by Mario Gomez Caballero

The horses that formed the foundation of the Paso Fino breed began to arrive to the new world in Colon’s second voyage in 1493 to the La Espanola Island known today as the Dominican Republic.

There they found a habitat more adequate than even in Spain. This is where the first breeding program of horses began in America. From La Espanola, the horses were distributed to Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia and Peru.

The horses brought from Spain had a smooth movement, but you could not call it Paso Fino yet. Among those Spanish horses, there was a small horse very similar to ours, with an alive, smooth movement, that they called the "Spanish Jennet". The Spanish Farms were no longer breeding these horses, since they wanted horses to pull carriages, so they bred them to bigger horses of Frizona Blood (pure blood).

The conditions of the new habitat, the high selection and pre-potency of the lines, produced a horse of better quality. This occurred not only because of the awesome habitats found in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Colombia and Peru, but also our ancestors began to really take care and nurture these horses that they used to travel great distances. They needed a horse that they could feel and have under saddle that was smooth and comfortable for the long journeys. During that time, they had to travel from Santa Marta through Bogota, Los Llanos Orientales, Popayan, and Ecuador, finishing in Peru. The breeding programs became very selective to produce horses that could endure this kind of work. They kept breeding for a very smooth horse and selecting from within the same, throughout the years.

Even though the horses first arrived in La Espanola, and spread as far as Peru, it was in Colombia where they were developed the most. In Colombia, two breeding centers were created: the first one in La Sabana de Bogota, with its valleys of Sogamoso, Ubate and Chiquinquira. The terrain was very swampy and spread out. The second area was very different. It started in Uraba and gave origin to the horse in the southwest of Antioquia (Medellin), an area that is very rough and mountainous.

Characteristics of the Horses from the Plains of Cundinamarca-Boyaca

These horses developed in very flat plains. They were born in the swamps and have a typical style of front leg action called "Pinceleo", what the Peruvians call "Termino".

The horse that was bred in these swamps is very different from the one called the "Pistoneo" (Piston like Movement-up and down), because to move in this fashion it would have been very difficult to get around out of the swamps. Instead, the movement of the "Pincel de Manos" (hand brush) allowed the horses to "unglue" themselves easily from the swampy terrain. In order to survive in this terrain, they had wide hooves and executed the "termino" so that they could be more effective in the water and swamps.

Characteristics of the Horse from Southwest Antiquia

These horses developed in the mountains, where one found a lot of mud and trails that were deep ditches as they formed the Trochas (Brush Paths).

A typical horse had smooth movements, of the Pistoneo style. Looking at the front of the horse, you could observe that the front legs and the hind legs were like pistons. This characteristic was developed so that when they fell in the ditches they could balance and continue their path. The horse that remains with this style of piston-like movement, with the great elasticity and power and can be seen in the Paso Fino, in the Trocha Castellana and in the Pure Colombian Trocha gaits.

In the 1930’s, Sr. Heliodoro Londono Jaramillo and his brothers moved to Bogota from La Ceja Antioquia. When they arrived, they met Manuel Vicente Umana, owner of La Hacienda "La Chucua" in Soacha. There they had some mares that they call "Chulas" When Heliodoro saw the mares, he bred them to the stallions he had brought: El Mico and El Antioqueno. This cross of those black mares from La Chucua, who resembled what we today know as the Peruvian horse, produced mares that had termino, movement in the front like a brush and dragging with the hind legs, but extremely smooth and with great temperament and brio. It was after this breeding with the stallions El Mico and El Antioqueno that they produced magnificent animals, where the strand of the Chucuanos was born with the "Paso Castellano".

Everyone began to admire and ride those horses. Everyone that had horses in Antioquia, Valle, Quindio, Caldas, Risaralda, Cauca (Popayan) and basically anywhere where horses were a passion, began to breed their horses to these new, magnificent animals. Everyone wanted to own one horse of that cross because they loved the horses smoothness, willingness and its ability to sustain a lot of travel. This caused a breed to emerge with a lot of brio: very docile to handle, but it moved out dynamically as it traveled. Many important breeders came to buy mares and stallions from the Londono brothers at Hacienda La Chucua in Soacha.

The horse Delirio left from there to Pacora (Caldas) and from the following year forward, all of the pedigrees go back to Chucuano mares and the generic name of "Chucuano" was embraced.

Other Chucuano horses were taken to La Hacienda El Trejo in Valle del Cauca and they began to breed them. Once again, they found swampy terrain and many elongated plains, where our horses from the plains Cundiboyacense could handle themselves with ease, more so than the horse with the Pistoneo movement. This happened around 1940. They got their first crop and went back to La Chucua. The two horses from the southwest, El Mico and El Antioqueno, began to be bred to their daughters. Since our grandfathers were very zealous in breeding fathers and daughters, they had to sell these stallions. El Mico went to Popayan. The Professor Valencia, father of the ex-president Valencia, took El Mico to his farm.

During that time, Popayan was one of the most important cities in Colombia, more so than Cali and others. The pride and goals in the past were to be able to have the best quality and quantity, but most important, to have the horses bred at your own farm.

The country was filled with horses of Chucuano origin, and after the 1950’s when someone wanted to give prestige to a horse, it was a son or daughter of a Chucuano horse. That denomination became as generic as the name Resorte we know today.

