕𝗥𝗔𝗭𝗜𝗟:
João Victor Oliva & ESCORIAL (Breeder: Coudelaria Santa Barbara)
Pedro Tavares de Almeida & FAMOUS DO VOUGA (Breeder: Manuel Tavares de Almeida Filho)
João Victor Oliva & XAPARRO DO VOUGA (Breeder: Manuel Tavares de Almeida Filho)

🇲🇽𝗠𝗘𝗫𝗜𝗖𝗢:
Martha Del Valle Quirarte & BEDUINO-LAM (Breeder: Juan Jose del Valle Alvarado)

Pictured: Maria Caetano & FENIX DE TINEO
📸 Credit: Rui Pedro Godinho

07/02/2021