30/07/2025
I wrote this in defence of our wonderful palfrey - that “breed unspecific” wonderfully useful horse ridden by so many and highly prized once - which was in my view being put down with words whilst another Iberian breed was being lauded.
We do not need to badmouth the palfrey in order to sing the praises of the Iberian. They share much of the same history.
Here are my words on that original post, which I feel are worth repeating here.
“As a person who grew up riding in Spain, who watched the best horses of Jerez and Sintra before I was ten, have owned a PRE stallion and bred PRE crosses, and am fully dedicated to breeding Rocky Mountain Horses whilst educating myself and others constantly on the history and development of all gaited breeds, whether descended from the Jennet or not, here are my two pennies worth on the passing (dare I say negative) reference to the palfrey:
One ancestor of the medieval palfrey was the gaited Spanish Jennet. Which is also the ancestor of the modern Iberian horse. Far from being locked in gilded cages, they were the commuter horses extraordinaire.
It is a common misconception that the palfrey was purely a ladies’ horse. In fact, certainly as far as the UK is concerned, Knights rode them to travel from joust to joust, noblemen and priests and wealthy businessmen those then to get from A to B in maximum comfort.
Another source of stock for the native palfrey was also the gaited Galloway pony. Like the Iberian, its blood was shared between royal and noble houses who sought the best stock in terms of speed, stamina and gait.
The two strains eventually led to the various gaited American breeds we see today - working the land on a minimal diet being one of the qualities of the Rocky Mountain at least - a quality the Iberian must also have in a landscape where grass is not abundant and drought is not uncommon.
The palfrey never went on hunts. If you consult the “Royal Horse of Europe” (pictured), the hunt was actually a substantial cause behind the demise of Iberian breeding in the UK in favour of the still being developed Thoroughbred. Which actually has substantial Galloway and other British native blood, but I digress.
The more I read, the more I know I don’t know. But what I do know is this: the Gaited horses - on the backs of which the history of British, Spanish and Moroccan history over the last thousand years at least was written - is often misrepresented, sometimes denigrated, and in the main, very much misunderstood.
Thank you for standing up for the exquisite Iberian Horse. I applaud you. Just let the palfrey also have its rightful place too - after all, they share much of the same history.
Edit: I have (admittedly second hand) evidence that the gaited examples from a Lusitano stud that still operates to this day were the stockmens’ ridden horse of choice when driving stock from A to B.
Sources:
- The Royal Horse of Europe by Sylvia Loch
- Invisible Ancestor: The Galloway Nag and its Legacy, by Miriam A. Bibby
- My own lived experience growing up in Gibraltar and travelling extensively in Spain and Portugal and to a lesser extent Morocco; riding the Spanish walk as a child before I had any business doing so, and spotting the Iberian characteristics as well as the British in my own current breed, the wonderful Rocky Mountain Horse.”
