OF THE

SPANISH BARB WAR HORSE

by Susan Paulton

Elegant and proud, courageous, wise and possessed of unequaled balance, agility, and stamina, the hot blooded Spanish War Horse developed over a 7,000 year period in Spain, fixing the genetics and distinct Iberian/Barb breed type of this equine masterpiece. Known in Spain as Barb, Andalusian and Spanish Jennet, this horse was the mount of Spanish nobility, aristocracy, conquerors and bullfighters.

Coming into its refinement and glory after the Middle Ages, this intrepid breed became distributed throughout Europe and America during the 15th - 17th centuries as the horse of conquest. Bred in the New World on the expansive Spanish breeding ranches, this famous Iberian War Horse received greater infusions of African Barb blood after 1620, i.e. the name "Spanish Barb War Horse".

During the development of the Spanish horse in Spain, the exchange of horses between Spain and North Africa was so frequent and complete that the North African Barb and the Spanish War Horse were considered one and the same.

In the United States 300 years of intentional cross breeding the English, French and Dutch breeds, as well as the Arabian with the Spanish War Horse created new "American" breeds, but brought on the demise of the Spanish Horse. These thorough, long term infusions of contaminate blood, along with wholesale slaughter, castration, and no attempt to retain the purebred Spanish horse pushed the breed into extinction, leaving no, or at best, a much diluted Spanish Barb War Horse - one that is unrecognizable as such, at least not the magnificent, regal, hot-blooded Spanish War Horse of the 16th century and its distinctive breed type.

The splendor of the early Spanish Barb War Horse of primarily African Barb extraction, and its singular breed type are all but extinct today in America.

The mere fact that a few tattered remnants even existed at the dawning of the 20th century was a miracle in itself. Since that time these remnants have been, for the most part through lack of knowledge, indiscriminately bred with no particular attention paid to breed out the impurities and breed for the authentic and ancient Spanish Barb breed type.

In 1988 two breeders organized a program, under the name "The Spanish Barb War Horse Historical Re-creation Program". to bring 32 years of breeding results into specific focus. Forty years of intensive and ongoing research directs the selective and scientific breeding of the three primary remnant bloodlines to draw latent Spanish Barb genes into expression. The science of horse breeding, (not a registry) is used to bring the Spanish Barb War Horse back from extinction. The re-creation process is long, arduous and requires the utmost dedication and tenacity to see the project through to completion.

music is an excerpt from Peteneras by Daniel Cox