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History of Resorte I

Translated from Mi Vida en El Mundo de los Caballos by Fabio Ochoa Restrepo

(Translated by Juan Carlos Bossa with special permission of Juan David Ochoa)

(Pages 113-116 of the Small Book by Fabio Ochoa)

My father says Resorte was born in Itagui (Antioquia), around 1918. Bred by Mr. Lazaro Saldarriaga, they called him Lazarito’s horse. There’s no doubt he was the best horse there was in those days, proof of that is he left the best descendants; all the good horses there are in the present have to do with the old Resorte, the first Resorte. I remember him since I was five years old.

One of the stories they told about him is he had so much brio, that in order to use him as a lead horse, they had to take him first from Itagui to Medellin back and forth, that’s about 30 kilometers.

My father said, at his 81 years of age and bad memory, Resorte was a son of Jupiter, owned by don Fernando Escobar from El Poblado (now a neighborhood of Medellin), and that Jupiter was boarded with a donkey in a small piece of ground in Mr. Escobar’s house; dad would go with his friends from school to see him run around and see him when ridden. Jupiter was white and Resorte’s mother was black and was also called Lazarito’s black mare. Don Domingo Ochoa says she was the best mare there was in those days. Dad bought Resorte from Don Santiago Escobar from Fredonia (a town in Antioquia), around 1923 and took him to Salgar (another town in Antioquia), to Hacienda La Margarita. By that time he already had several famous offspring: Otelo, La Mesita, don Miguel Melguizo’s mares who were called Las Melguizas, the ones owned by Carlos Correa, and Caricortao from Guayabal (town in Antioquia). Resorte was a bright, dark, almost brown, bay; in this color issue there are several appreciations, but he had the color of Rebeldia, Rebelde, Cerezo etc, who we know so well and that are his descendants.

He had a short white stocking in one of his legs and a small star on his forehead; he was very beautiful, his long and rising neck would make and arch and a perfect insertion with his head; he had a small, stout face with the prettiest ears you could ever see. He always stood and looked into the horizon and the tips of his ears would almost touch. A very nice croup, like that of Resorte III or La Liga. He wasn’t very tall, he was long, and when they rode him he became so proud that he looked very big, he had a very fine gait and he would stretch out when someone was going to ride him, then he seemed very small.

When he was walking he would sometimes get very mad and stand trembling, his veins would then show because his skin was very thin, many of his descendants inherited his bad temper. He always lived in the first stall at La Margarita’s sugar mill and his bed was made out of bagazo de caña (these are the dried remains of the processing of sugar cane). Back then they were fed with chopped sugar cane, corn with ground panela (unrefined sugar blocks), sometimes they would give him milk and ground panela and young wild grass that would grow on the edge of the sugar cane cultivations. In those days concentrated feed with trash and fish flour didn’t exist, that’s why we never had colic, intoxications, founder etc. They would let him free in a grass corral for a couple of hours every day, to run around, get the sun light and lie around.

When I was eight years old, so I could take him from one place to another, I would have to climb on a small hill just to get the jaquima over his ears and take it back off, his head rose so high that his ears were almost unreachable for me. They kept him in those days with the two Spanish donkeys and El Tuerto, La Venus and La Gaviota, Otelo and some others; then came his many offspring. Resorte lived at La Margarita, where he left many famous offspring, for twenty years. The stalls were huge walled corrals, half in the open air and half with a roof; they would also take mares to him from all the towns in Antioquia and the neighboring farms.

My grandfather and my father bought a lot of famous mares, the best in Antioquia, to cross them with Resorte I, that’s why he left such great offspring. Those mares were: La Venus, La Gaviota or Rochela de Sopetran, La Canaria or Tuerta, La Silueta of don Jano Velez from Bolivar, La Reina who turned out to be machorra (this is a term used to describe a mare who never gets pregnant) also of don Jano, La Caucha, the old La Gasolina who also turned out to be machorra, La Tosca, Rusia Grande who was Carey’s dam, La Cigueña and many other of don Miguel Melguizo, who were the best in Medellin.

I’m going to name some of the more famous sons of Resorte I remember: Otelo, he was the best also bred by don Lazarito (Note: we would have to make a separate book for Otelo), Cometa and Monarca (Resorte x Gaviota or Rochela), Carey (Resorte x Tosca), Jazmin (Resorte x Venus), Pielroja and the other chestnut of don Chepe Mora from Palmira (Resorte x Canaria or Tuerta).

Daughters: La Gasolina and La Favorita (Resorte x Venus), the other La Favorita and La Dinamita (Resorte x Silueta), La Rochela and La Polvora (Resorte x Tuerta or Canaria), Primorosa (Resorte x Tosca), La Platiada and La Champaña (Resorte x Gaviota). Resorte x La Cigüeña gave a grey filly who my father said was best, but she killed herself very young with a pipe of a cart. Resorte with one of the Melguizas produced a buckskin who was gelded very young and was later sold to a priest, Padre Vargas who lived in Salgar; pretty horse, dappled buckskin with a white mane, with a few black spots on his body, he was called Priest Vargas’s buckskin and they always said there was nothing like that horse and my dad cried all his life for having gelded that animal.

Resorte also produced the Matilde’s mare, just like him; don Emilio Restrepo’s La Mira, La Mesita, don Emilio’s Vengador, etc.

These are the most famous ones I can remember, I’ll speak of each them and their offspring later on until we get to the ones of nowadays. Some other Resorte daughters are: La Zagala, owned by my dad’s uncle Juan, La Castellana (Resorte x Novia), La Amarilla of doctor Restrepo Barrientos from Fredonia, mother of La Seda etc.

