Paradise Valley

Sr. Fernando Mota founded his breeding operation 13 years ago with just 3 foundation mares.   It all began as a hobby when tragically he lost his son and found himself left with his riding horse.   Deciding to keep her since she was a living link with his son’s memory, Sr. Mota did the obvious thing by putting her in foal and before long he had 2 more mares.   He now ruefully admits that one thing has led to another and his once small hobby is now a big hobby.

He does not live at the stud since business commitments in Lisbon demand most of his energy but 2 or 3 times (often accompanied by his friend Nuna), he drives into the heart of the Alentejo to spend a few peaceful hours with his beloved horses at his stud farm or ‘Coudelario’.   His visits are no doubt entranced by the lovely setting, one which had made such an impact on me in a previous visit that I described it as ‘Paradise Valley’ – a name which obviously pleased him to such an extent that it seems to have stuck.

Mares and their foals roam freely through the cork oak woods

Together with a friend I had first visited the farm when on a riding holiday.   We were riding at Jorge Pereira’s riding centre and his wife Antonia, being a vet, seems to know everyone within a large radius of Coruche, who owns an animal of any description!   She said that she was due to see some dogs in a place that I would really love to photograph and off we went.   Turning off what was in any case at least a ‘B’ road, we then followed a winding unmade road for 2 or 3 miles and the further we went, the more we seemed to enter a different world as we passed through cork oak woods, past meadows full of wildflowers and olive groves, before we eventually arrived at a small farmhouse.   It was such a secret, secluded place, hilly and heavily wooded that it seemed an unlikely home for a stud farm.   Large areas of the woodland had been railed off and the small groups of horses were left to wander freely through the undergrowth of wild lavender, gorse and grasses, into gullies and into the dappled shade of the cork oaks.   Unconventional pasture it may be, but it looked idyllic.

One of the favoured dun coloured foals

Antonia explained that Sr. Mota, the owner and breeder of the horses, had a particular liking for pale colours.  There were greys, inevitably, but also silver and golden dun palaminos, and those of the cream ‘Isabella’ colouring (or Cremello) with pale eyes.   Although not albino, horses of this colouring have very little pigmentation in their eyes and can suffer if exposed to relentless sunshine, hence the shade of this particular valley must have been very welcome to them.   At the time of my first visit, the Stud had cream twin foals – a most unusual occurrence.