Sad news today: Jorge de Moya died a couple of days ago. For years he was the only breeder of pure Paso Fino horses in Australiauntil about 8½ years ago, when Yvonne somehow talked him in to giving her a pure-bred foal in exchange for a Paso Peruano foal out of her mare La Tigre .
The foal itself was a story: Yvonne wanted to call her Samba , which I thought my friends at the Samba project would find inappropriate. So I said that if she wanted to call her that, she should first get approval from both Tridge and Jeremy. Fat chance, I thought. Tridge in particular is renowned for not answering his mail.
Far from it: Tridge replied within NTP-confirmed 9 minutes, 26 seconds, and Jeremy an hour later at 8:38:27, first thing in his morning. Both were more than happy, and so the horse was called Samba.
Today we went out riding: Yvonne on her new horse Carlotta, I on Darah (of course), and Chris Yeardley on Samba. As we were leaving, I discovered that Samba has changed owners: Yvonne has just sold Samba to Chris, which in practice doesn't make much difference. But somehow there was a feeling of change, of melancholy. Jorge was an amazing person, and we'll miss him. He was old and unwell, and we knew he didn't have long to go. He died peacefully in his sleep, about the best way to go.
In the course of the ride I made a joke about Jorge's Arab horses (he always bred Pasos), and discovered that yes, indeed, he once did breed Arabs. But he had to leave them behind when Castro took over in Cuba, and apparently the revolutionaries killed all the horses and ate them. No wonder Jorge carried Castro in his heart.