PIYAYO: The Beginning
Piyayo was originally been bred and trained in Spain for
bullfighting and then purchased by a Finn who lived in Spain, who
trained him in Spanish High School dressage and our more
conventional English style of dressage.
The former school concentrates on the very highly collected, high
stepping movements while the latter works towards greater extension.
Despite Piyayo’s predominance of Spanish blood he could produce
fantastic extension albeit elevated above ground like a hovercraft!
After some time, Piyayo’s Finnish owner had to return to his
homeland and the stallion was sold to a large prestigious riding
establishment in Marbella. Apart from being used as one of the elite
riding horses for the best clients, the proprietor realised that Piyayo
had phenomenal potential as a show jumper and under her tutelage Piyayo
excelled as a top puissance horse.
Unfortunately for Piyayo his star status and charisma brought him to
the attention of a British ‘countess to be’ who while not a horse rider
decided that Piyayo was the ‘accessory’ most desirable for obtaining as
a wedding present.
Piyayo arrived in Britain in 1984 to the luxury of a country
estate, and a spiral into abuse. His former owner’s husband had
accompanied him to Britain intending to stay for a year to settle
Piyayo in and help his new owners to ride and look after their wedding
present. Less than six months passed and Piyayo’s Spanish guardian
returned to Spain in disgust at the behaviour of Piyayo’s new owners
(he had tried to persuade them to sell Piyayo back to him in an effort
to ‘save’ his charge).
Piyayo was left to an owner who considered that the way to handle a
stallion was literally to ‘lock them up and not feed them’, added to
this physical abuse was the response paid out to Piyayo for the
incompetence of the guest riders who thought they could teach Piyayo a
lesson or two! The lifeline for Piyayo was his enormous spirit and
gentleness, and the groom and country estate servants who literally
‘sneaked’ food and care to him.
In all this strange change of fortune for a horse that had thus far
been treated so well Piyayo exhibited an amazing sense of humour:
The staff on the estate had on several occasions found the
other horses released to roam lose in the grounds while the stallion
that the groom had turned out in the paddock was locked back in his
stable. Then one day the chauffeur watched from his rooms as Piyayo
unlocked his paddock gate and carefully shut it behind him. Piyayo then
returned to the Victorian stable block and released all the other
residents before locking himself back in his own box! From that day on
an extra lock was put on gates and doors and no more horses were
released.
Less than a year after arriving in Britain, due to the ignorance
and cruelty of his owners Piyayo had falsely been given the reputation
of being unmanageable and savage. The penalty for failing to make his
owners ‘look good’ was an appointment with the slaughterhouse.
By chance I crossed paths with Wendy, Piyayo’s groom; I was not
planning on acquiring a horse at the time. I had spent all my life
working and training horses and had a track record of retraining so
called dangerous animals (most of which were only manifesting problems
caused by owners). I was in the Armed Forces and as a secondary duty I
was Tri-Service Equitation Training Officer, and on that day sourcing
riding facilities for my unit saddle club.
Wendy asked me to at least take a look at Piyayo, he literally had
two weeks before being destroyed and she thought I might be his last
chance. Apparently prior to the death sentence he had been offered for
sale and a few well known horsemen had viewed him but all decided he
was not safe to ride or handle
My first ‘trial’ ride on Piyayo took place that weekend in the paddock
he had proved so expert at escaping from. My family had bred horses for
centuries and my grandfather had said always listen to a new horse and
find out what he has to say rather than just what the people around him
say. So I sat quite on Piyayo and let him show me what he could do, not
exactly a concept I easily relished given that all his past training
was totally alien to the Germanic style of riding I had been trained
in.
At the touch of my leg Piyayo leapt into action and took me through
what I could only describe as a startling whirlwind of spins and leaps
and fast changes of paces as to all intents and purposes we ‘careered’
about the paddock. Wendy told me that this performance with the ‘would
be buyers’ had resulted in the title of him being unstable and unsafe
to ride.
At any time this 16hh powerhouse could have dumped me but he was not
trying to get rid of his rider or harm me. Piyayo was reverting to his
earliest training, I was sitting on top of the pride of Spain; a
bullfighting horse. To this day I do not know the aids or have the
skill to take a horse through the full manoeuvres that the rider and
horse execute in their intricate life and death dance with the black
bulls of Spain. But on that day Piyayo in his great hearted struggle to
tell me in his own way just who he was gave me an exhilarating taste of
another world.
From that day on for me the Tom Jones track ‘A Boy From Nowhere’
has always been Piyayo’s theme. The Spanish boy, whose heart and soul
was for ever searching for his place back in Andalusia where he would
always belong.
After a ride out in the estate grounds which
involved Piyayo trying out dressage routines to manipulate me into
going the route of his choice (often to avoid the cross country jumps
that he associated with abuse), I asked to arrange for another visit to ride him out on the roads.
This request was met with shock as they did not think it would be safe and the only choice of escort ride would have to be a mare! Not really a problem as I pointed out since it was winter and a stallion certainly would not be interested in a mare at that time and given that he had freely been letting the other resident mares out on the estate in the past riding in company would be nothing to him.
The following weekend Wendy and I had an enjoyable winters ride out off Ickworth Estate and onto the busy roads surrounding Bury St Edmunds. Both horses enjoyed the change of scene and were perfectly well behaved. Some years later when my research uncovered more about Piyayo I discovered that our ride on that day was his first experience being out in traffic!
On that day it was arranged that I buy
Piyayo; who was originally bought less than year before from his Spanish owners for £39 thousand, for the price of his slaughter fee.
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