Horse Riding at Centro Ippico San Benedetto in Favara, Sicily

I had the most breathtaking experience in Sicily. I really love horses – they are such beautiful, special creatures and I can’t help but be in awe of them.

So when us travel bloggers arrived at Centro Ippico San Benedetto in Favara, Sicily, I was blown away.

The owner of the establishment, Gerlando Costanza, spoke no English but was extremely friendly and excited to show us around. When he first presented us with a mother and her foal we were in love!

As you can imagine, it’s one of the most touching sights ever. Us girls were all smiles…

He also showed us another foal with a surrogate mother and he explained the difficulties thereof for the foal. He did so with so much passion and kindness that even though I didn’t understand the words I felt myself nodding in agreement (luckily my translator Umberto filled in the gaps). At one point, I think Gerlando thought I understood everything because of my constant nodding in approval, which was funny.

Gerlando showed us many very beautiful horses that day.

But one horse, Gerlando’s pride and joy, is a black Friesian horse, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. This horse is extremely beautiful and powerful and the horse himself sure knows it too!

Gerlando displayed so much control over the horse that we were so amazed. In fact, this Friesian horse even did a extremely beautiful, well-timed dance orchestrated by his master. We were most impressed.

Here’s a short clip of the power this Friesian horse has – really incredible the way he appears to almost tap dance! It’s like a planned sequence he learnt to some far-off music (in fact, in the clip you’ll even hear the chickens going a little bit crazy in the background! So there is some kind of background music indeed!). Every time I watch it i’m still completely blown away at this special relationship between man and horse!

Thereafter, we also had an opportunity to ride the horses at Centro Ippico San Benedetto and we trotted around in a circle which was very pleasant. Some braver bloggers than myself took their horses out on the field on a little tour. I preferred to stay put, grounded on my own two feet, surrounded by chickens, the smell of fresh horse, watching in awe of these most magical creatures.

Gerlando Costanza from Centro Ippico San Benedetto can be contacted via email: gerlando.costanza@telecomitalia.it. 

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