Esmarelda heads to Spain to visit Arábigan

Continuing her world tour, Esmarelda recently popped over to Spain to join ESMA finalist Arábigan at the National Championships. We spoke to Luz González Hermida to see how she got on…

What has Esmarelda been up to in Spain?

Esmarelda arrived a few days before the National Championship to learn some Spanish. The first word she learned was “manzana”, apple. She enjoyed the fields in the north of Spain before heading to Segovia for the Nationals.

Who did she meet?

I introduced Esmarelda to the most prestigious farmers in Spain. We walked together inside the boxes of the most beautiful horses and we were with the three judges of the Championship.

Esmarelda liked judging beauty so much that she named herself the fourth judge. Of course the Stallions Championship was the one that attracted most of her attention. (Why do you think that was?!).

We hope she was not too much of a diva?

Well… she behaved correctly, commenting and neighing with colts, fillies and mares but with some of the stallions, we had the most flirtatious and vain Esmarelda, arousing the envy of mares.

Tell us about Arábigan and the National Championships

Arábigan.com is a news website for the Arabian horse. It began as a means to discuss the Arabian horse show, but more sections have been added increasingly.

In addition to the main morphology contests, right now the second largest section is the veterinary one, where we report in a rigorous and technical way, adapting the complicated veterinarian language into a worldwide understandable language in a highly entertaining way through reports on video.

The videos allow us to watch the best veterinary specialists speaking to the horse owners about reproduction, nutrition, prevention etc.

In Spain, the National Championships is the biggest event for the Arabian Horse, breeders and enthusiasts from all over the country meet here. Spain also is home to one of the most valuable lines of Arabian horse, the Pure Spanish one. Known worldwide for their sports skills, they make the Nationals a very attractive competition to see, not only for Spaniards, but also for people across the world.

What impact has social media had on Arabigan?

Arábigan began as a blog, so imagine the importance that social media has already had from the beginning. I think that the popularity of this blog was mainly due to sharing videos via YouTube. In the shows, 1/5 of the score is based on movements, so it was important that fans from anywhere in the world could see how these movements were. So I think that this was the key point of a successful blog at the beginning, back in 2008.

What does the future hold?

As a goal for 2014, we want to create a new section: the Arabian horse in the world of sport . The athletic ability of the Arabian horse, for its multifunctional nature, makes it necessary as a new section in Arábigan, because the Arabian horse is the most beautiful and functional purebred.

Click here to see all the photos from Esmarelda's trip to Spain