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Importing from Spain

Can any of you recommend any good agents/contacts in Spain?

I used Sofie from Andalusitano.

She was fantastic! Picked me up at the train station in Malaga and drove me around looking at lots of horses. When I chose my mare, all I had to do was give the transport company her number and she did the rest.

She doesn’t openly advertise horses much anymore, so best to send her a message on Facebook or her WhatsApp.

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Meredith Crawford has brought over some nice horses from Spain recently. She is an FEI rider and judge who is based in the San Fransisco area. If I wanted a horse from Spain she is who I would contact.

I believe multiple horses in Tucson came through her. Everyone has raved that I have seen, and they’re lovely horses.

We regularly import from Spain and have some horses of our own over there. Feel free to message me. At the very least, I can tell you who to avoid and talk about the common pitfalls.

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I imported a horse about 18 months ago from Spain, and it turned into a nightmare. Person I worked with was known to a number of people in my area and and seemed to have a good reputation. In the end something went wrong around the time the horse was gelded and not long after his arrival in US he had to be put down. The seller lied to me about a number of things along the way, and I believe said person knew there was a potential issue but did not tell me. The promises of “wanting me to be happy”, “will help with the costs”, various contractual commitments all went out the window. From a legal perspective it is extremely difficult to fight a battle with someone in a foreign country. I did have an attorney and a pretty good case for breach of contract had this occurred in the US. So just go in with eyes wide open - mostly things should go well, but there are no guarantees…

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My friend and I just came back from horse shopping in Spain last week. We worked with 3 different people in Spain who we directly contacted before the trip - 2 agents and 1 direct seller (that runs Epona, which is a super place for a dressage-focused holiday) who also assists with sourcing other horses for sale in the area too. All 3 provided horses that truly met the criteria we gave them. We ended up buying from the direct seller and everything has gone very smoothly so far. The horse will arrive in the US in a couple of weeks, so I can’t report on how that part has gone yet! If you are shopping in the south of Spain, feel free to message me.

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This is so sad. I’m very sorry for your having had to go through it.

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Funny story…

Spain has more unfinished houses than any country in the world. There are vast, half-built neighborhoods that were abandoned after the market crashed in 2008.

Years ago a friend went to look at horses in Spain and arrived at the “barn” which was actually a giganatic suburban home in one of those abandoned neighborhood. The man was keeping his horses inside the house, with a horse or two in each bedroom. Needless to say, she did not buy a horse from him.

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I have brought over a few horses from Spain and have spent a number of weeks travelling around looking at horses. I will say the training and horsemanship in the vast majority of barns/breeders is really poor and if you buy something over the age of 3 it most likely will be ruined. I really could only recommend one place in Barcelona that is absolutely fantastic, though there may be more. Have had contact with most of the “brokers” and most of them have no clue what they are looking at or representing. I would be very careful.

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Yikes - sorry to read that! We were in the south of Spain and this was definitely not our experience. We were looking at horses in the 6-10 yo range and none were what I would call “ruined” and the 2 brokers we worked with were very knowledgeable about the horses they were representing and were very helpful in presenting the “pros and cons” on the various horses and refining which horses they recommended we try based on our feedback from the first few.

Can I ask more about your experience with Epona? I am going in a month for riding and am interested in looking at horses while there. Any insight would be much appreciated!

Epona is amazing. I went Oct 2022, not to buy but for a horse vacation. Fantastic coaching, great hotel, lovely horses,

Absolutely! The entire import process went very smoothly and the horse is exactly what we were looking for and has continued to be everything we had hoped for. Vivi is really great to work with and she puts lovely training on any horses she is selling. I’ve taken a vacation there many years ago and took lessons while I was there on the shopping trip and she’s is a great teacher with nice school horses. When horse shopping, she is very precise and literal. If you say you want something from 15.2-16.0hh, she won’t even mention something that is 16.1hh, so make sure you are clear about which of your criteria are flexible vs non-flexible. The vet we used for the PPE was also excellent - very thorough, reasonably priced, and excellent communication. Epona usually has a small number of horses available from her directly at any time, but also can source something or show you others available locally if you tell her ahead of time. Note that if your Spanish isn’t good, it is very important to have someone local assist you as many sellers spoke little to no English!

One other benefit is that Vivi is a fairly slight female rider, so can give helpful feedback regarding the rideability of a horse. Most of the horses we saw through the other brokers (who were great, just didn’t have quite what we were looking for) were ridden by tall, strong men, who could make them look much easier to ride than they were for my coach (older, smaller lady).

Feel free to message me if you have any questions!

Fabulous - thanks for the detailed response! This is very helpful.

I second everything good about Vivi and Epona. Love her.

Girl at my barn Imported from Spain, same thing, gelded before he left, sewed him up instead of letting him naturally drain so they could get him on the plane faster. (rushed by vets in Spain). Ended up having massive surgery here because he was all infected and had to spend weeks at an aftercare. So much money spent.

That’s horrible, but it’s not always the norm here to leave them open either. My vet surgically closes anything gelded after age 4.

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My import vetted fine, went to be gelded and best guess is the stress or anesthesia or something triggered his auto immune system. He was very slow to heal. When he arrived in Amsterdam his one eye was sunken inward and and rotated down, no menace reflex. Vet there said it looked to be older injury - she estimated 6 weeks, which interestingly coincided with gelding date. Turned out to be a disease that impacted cranial and other nerves, he was also neurologic in hind limbs. The horse was NOT returned to the place he was supposed to be (his trainer’s stable) for healing but to some local farm. Though the seller claimed he was fine when he left Spain, some local vet actually took pictures of the eye which owner later sent me still swearing he was fine, though the damage was visible. He was shipped directly to Univ of Fl upon arrival and over the course of 5 weeks, many tests, his condition declined. He lost feeling in his neck on one side and couldn’t chew properly. Hind neuro symptoms got worse. It was horrible. Seller was horrible. Sorry, I still get very angry about this even though its been several years.
So WHY did local vet take this picture if everything was “fine”??

I remember you posting about this before. I feel so sad about what happened. For both you and the horse.

I was quite nervous importing my yearling. So much can go wrong and I didn’t know where he was half of the time (thanks for the lack of communication Dutta Corp). An acquaintance imported at the same time with a different company and had a far better and more informed experience.

My yearling was fine and he was gelded before I imported him. I trusted his breeder though, and had met her and the horse in person, plus I know someone with 2 horses from her. She’s excellent. I was so thankful that he arrived healthy. He was gelded at a clinic, then went home to the breeder, and she sent me frequent updates. He healed perfectly.

I don’t know if I’d import another one, I might’ve used up all of my good luck!

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