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SAN FRATELLO The
hold that the Nebrodis have on people’s heart is hard and difficult to escape.
The Nebrodis at sunset are dramatic and beautiful at the same time. An aura of
mystery and isolation surrounds the panorama at sunrise and you feel that you
must leave, but at the same time that you have to come back again and again. In the
vast woods of oaks, beech, olive and cork trees, there are roaming herds of
black wild horses that are the legacy of the light oriental horses brought in
early ages by the Arab invaders. Over the centuries they have been crossed with
the horses brought by the Normans and the Spanish noblesse. They
eat whatever they find in the woods, after the cows and the sheep have left
moved on. The natural selection makes several victims every year, during the
snowy winter in the high sloping woods where the hunger and the cold have no
pity. You can only find mares, because all the young colts are caught, separated
from the mothers at weaning time and sold at the Fairs, mostly being bought for
the butcher lot. San
Fratello is a small village on the mountains, 70 Km from Messina. For some
reason a group of Lombard's following Ruggero il Normanno (Roger the Norman) decided to stay and to re-build an
ancient town, probably called Aluntium (Apolonia) destroyed by the Arabs. This
explains why the language spoken at San Fratello is full of gallic words. It
also explains the blue and green eyes and even blond hair of the people. San
Fratello kept all the traditions, not only its own language. They are all
breeders, they breed sheep, goats, horses with enthusiasm, and until twenty
years ago when a daughter married she would take a bunch of the best mares as a
dowry. Sicily
is characterised by a very different territory conformation. The various streams
and rivers of the island allow different cultivations. When you sit at the table
you will find almonds, hazelnuts, capers, broad beans, olives, cheese and wine, sheep’s meat and salami from the
black pigs of the Nebrodis. North
of the Nebrodis is the Tyrrenian Sea and South of the mountains is Etna, the
volcano, along with the Alcantara and Simeto rivers. The highest point is Mount
Soro, 1800m. and the land goes down from there through wide valleys where small
rivers run to the sea. HOW TO
GET THERE: from the airports of Palermo or Catania it takes tow hours to reach
San Fratello. The highway A20 Messina Palermo will take you most of the way. The
Fair Out in
the streets the cars are covered with the red sand of the desert that the
Scirocco wind brings from Africa and the air is dry and hot. Early
in the morning they were already there: hundreds of black horses separated in
large groups according to their age and status, the 18 month fillies in one
paddock, the 30 month olds in the next one, then came the broodmares with foal
at the side and the barren ones in the last big paddock. The few males that were
kept after the big killing at 12 months were standing well away, held by the
owners, rearing on their hind legs as they tried to reach the females paddocks
at the distance. At nine
o’clock in the morning the last horses arrived, either led, ridden or tied to
cars and tractors that move slowly through the village in a long procession of
neighing, dark and shiny horses trotting
rhythmically while they go past children riding their pushbikes and old people going to the
church wearing their traditional dark clothes that help keep the heat away in
those hot lands. The
horses' owners and the buyers discuss everything in front of a glass of wine and
some savoury sheep cheese, glancing at the girls going past and joking about
horses and women. Time doesn’t exist, it may take anything from ten minutes to
a whole day to discuss a project. The
horses lean on each other for comfort, so many of them have met there for the
first time. No kicking goes on, apparently the hierarchy was established as each
horse went in the paddock, they patiently wait to be watered from big bins. The
younger fillies are a bit under stress, they have lost their guides and they
wander nervously from one side to the other, all morning. The foals keep by
their mothers, everything is perfect as long ad their mother feels safe, but
when one of the broodmares is caught with a long stick with a lazoo at the end,
all the broodmares start galloping away, frightened, and the babies scream for
help and stop, blow highly in wonder and finally they ask to rub their silky
noses on the mother’s head. The
young stallions, very few every year (this time there were five 30 month olds),
prance along as their owners walk proudly showing them off. They rear and strike
trying to get some freedom and they answer the “girls” with typical guttural
vocalizations. So many
perfect unshod black hoofs move around us, all nice and round with the natural
trimming of the harsh mountain stones, the
long canters in the morning and at night to get to the nearest source of water.
The wild horses move around during the cold night in the summer, and they sleep
in the shades during the day, head against tail to keep each others free of
flies and to better investigate the surroundings for signs of danger. One of
the dreaded dangers is the fire, that every summer destroys a big spot of the
bottom woods, but luckily not the higher ones. Every year in the beginning of
September the breeders of Sanfratello’s horses give life to the Fair grounds.