From the mix of horses in the plains of Cudinamaraca/Boyaca, and other areas began to fill up with these horses: Velez, Antioquia, the Santanderes, and even parts of Venezuela.

In the Sabana, another horse of grandiose fame appeared, owned by the Riascos brothers in Sogamoso as La Hacienda El Salitre. The horse was Marino (1920-1943), who was bought by Sr. Jose Jaramillo Vallejo and taken to his Hacienda El Arco in Quindio. He was a horse with stripes in his legs, big buckskin, black mane and tail, who produced very well with the mares from that region. Marino lived around 20 years and left behind extraordinary horses in Quindo, Risaralda, the old Caldas, and the north of El Valle.

Competitions between the "Calentanos" and the "Sabaneros" began with the horses from warm terrains and the horses from the swampy plains. Around 1940, in Bogota, an important breeding stallion, Cometa, came to compete at the 53rd Racetrack. Cometa came in third, beating a local horse named Delfin.

At that time, the breeding stallions were bought by the government through the Dept. of Agriculture for their own programs and lend them to the average fans to breed them to their mares. The Minister of Agriculture of Anitoquia, Dr. Ospina Perez, wanted to buy an important horse for La Sabana and Sr. Fidel Ochoa offered him Cometa for 1,000 pesos. The government said that the "Antioquenos" were crazy to think that a stallion is worth that much money, so the horse stayed and the others continued with their "Paso Castellano".

Around that time (1950), the horse dealers in Antioquia started to go to the shows in Girardot and Bogota, and they began to cross all the horses heavily. The Antioqueno horse dominated, since they had pistonero movement, and more presence. The owners from Antioquia cared better for their horses, provided better training, dedicated more time and money, and were better exhibitors than those from the cold plains. The Antioquenos were happy people and so were their horses.

The Ochoas started to appear: Don Fabio Ochoa, Don Fidel, his father Don Aberaldo, Don Carlos and Don Tulio Ochoa, who left for Popayan where he took the horse Gaucho. The family of the Resortes started to stand out over the horses form the plains of Cundinamarca/Boyaca, with their style of pistioneo movements, more trocha in their gait, more presence, and more athletic qualities than the horses from La Sabana. The Ochoas bred their horses in the southwest of Antioquia, a typical solid-color horse. In La Sabana, a horse of "Volateria" (winging), as they called it, offered more exaggerated, better forward movement, and they liked it more.

In the 1950’s the horse evolved from a working horse more to a show horse. Before this, the shows only took place every four years. After that, shows took place all year long. It became a horse of luxury, show an exhibition.

Towards 1960, the lineage of Resorte began to bloom. Don Fabio Ochoa came out with his horse Resorte III, a horse with a beautiful conformation. The Sabaneros, who knew horses, were afraid to breed their mares, so Don Fabio went back to Antioquia, but some Resorte horses stayed in the Plains.

This was the era of Don Felix Eduardo Salazar in Ubate, one of the most important breeders of this Century. Sr. Eduardo Guarnizo Salas dedicated himself to breed gray horses at his Hacienda El Tigre in La Mesa (Cundinamarca), and for 50 years he bred criollo horses of Paso Castellano: big finos and gray. This breeding farm eventually died and Sr. Jaime Mejia kept the last important horse from this farm called Dije, and Mendieta took the horse Talisman, who was a son of Antilope and the mare Brisa. The remaining horses were bought by Sr. Martin Varga Cualla. A great quantity of mares from El Tigre went to Antioquia because the market was better there. Those mares had bad temperaments, but would never quit on long journeys. They were wonderful large mares, white in color, with the dispositions of tigers.

Towards the mid 1950’s some very important horses came out of Antioquia: descendants of Cometa, Chaquiro Veijo, Rusito, Resorte I, and in Chiquinquira, the horse Mahoma, who had been born in 1905 at La Hacienda Quebraditas of the family Bermudez. Mahoma is a son of Emir (chucuano) and the mare Africana (Canouara: from Canoas in Sochoa), a very important prototype mare.

The Resortes bean to be born, but the horse still setting the standard was Cometa, a son of Resorte Viejo, Resorte I, and the mare Venus (Palomino). Cometa would become the most important breeding stallion of Antioquia. From there, the call began for Resorte II, (who actually was called Kerensky (chestnut)), Resorte III and Resorte IV. The important horses of Anitoquia became the "Resortes", who like the Chucuanos, became a generic name.

In 1955, the two most important breeders of the first half of the Century vanished: the breeding farm of El Tigre, owned by the Guarnizos, and the famous group of mares from the Londono brothers, were moved from Soacha to Pacho to La Hacienda La Ramada. Jeeps and motorcycles substituted the horses as a mode of transportation. Around that time, Sr. Heliodoro Londono brought to the show the last chucuano: Carey, a spectacular horse, 100% Chucuano. Carey was sold to a new owner in Venezuela.

Sr. Martin Vargas appeared in the horse world as a great horses buyer and began to buy all of the breeding farms. They say that when he died, he had more that 5,000 horses throughout all of his farms. He bought the horse Principe from the Ballesteros, who came from Mahoma, and bought everything that came from the mares of the Guarnizos,

Many thanks to my friend Eduardo Tobon for sharing this article!

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