When Neal and Glenna Mauldin decided to raise Andalusian horses at their little ranch north of Calgary, they had no idea they were going to receive international attention. But here they are.
Their horse Genesis RDL (Gina to her friends) blew its owners away in Ft. Worth, Texas a couple of weeks ago by taking first place in the international dressage competition for Andalusians.
They also won one reserve national championship.
“There are lots of other people to acknowledge - it's a full team effort to take horses on a long distance trip and still take care of all of the animals still at home,” Neal said.
The Competition was the IALHA National Championships. That stands for the International Andalusian and Lusitano Horse Association.
In addition to the two awards mentioned, the Mauldins also garnered six top five finishes.
Neal Mauldin describes their ranch as a small, pretty new foaling operation.
He was impressed with how well their chosen horses travelled.
“We took some young horses to the national championships, they'd never been out of Alberta, much less all the way down to the southern US.
“And we had one of our horses win a national championship and then a reserve national championship,” he said. “So that was pretty exciting for us being such a small and new outfit.”
The other thing that impressed Mauldin was that the mare that won the two championships (Gina) is only four years old.
“And that's really young. Usually in these classes you're thinking horses that are six to eight years old. So to have her go down and actually be competitive was kind of a big deal for us as well.”
There are some breeds that historically come from the Iberian Peninsula of Spain and Portugal.
The Andalusians are the Spanish version of those Iberian horses, and the other breed involved in the competition are Lusitanos, which come from the Portuguese part of the Iberian Peninsula.
The Ft. Worth Show show is for purebred Andalusians and Lusitanos, which compete separately. There are also some classes for mixed breed horses (half Andalusian or half Lusitano) but the primary focus is on those two breeds.
Mauldin and his wife Glenna are both veterinarians but their focus is now in breeding the Andalusians. They are relative newbies to the venture.
“Just in 2021, my wife and I both had other careers, and then decided this was something we wanted to take on and do and we love to breed," he said. "We think we've built a pretty respectable group of horses."
Brandi MacRae, who trains and rides the horses, and is ranch manager, is from Cochrane.
As Neal tells it, the Mauldins sort of fell into raising Andalusians.
We just we thought they are really sort of elegant and classy looking horses. They're a very versatile horse – they can be used on the cowboy front, they can be used to ride dressage. They can do a lot of things.
“We ended up buying a mare that was a purebred Andalusian and loved her so much that we decided we wanted to be more invested and more involved in the breed,” he said.
A ranch with the mountains in the background and beautiful horses in the foreground – what was not to like?
“So when we had the opportunity to really start looking for a place, we're sitting . . . we're kind of nestled in the Foothills, looking at the Canadian Rockies and raising these, Grey athletic horses. It just seemed like a pretty good course of action for us to take. So we're slowly building up the programme,” Mauldin said.
They have about 12 of their own horses on site now and several more in training that will be ready for competition probably next year.