It was Pliny who said that the horse is one of man’s most faithful servants and that it exceedingly loves his rider; we are bewitched by horse riding when we are children; we find it exciting in our youth and it becomes our solace and consolation during the final years of our lives.

THE ANDALUSIAN STOCK

It is a family belonging to the P.S.B. whose origin is to be found in the charterhouse of Jerez de la Frontera, in 1484, when the monks decided to breed livestock from the “area’s mares of pure Andalusian breed”; in other words, speaking in chronological terms, the “Charterhouse Stock” is the continuation of the “Andalusian breed horse,” about 9000 years old, a descendant of the Northwest horses, or Mongolian wild horses, ancestors of the Przewalski horse (equus ferus pallas), given that name by Jacob, in 1981, to honour the Russian explorer Nikolai Michailowistch Przewalski (1839-1888). But the Andalusian stock has, besides, the quality of being the sole stud farm to have remained in the same hands (since 1484 until 1810, three and a half centuries), those of the Carthusian monks, for 326 uninterrupted years of selection and improvement, making it known and famous throughout the world, and with the added value of having found since 1810 up to the present day a series of intelligent people who love horses and are familiar with them, who have known how to value them and have succeeded in keeping them free from foreign influence.

Out of the main reasons which led the Carthusian monks to establish the stud farm, we wish to highlight two:

1. Their stockbreeding tradition, proven for 84 years in Seville (Seville Charterhouse, 16-1-1400)
2. The alarming reduction in the numbers of mares in Andalusia, mainly due to the breeding of mules and to the sale of Andalusian mares to other regions and countries; which led the Jerez city council on 5-15-1460 (24 years before the establishment of the stud farm) to issue and order prohibiting the sale of mares or horses outside the area without a permit from the Corregidor, and, later on, another order forbidding that mares be covered by donkeys without the favourable report by a commission appointed to that end.

Fortunately, Señor Pedro José Zapata Caro, a friend of the Charterhouse prior’s, who was a presbyter and a prestigious farmer and stockbreeder in the area, did purchase a herd of mares and stallions, at the monks’ suggestion, a few days ahead of the arrival of the French army on January 30th; which fact prevented the disappearance of the Charterhouse’s stud farm.
From that historic year of 1810 onwards, the “Bell Brand” was replaced by the “Bit Brand,” known up to the present day as the “Zapata Brand,” which identifies the brood originating from the “Charterhouse Stud Farm.” In 1854 Señor Juan José Zapata Bueno, son of Señor José Zapata Caro and nephew of the presbyter Señor Pedro José Zapata Caro, died and his widow, Señora María Romero de Aragón, took charge of the livestock, which amounted to 220 heads. In 1856 she gave her daughter Enriqueta, married to Señor Felipe Salas Vázquez (Seville), a drove of mares, a horse and the “Bit Brand,” which 63 years later (1919) Señora Enriqueta, already a widow, sold to Señor Ramón Gallardo, from Los Barrios, together with the herd of horses and fighting bulls which had grazed in Jerez de la Frontera, in the property known as “El Juncoso,” for two years (until 1921), when they moved to “Las Albutreras,” within the municipal area of Los Barrios. The Gallardo family has kept this brand until 2002, when Señor Juan Gallardo Blanco, Señor Ramón’s grandson, did sell it to the PRE EC Stockbreeders Association, its current owner.
In 1857, Señora María Romero de Aragón, did sell another drove of mares a