It is impossible to waste an hour of life if you are on top of the saddle
Winston Churchill
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To get to this magical place, the Yeguada Senillosa, you have to use your GPS.
The car immerses itself in the paths of the Aiguamolls de l'Empordà, and here there is no paper map that is worth it. There are crossroads, not a soul in sight, not a soul to ask for the destination, flat and elongated roads that meander between rice fields, willows, sunflowers and lagoons.
In the neighboring towns, the neighbors neither know nor intuit.
They are unaware that right there, deep in the wetlands, stands the Yeguada Senillosa.
(...)
“It took me a year to find this farm myself,” Arcadio de Senillosa (71) tells me.
We have sat down to talk on the balcony of the Casa-Lago. More than a balcony, it is a grassy esplanade overlooking the jetty of the lake.
“Elsa Pataky was there a few weeks ago where you are sitting,” Arcadio de Senillosa tells me. She had come to l'Empordà to film an advertisement and stayed in this very house, Casa-Lago...
(On the 50-hectare farm, like 50 soccer fields, there are six other houses and also the mother house, that of the host).
–It took me a year to find this farm because then there was no GPS. A lot of time has passed! – She repeats.
And dive into its history.
Arcadio de Senillosa was 17 years old and had a campsite, Camping Almata, a nautical campsite that began in the Empordà wetlands and stretched out towards the beach.
–We thought about organizing active holidays: we rode bicycle, running or swimming tours, and I liked horses and then I also decided to bring a few to the campsite.
He remembers his uncle telling him:
–They sell a farm in the wetlands.
And he remembers himself leaving in the carriage, four horses harnessed to the cart, touring the wetlands in search of that ghostly farm, for he went on and on and the months went by and he couldn't find the place.
–And that the campsite is two kilometers from here! -She says.
–And how did you finally find the farm?
-One day I went on a wild path, full of sunflowers, and appeared in this place, the bottom of the lake, the Estanys dels Capons Reals.
And he bought the farm, then 25 hectares that became 250 when the Marqués de la Torre ordered the area to be drained and an extension of land emerged that had no owner and no one cultivated because those lands are uncultivable, and today mares graze and the colts that Sofía, a stable girl, takes out at dawn and picks up at sunset, roaring behind them at the wheel of her quad.
(Only Paula Fernández takes the stallions out; she teaches them dressage, rides them; the rest of the time, the stallions remain in the stables, their value is incalculable).
–And then I founded the hatchery! -She says.
(And he tells me that a hundred horses sleep in the stud farm).
–And how did you do it?
–In the campsite, I had six mares. I brought them to the farm. And in a Spanish Championship I bought the best horse. And I thought: 'apart from being pretty, it will be useful for something, right?'. So I mixed it with the mares: I started looking for a breed from l'Empordà, one that could go to the Games and compete in dressage.
–¿La doma clasica?
–It is the one that best combines with the horse of our country. Think of Felipe II.
–¿...?
“The king was fat, stocky, and short, and he needed an imposing horse. And his mount was, it was imposing, but it was not competitive: the Spanish breed is not. So I thought of creating a superselection: I decided to fix the DNA through the mixtures.
-And what are you looking for?
–A horse as docile as it is enormous. Like Seni-Riojano (points to a majestic 1.70m tall specimen that eats oats and thinks in the stable). A different horse. I don't need him to run, English already does that. Not even resistant. That's what the Arab is for, who grew up in the desert.
And have you found it?
"What!"
And now he shows me Seni-Platero IV.
It is perfect.
His father was a world champion.
–And what distinguishes a champion?
-Head. The angles. The muscles. The presence...
Last year, Arcadio de Senillosa was named the best breeder on the planet.
As we chat, a foal is born.
