Bloodline: The Story of a Horse Named "Cake"

My great-great grandfather was nicknamed "Abuelito de Pelo Blanco" or "White-Haired Grandpa." He was my grandfather's grandfather and he owned multiple sugarcane "colonies" in the Puerto Rican towns of Bayamon, Cataño and Carolina. This was right at the cusp of an era that marked the beginning of the end of the sugarcane industry on the island: Puerto Rico used to be one of the greatest producers of sugar in the world. Abuelito de Pelo Blanco was already set up for the transition though: he had orange trees and he also bred cattle and horses. When the sugarcane industry fell apart, he transitioned 100% into cattle.

My great-great grandfather had a white stallion, a Paso Fino (of course) that he rode everywhere. The horse's real name has been forgotten in the family history: everyone remembers him as "Bizcocho."

"Bizcocho" means "Cake."

Not Bizcocho, obviously (photo from here) but just so you get an idea of the regalness of this horse.

Every Saturday morning, Abuelito de Pelo Blanco would tack up Bizcocho and ride down to the nearby bakery for breakfast. Breakfast involved coffee and a slice of cake that he would bring outside with him to share with his stallion.

Abuelito de Pelo Blanco, in his heyday :)

Bizcocho came to enjoy these outings so much that he would try to head for the bakery of his own accord whenever he was craving cake! And so he earned his nickname.

Despite the silly name, he was a highly trained, sensitive animal that only the more skilled horsemen of the family could ride with ease.

I told you guys about Brisa in my previous Bloodline post. Brisa was my mother's horse, and he was still in training under saddle when my grandfather took my mom to visit Abuelito de Pelo Blanco. My grandfather bragged about my mother's outstanding riding skills with her colt at home. And so Abuelito de Pelo Blanco had Bizcocho tacked up.

My mom, who was still in her late teens, looked at her father and great-grandfather in disbelief but still climbed aboard the great white stallion that was presented for her to ride and demonstrate.

They had a lovely ride during which my mother put Bizcocho through his many gaits, with just the lightest touch of the leg or the reins. Abuelito de Pelo Blanco was quite impressed. My mom was the first woman in the family to have a gift with horses, and here she proved it.

Until it came time to stop. My mother brought Bizcocho to a halt with the gentlest pressure...but she held it for a fraction of a second too soon. The white stallion immediately started backing up, which took my mom by surprise, which in turn caused her to reflexively squeeze her hands...and so Bizcocho continued on...backwards. My grandfather finally had to step in and grab him by the reins in order to stop him. My mom's face was beet red from embarrassment as she leaped off of her great-grandfather's horse and took off running to hide in the barns for a while. She never did hear what my grandfather and his grandfather said afterwards, and she did not ask.

Bizcocho was quite the horse, but other people could ride him.

Brisa was also quite the horse, but he could only be ridden by my mother, a fact that my grandfather always happened to mention in his stories.

And he always said it with the utmost pride.

That's my mom on the bottom left. :) And her siblings: my two aunts and my uncle standing behind them.

Bloodline: My Mother

My mother's story is so awesome that even as a child, I recognized it. Somewhere back in the old house in Puerto Rico, there is an illustrated version of my mom's story of her horse, Brisa, by yours truly. This is the first story I want to tell you. 

But to tell you the story of my mother, I must first tell you about my grandfather.

I come from a long line of horsemen. Horsemen of power who owned enormous sugar cane plantations and cattle haciendas that bred their own horses for working their ranches.  What breed were these horses? Why, Paso Finos, of course. 

One of the last remaining sugar cane fields on the island. Photo taken by me in the late 1990's. These fields are long gone.

The Paso Fino breed is originally from Puerto Rico, a mix of Andalusian, Spanish Jennet, Spanish Barb and some Morgan. Their gait started as an adaptation to the mountainous terrain of the island. It was then deliberately bred for, as gaited horses were so much more comfortable to ride when checking fence lines for entire days at a time. The Paso Fino was originally bred to be a working farm horse. My ancestors were long riders, men who spent more time on their horses than on their own two feet.

My family owned the land over which the great metropolis of Bayamon and Guaynabo developed, two of what are now the largest and wealthiest cities of the island. There are streets and neighborhoods in these two cities named after my great-grandparents.

My grandfather was the last in that line of power. He was the last to own huge expanses of land, the last to breed his own horses. 

My grandfather as a young man, on his gorgeous bay Paso stallion, Baby, out riding on my great-grandfather's hacienda.

He had four children: three daughters and a son. My mother was the eldest daughter. When each of the children came of age, they were gifted a horse, but my mother was the only one of the siblings that carried in her blood the love for all things equestrian. 

My uncle Rafa on Morito, a gray gaited pony my grandfather bought for $50 outside of a convenience store! He taught the four siblings how to ride.

My mother was given a sorrel mare. She was a chestnut with a golden mane and tail. They called her La Rubia. "The Blonde". She was pregnant by a Palomino stallion named Casablanca, the grandson of Dulce Sueño. Dulce Sueño is the foundation sire of the Paso Fino breed.

Casa Blanca later became one of the first Paso Finos to be imported to the United States and is considered one of the foundation sires of the American strain of the Paso Fino.

La Rubia gave birth to a colt. Almost white when he was born, he shed out to a lovely Palomino like his sire, golden with dapples that shimmered in the hot island sun.

