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Paso Fino
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THE
HISTORY OF THE PASO FINO
The
Paso Fino, meaning “Fine Step” in
English, was the mount of the Spanish
Conquistadors. It is the oldest true native breed
of horse in the Western Hemisphere.
Although
the ancestors of the present-day horse evolved
and developed in North America and spread to
other parts of the world, horses vanished from
the New World during the Ice Age, between 8,000
and 12,000 years ago. So Columbus discovered a
horseless America.
Nearly
500 years ago, on his second voyage from Spain,
Columbus brought a select group of mares and
stallions from the Provinces of Andalusia and Cordela, and settled them at Santa Domingo. These
horses were a mixture of Spanish Barb, Andalusian and the now extinct Spanish Jennet, which not
only possessed an extremely comfortable saddle
gait, but also were able to pass this on to their
offspring. The result of the blending of these
horses was to become known as the Paso Fino
breed, the horse with the four beat gait.
They
became the foundation stock for the remount
stations of the Conquistadors. As Spanish
settlers came to the New World, they brought more
Spanish horses. During the nearly 500 years that
the Paso Fino horses have been selectively bred
throughout Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican
Republic, Columbia, Brazil, and Peru, they have
been called upon to perform diverse roles, first
in the conquest of and then in the exploration
and development of the Americas.
The
Paso Finos came to the United States during the
1950’s when military families returning home
from Puerto Rico imported a few horses and their
popularity grew. The American Paso Fino is the
product of crossing the Latin American horses
with the Caribbean horses, each having slight
different traits.
be sure to check out the history
of Riverview Farms
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