Time seems to stop when the audience gets swallowed in dust whilst waiting for a
group of fillies to settle down after a few men went in the paddock to catch
some and get them ready for showing. Young children pass along the ropes from
under the paddock rails, sending
shivers down their mother's spines when they creep in to help their fathers to
catch a nervous filly that wants to stay with the rest of the group. Old men
smoke and count the money after a
sale, big smiles with missing teeth and the light green eyes, courtesy of the
northern invaders, shining like emeralds in the sun on the wrinkly tanned faces.
They are proud, tough, rather wild in their soul – horses and people from
Sanfratello. THE
BREED Over
the centuries the San Fratellano horses became a breed of their own with their
own set of morphological standards. These beautiful baroque black horses
evolved from their ancestors through a very tough process of natural selection.
Unfortunately,
due to the fact that the majority of the archives were destroyed during the
years, the earliest genealogy records for the San Fratellano's date back to
only 1925, the same year in which breeding was aimed at improving the overall
equine production of Sicily. At first, around 1930/1935, they used Arabian (Oriental)
and TB stallions, as well as some Maremmano horse which, they believed,
allowed to improve some major defects in conformation of the original breed
whilst maintaining its overall appearance and morphological characteristics
virtually intact. In 1959, following the same principles five stallions of the
Nonius breed (Ungarian origins) were imported into Sicily and again used to
improve the San Fratellano, however the general opinion at the time was that
the Nonius horses produced lymphatic foals that struggled to adapt to the
tough environment of the Nebrodi mountains. In fact only some lines of the
original nucleus were bred to the Nonius and the Maremmano. In 1995 the
official Stud Book for the San Fratellano's was created and since then the
objective of the breeders has been to try and recover the original matrix of
the San Fratellano. This
has resulted in a breed of horses that are extremely tough and resilient and
which can survive illnesses and diseases that would kill the majority of
domesticated horses. Their heads are typically heavy with a hint of a roman
nose, the neck is often arched and sowing a thick mane. The shoulders are
muscular although sometimes they tend to be on the straight side. The withers
are well defined and the back rather longish. The loins are wide and the croup
is well developed, strong and sloping. The chest is usually wide and deep, the
limbs are powerful with good bone measurements, the knees are flat and wide
and free from blemishes, the feet are proportionate and very solid. The coat
is normally dark in colour ranging from bay to dark bay and black. They have
virtually no white markings. The overall appearance suggests strength and
harmony, they have regular gaits with a somewhat extravagant action. Not
far from the main town of Messina and at the feet of mount Etna (active
volcano), the Nebrodi's are an area of outstanding natural beauty where
one can catch a glimpse of a Northern Forest surviving in a land which is so
close to Africa. The
horses are free to roam and they have to fend for themselves in a climate and
environment which is nothing short of hostile with extremes temperatures all
year round ranging from sub zero in Winter to prolonged periods of heat and
draught in the Summer. The colts and fillies are not wormed or vaccinated
until they reach the age of three in order to further encourage the process of
natural selection. Their diet is also very poor and not supplemented with hay
or feeds. They eat whatever the land has to offer. To top it all up the local
population often subjects the horses to rough handling. The
San Fratellano’s are very versatile being used in many disciplines including
classical riding , 3DE, show jumping, driving and they are so docile that the
stallions are also used as circus horses. Today there are only some 2000 of
these horses left in the world and there is fear that they may become extinct
soon. This situation has been the subject of meetings and conferences aimed at
devising a suitable breeding programme so that the San Fratellano breed
could retain its identity. Unfortunately, every year the majority of colts are
culled when they reach the age of 12 to 18 months in order to allow only the
best ones to reproduce and this practice is also having the unwanted
side-effect of restricting the genetic pool with the consequent danger of
inbreeding and forced line breeding. Thanks to the promotional activities and
the financial support of the local Council during the past two years it seems
that extinction of this breed of horses may not be imminent, however there is
still a lot of work to be done. First
of all, it has been deemed necessary to find "a use" for the San
Fratellano horses in today’s equestrian world. Now that horses are no longer
used for wars or to plough the land or even purely as a mean of transport,
competition seems to be the natural outlet even for these horses. For this
reason two 3 year old stallions have recently been given to one of Italy’s
top classical riders in order for him to train them to the highest levels of
dressage and develop the breed’s innate athleticism. The San Fratellano is
nowadays often cross bred with thoroughbreds or warmbloods and sometimes even
with Spanish horses, although the original nucleus, the pure breds, are being
jealously treasured and are seldom sold for profit making purposes. It goes
without saying that the economic future of the local population, which is
already a rather difficult and complicated matter, is strictly linked to the
success of the current promotion of the breed.
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