My mother called him Brisa. "Breeze". He was trained by my grandfather's trainer, Sandalio, who was probably one of the last Puerto Ricans with known Taino Native bloodlines. The Tainos didn’t become horsemen like so many mainland indigenous tribes did, but Sandalio was special. Horses naturally trusted him and followed him in the fields, without ropes or halters to lead them with. In a time long before natural horsemanship was a thing, Sandalio's skills were nothing short of magical. 

He broke Brisa to saddle and brought him to my mother on the day of her 15th birthday, ready to be ridden by her for the first time. My grandmother was deathly afraid of horses and was so terrified by the idea of her eldest daughter riding this young stallion that she hid at the back of the house, crying hysterically. 

From that day forward, Brisa was my mother's horse and only hers. He only allowed her to ride him. His heart was hers. His heart, which had a defect. A defect so severe that at age 7, the family veterinarian turned to my mother after  a physical exam and said, "The only thing keeping this horse alive right now is his love for you." Brisa required weekly injections to keep him going. The injections could only be given when my mother was present: he was untouchable without her there. If she was there, he stood quietly for the veterinarian with nary a complaint. 

Just one month later, on a day when my mother was away for her college classes, he walked to the farthest reaches of the back field to die. My grandfather found his body right before my mother got home from school, at the same time as the man that would be my father showed up at the house for the first time ever. 

My father had been attempting to court my mother for a while but she had never been really interested. He chose both the worst and best possible day to show up uninvited.

My grandfather did not tell my mother that Brisa had died. My father walked in right then and the entire family basically forced my mom to leave with him in a desperate attempt to get her out of the house before she learned what had happened.

And that is how my mother ended up on her first date with my dad.

Brisa was buried that afternoon, in the last remaining acreage owned by our family, behind the house my grandfather built where I would later grow up. My mother learned of his death upon returning from her date.

My father always asked my mother if she ever really did love him, or if she had simply transferred her love for Brisa to my father. 

Perhaps the answer lay in the fact that my mother never owned horses again. 

Until I came along, close to a decade later.

Hint: the adult in this photo? That is NOT me!
This was the first pony I ever rode. :)

Bloodline: An Introduction

My family on my mother's side has owned horses for centuries. I am the last in the line to have them. There are so many stories surrounding my grandparents and great-grandparents, many of them including the horses that made their lifestyle as hacienda and plantation owners possible! And I want to tell you guys these stories. I have been wanting to put them in writing on the blog for two years now. And the catalyst to begin telling them finally happened.

My uncle Rafa, my mother's brother, recently came to visit. It was a last-minute impromptu visit spurred by the emergency of a close friend of his that lives in D.C. Rafa crashed at our place. I had been bummed that we would barely get to see him, since he was going to spend his days at the hospital with his friend and Carlos and I were both working our crazy schedules. But as always, destiny worked  its magic so that both Carlos and I DID get to spend a lovely one-on-one evening with him.

My uncle and me.

I had not seen my uncle in 12 years, since leaving the island. He has always been a huge fan of my endeavors, especially the equestrian ones, to the point of taking on part of the financial responsibility of my first horse Lucero when I moved to the mainland and had to leave him behind. My uncle is the only male among four siblings and like all of the Torrech family, he is as stubborn and willful as any of us. We are dreamers and the majority of us have one foot in the arts and the other in the sciences. We can let our heads get lost in the clouds, but we will work hard until the day we die. When we put our minds to something, you better jump out of the way because we are like bulldozers: unstoppable. It is a family trait.

The last time I saw my uncle, I was in my early twenties and still functioning at "child" level: I was by all means an adult (I had a college degree and a full-time job), but I still lived at home with the family and you honestly don't really grow up until you have to fend for yourself in the world.

This was my first time hanging out with Rafa as an adult myself and it was...fascinating. We took him to our favorite bar and had pizza and beer and laughed and talked way past the time I should have gone to bed in order to work the next day but it was well worth it. We talked about his kids growing up, my cousins. His eldest is 15 years younger than me and she is very much like I was at her age, so I gave him an insider's view on how to deal with that. We talked about the old house, the old magical house that my grandfather built and that we grew up in, that my uncle now owns.  The house doesn't like when my uncle leaves and consistently pranks him: every time he goes away for a trip, something happens. During this visit, a water pipe in one of the upstairs bathrooms broke and flooded part of a bedroom. We talked about the spirits that roam that property, including the dark beast that used to haunt my brother. My uncle sees them and his SO feels them. We talked about these things in the same manner anyone else would discuss the weather.

My uncle and Carlos sitting outside on our balcony, talking the night away.

It was interesting, to say the least. Not only to talk to him as equals but to confirm that really, our entire family is not quite what most people consider "normal". My entire family would have been accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake during a different era. The men, too.

Magical realism is a huge component of Spanish literature and by definition is: a literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy. You've seen elements of it if you watched Pan's Labyrinth or Amelie. If you read Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate (the original version of the book is in Spanish) or 100 Years of Solitude (also originally in Spanish) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, you'll know what I'm talking about. Gabriel Garcia Marquez basically invented the genre.

The exception in this case is that magic realism, when it comes to my family, is not just a literary/artistic genre...it is our reality.

I've written about our scientific side, and mine especially since I work in veterinary medicine. Now I want to introduce you to the mysticism of being a Hispanic of Spanish and Caribbean origin, growing up surrounded by adults that basically had the equivalent of superpowers. And yes, it all ties into the horses.

And that leads me to this new series of posts that I am planning on doing every once in awhile, that I will be calling Bloodline, with the corresponding label. If you want to dive off of the deep end of reality with me, you're welcome to come along when I publish these. :)

More to follow.