Once a year, the province of Huelva looks more like the set of a Western than a sleepy corner of Spain, when its wild Doñana horses rounded up by modern day cowboys to take part in the famous El Rocío celebrations. Anthony Jefferies follows their trail.

Spaniards sometimes refer to Huelva as the ‘wild west’. It’s a term intended to describe a certain ‘redness’ around the neck, and has little to do with cowboys and Indians, wagon trains and cattle drives.

What they probably don’t realise is that the laugh is on them, because this most south-westerly province of Spain is home to the type of annual event that is more often associated with the wide, open spaces of North America than with the olive groves and fruit farms that dominate Huelva.

The province is much more than a giant orchard. Its easterly flanks include the Coto de Doñana national park, one of Europe’s great wetlands and the protected home to thousands of migratory and resident water birds, raptors, deer, wild boar, mongoose, and a very few of the endangered Iberian lynx.

There are also animals of a (theoretically) more domesticated nature roaming the 340 square miles of marsh, pine forests and sand dunes. These are the wild Doñana horses, one of the world’s hardiest equine breeds.

Necessarily so, because besides having to withstand the fiery heat of the long Andalucían summer, these horses must also face up to some hefty Atlantic winter storms. And then there are the marshes – mile after mile of them, and the sort of place where putting a foot wrong could lead to a lingering and lonely end.

Not that they haven’t adapted to their circumstances. The Doñana horses have broader hooves than other breeds – developed specifically to allow them to spread their weight more evenly and across a wider area to reduce the risk of slipping into boggy ground when they are feeding on the marshes.

For most of the year these horses are left to wander at will across the Coto de Doñana, but come 26 June they take on the role of four-legged extras in a Western, as teams of modern-day cowboys mount up and hit the trail.

All morning, the 400 or so active members of the Asociación Andaluza de Criadores de Ganado Marismeño (the marsh horse breeders’ association), who have carefully guarded permits to ride across the protected areas of the natural park, drive the herds west and north until they come snorting and galloping into the town of El Rocío in the heat of early afternoon.

This is la saca de las yeguas, the rounding up of mares. Its purpose is to count, disinfect, worm and brand the wild herd, as well as to remove foals to sell at market the following day.

El Rocío is merely a stop en route to the town of Almonte, 10 miles to the north. But this respite in the sandy streets of the pilgrimage town is an important one. It’s here that the 2,000 or so horses are blessed in front of the town’s celebrated icon – the Virgen del Rocío, or Virgin of the Dew. The benediction finished, the herd is driven north in a storm of dust and, with much yelling from the riders and neighing from the horses, thunders along the woodland tracks and across streams and rivers.

Outside Almonte – its fiesta in full swing – the herd is split into groups of 100 or so mares and foals and charges through the town, hooves clattering as they pass within inches of revellers in flamenco dresses or waistcoats, tight trousers and boots. The horses end up in a corral at the far side of the town centre, and mares are reunited with their foals amid much stamping, snorting and whinnying. This is where the cleansing takes place the following day, after which tails and manes are trimmed and faded brands burned back into the flanks of the adult horses.

Here, too, the foals are separated from their mothers. This is not a scene for the faint-hearted, with much distress on both sides. But, say the association members – who are also the ‘owners’ of these horses – the move is necessary to maintain the herd’s genetic ‘cleanliness’.
The market is held nearby later in the week and many of the foals will be sold to members of the owners’ association, while others will not reach their reserve and will eventually find their way back to the shelter afforded by mum’s flank.

Like so many Spanish customs, this round-up goes back centuries, to the time when the area was known as Doña Ana, after the wife of the Duke of Medina Sidonia who owned much of the wetlands.

This being Spain, it’s no surprise that la saca de las yeguas coincides with a local festival, and by the end of the night the town does, indeed seem like something out of a Hollywood movie: the sharp tang of horse manure is in the air, there are horses tied up at fencing posts throughout the town and the bars are full of patrons so much the worse for wear that they couldn’t tell you whether they were in Almonte or Arizona.

As for the herd, the morning after the night before, the bleary-eyed cowboys saddle up and, at a slightly gentler pace, guide the horses back into the marshes and woods, where they can graze and gallop undisturbed for another year.