It was the trip that almost didn’t happen. The Dallas/Fort Worth airport had
apparently become our nemesis with ice storms making for delayed and cancelled
flights. We arrived at SFO on
Saturday, with a late morning flight booked to Dallas and then an evening
connecting flight to Queretaro.
Upon arrival (after a police escort to our parking spot… no joke!), we
found out our flight to Dallas was delayed by 3 hours and our flight to
Queretaro cancelled. Well
shoot. It was either fly to Dallas
and wait or stay in SF and wait, bottom line: no horse show on Sunday for
us. Ok, lets stay here and try
again tomorrow.
Told you we had a police escort!
And try we did, arriving at the SFO airport at 5:30 am
hoping for good news. We were
quickly disappointed. No go
through Dallas. We were thankfully
re-routed through Houston, although our flight didn’t leave til 10:30 am, it
was now only 6:15 am. Ugh. After a
lovely meander through the airport and a lengthy breakfast, we were finally on
our way, a day late.
When we finally arrived at our final destination of
Queretaro, we were met with a little bit of good news: The horse show had been rained out on
the weekend so they were holding the Grand Prix and the Open Classic on Monday,
which was now tomorrow.
Perfect! We would now get
to watch several horses we were interested in. After a night of rest, we were up early, ready to get a few
trials in before the Grand Prix started at 9. Our business partner in this sales venture, Antonio Maurer,
had several quality horses lined up and waiting when we walked into the warm up
arena. After a bit of riding and
videoing, we enjoyed breakfast while watching an incredible Grand Prix at a
beautiful venue. Balvanera has an
enormous grass field, beautiful jumps and a great atmosphere. So fun! After that, it was time for more riding and videoing, then
time for the Classic. Much to
everyone’s delight, Antonio brought home the blue ribbon on a horse we intend
to bring up. Yay! Check his round out:
We enjoyed a quick dinner, then hopped in the car for the 2
hour trip to Leon, where Antonio’s new facility is located. We’d never been here before so it was
exciting to check out the new digs.
Boy they didn’t disappoint either!
After a night of rest in preparation for an extremely busy day, we were
at the stables by 6 am. While
waiting for the sun to rise enough for us to ride, we checked things out. A
beautiful 40 stall barn with many organized tack rooms sits behind 2 massive
outdoor arenas, a huge clubhouse and an indoor ring, used mainly to keep out of
the hot sun. With plans to expand
and create a Grass Jumping field, the place is pretty close to perfection. 6:30 am rolled around, and it was light
enough for us to ride, and ride we did!
With time on the mind (we had to be at the airport in Guadalajara at
2:30 pm) we quickly went through our list, trying beautiful horse after
beautiful horse. Here are a couple
of our favorites:
-Precioso: Precioso Jumping
-Taxco de la Nutria: Taxco Jumping
The handsome Precioso
Outside Antonio's barn
Looking down the barn aisle, hi horsies!
Talia, the adorable dog we want!
Upon completion of our list of available horses at this
facility, we jumped into the car and took of on another 2 hour journey to
Guadalajara with 15 more horses waiting to be tried. Yikes! We arrived in good time and got to
work, quickly trying and videoing more gorgeous horses. Here are another couple of our faves
from Guadalajara:
-Corita: Corita Jumping
-Rio Negro: Rio Negro Jumping
-Quidance: Quidance Jumping
One of the pretty rings in Guadalajara
The barn
Another ring
A quick change and wash and off again, this time to the
airport, which we arrived at right on time! Success! We always have such an incredible time on our shopping
trips, and encourage anyone interested to join us on our next adventures! See anything you like on the
videos? Email us and we can give
you all the info you might need J We’re very excited to hopefully bring a
few of these talented, wonderful horses home to CA!
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