They say Jupiter (Resorte’s sire) was also sire to the three Carusos of Paulino Londoño, sons of La Melba, also owned by don Paulino, very good grey horses, but the youngest one was the best of the three, that’s why my father bought him from a man whose last name was Echavarria, later on he took him to the fairs in Andes and sold him quite well, he made good money out of him. He left excellent offspring there: Las Carusas of don Ricardo Escobar of Hacienda La Bodega etc.

And now that I’m talking about horses of the 1900’s, I’ll mention some other famous ones my dad and some other elder men spoke about.
 
El Rucito, owned by don Juan Correa (from Caldas, Antioquia), a famous horse, dad said he was born out of an old horse and an old mare they set free at a river’s shore to die, they gave birth to Rucito and he was famous. They say a man from Salamina (a town of Caldas department), brought, by land, naturally, a very good mare to breed her to the best horse in the area, and they recommended El Rucito to him, when the man saw the horse, who was already old, he said: “I will not breed my mare to that horsey, I’m looking for a good horse”.

Don Juan Correa sent one of his helpers to bring two fillies and showed them to him, they were some famous daughters of El Rucito. The man was surprised and said: “seeing he produces such great offspring, I’ve decided I will use him”, but Mr. Correa answered: “but I’m not going to let you use him”. Mr. Correa didn’t have a very good character.

Another famous horse of that time was El Crespo, owned by don Juancho Pelaez, from Titiribi (a town in Antioquia), he was brown and left great offspring. From him come las Cucas of Titiribi, a group of very good mares owned by don Cuco Mejia. Las Cucas, when crossed with the horses from Salgar like Cometa, Mago, Pegasso, etc, produced famous offspring like Tatiana and Triunfo owned by Pedro Nel Arango; Satelite and many other famous ones.

From the days I was a boy I remember El Gacelo owned by don Polo Cadavid, my uncle in law; he was a big, brown, gelding, very good horse; people said that the hand of the person who gelded this horse should dry out. He was a son of El Crespo, the same as don Absalon Velasquez’s, from Salgar, mare. La Bruja’s mother was also a daughter of El Crespo, being La Bruja a daughter of Carusito de Andes.

La Bruja with Cometa were the parents of  the famous Chucho, who I’ll refer to later on (we don’t have horses nowadays who even look a little like Chucho). They also talked about El Careto (a careto horse is one with excessive white on his face) of Corral Falso hacienda in Sopetran, he was the grandfather, on the dam’s side, of La Gaviota or Rochela (they called them the caretas of Corral Falso), that’s why some La Gaviota’s offspring would come out with white markings on their faces and legs.
  
There was a horse in Sopetran called El Palomito de Andes, who was the sire of La Gaviota and many other great ones. In Andes (Antioquia) there was another famous horse they called El Parrita de Andes, because he was owned by a two bit lawyer whose last name was Parra and received him as a payment for a bill. El Parrita was a small grey horse, but there was not a better horse for riding, and everything he produced was good. 45 years ago, a black man called Jesus Maria Velasquez (R.I.P.), brought a small grey mare to Salgar, she was called La Polvorita (diminutive for Polvora, that means gun powder), and made honor to her name. All of the breeders were left mouth opened when they saw her, I can remember it as if it were today, they said she was a better riding mare than all of the mares at La Margarita put together, La Venus, La Gaviota etc. Her gait, her pride, her brio and the way she handled were awesome; they said she was a daughter of Parrita de Andes, La Polvorita was bred to the great Otelo, who, by the way, was shown along with La Polvorita at the fair in Salgar and people said that it was difficult to tell which of them was better; I still remember how drunk my dad and Jesus Maria got that day on that pair of animals, it was tremendous.

People said that from that crossing the awaited messiah would be born, and truly speaking, they produced a colt, dark bay, with some white hairs on his body, and rabicano (term used to describe a tail with white hairs in it), similar to Otelo and as good as his parents, unfortunately, he wasn’t raised well, scarce feeding, and he never grew up, he lacked calcium, so much that he lost an ear. We lost a great stallion there.

Another famous horse there was here in Medellin, was Kuroky, owned by don Cotoño Mejia, a man who liked parties a lot and was a great rider. They say Kuroky was very, very good, he would climb the stairs of Hotel Berlin, with his owner on top drinking aguardiente (Colombian strong liquor). Don Cotoño was a brother of the great don Gonzalo Mejia, a great man with a lot of class, a father of beautiful and distinguished women, any of them would have been good as a beauty queen.

About 35 years ago, at my stalls in Ayacucho (a street in Medellin), Don Gonzalo, already an old man, rode on Monarca and said: “I have to teach those little riders there are nowadays the right way to ride a good horse”.

There aren’t any men like don Gonzalo Mejia left in Colombia, I read a book they wrote about him, with many interesting anecdotes; it’s a pity neither Don Gonzalo nor La Venus, Resorte I, El Caucho, Otelo, Cometa, La Gasolina, La Favorita etc, are a part of this world any more. We’d enjoy it a lot if we could see this kind of horses.       

We wish to thank Juan David Ochoa for giving us permission to translate and share this moment in time of the History of the Paso Fino horse.  As long as I can remember, when trying to learn about the Paso Fino horse, I dreamed of being able to have these pages translated into English and now we are finally able to. Hope you have enjoyed this special treat from pasopedigreeTV.com.

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