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By Galen C. McBride
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
Last Saturday, 45 members of the Smithsonian Associates horse tour, organized by Carrie Blair of Marshall, enjoyed a special dressage exhibition by several accomplished local riders and their Andalusian horses at Bleu Rock Inn between Washington and Sperryville.
Four students from the Avilion School of Classical Dressage, Catlett, performed traditional schooling maneuvers in a quadrille formation in time to stirring Spanish music. Two others, Maya Snidecky on the Andalusian Encantador, and Holly Kilburn riding Maraja, a Portuguese Lusitano, demonstrated the ballet-like “pas de deux,” with both horses simultaneously executing mirror images of the same steps, either close together, or separately on opposite sides of the dressage ring. The grand finale, also ridden by Kilburn on the spectacular white stallion Domino, held the crowd spellbound.
According to William R. Killingsworth, president of the International Andalusian and Lusitano Horse Association, the Andalusian horse “is one of the most ancient of horse breeds.” Andalusians, or “pure Spanish horses,” and Lusitanos, as they are known in Portugal, have lived on the Iberian Peninsula since prehistory and are depicted in cave paintings there dating back more than 25,000 years.
The horses excel in dressage, saddle seat, driving, eventing, jumping, and are even popular cutting horses, especially when crossed with quarter horses. There are fewer than 4,000 purebred Andalusians in the entire country, with most living in
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