Castellare di Tonda : Horses

I like big butts and I can not lie!  Lovely Banderas the Criollo - my first horse.

Castellare is a western riding ranch, the main focus is breeding and training Quarterhorses for the sport of reining – and Castellare excels at this!  Their horses are all top quality, well trained and healthy.  They also have horses for every ability, so you can go there to learn to ride, or, if you’re like me, you can go and ride out every day with a guide.

My only real requests regarding the horses were that any horse I was given had to be between 14-15hh and have good brakes - a bonus was if they had a big butt!  I know, “big butt” is an odd request, but I like solid horses rather than finer boned ones.  Castellare didn’t disappoint.  My first horse was Banderas, a gorgeous imported Argentinian Criollo with great brakes and a significantly large butt – yippee!

As I’m used to riding English style, it took a few rounds of the arena and then a few hours on the trail with Banderas, to get used to the big comfy Western saddles, and that you don’t keep a contact on your horses mouth.

The Castellare horses are all trained to neck rein, and they do it well.  It was also my first time riding with a shanked Western bit, and I was anxious that I wasn’t putting too much pressure on the horses mouths – it took me a little while to get used to.

The lovely Jess & Mario (and their dogs, Jack & Arn) were our guides for the week and they really looked after us - you couldn't ask for better.

Out on Banderas in the gorgeous countryside.  He took good care of me.
That's Diego standing behind us, his head obviously dropped off for this photo - giggle.