Marchadores del Uruguay comes from our passion for horses and nature. Since kids, we grew up in contact with wilderness and horses. In Daniela’s family, life in the farm and horse rising/riding were an important part of their everyday lives. The six siblings keep their best memories of childhood around horses and the life in the farm until today. Ben’s family spent all weekends and large summers in Huenu, a farm by the Fourth River (Rio Cuarto) where Ben grew up as a “wild” kid fishing, hunting, riding horses, and raising all kinds of animals. Being in contact with nature was such an important part of his life that in his early youth he wanted to become an Ethologist (those that spend months in wild studing the behaviour of animals).

When our paths crossed and we started to share life, our passion for horses revived, and turned into a vital part of our lives. Long hours of talks and explorations about different breeds took us to the ambladores/gaited horses. After a deep research on the world of gaited horses, one day we came across a breed unknown to us. The horses quickly captured our attention — they were extremelly confortable for riding, they were very docile, they were beatifull, they were smart: they were Mangalarga Marchador.

Since then, our passion and commitment for the breed has grown without limits. Thanks to the support of our friends, family, and our children Omega and Constanza, we have been building for the past four years what is today: “Marchadores del Uruguay”.

The first Mangalarga Marchador were brought to Uruguay from Brasil by Andre Millet to his farm in the  northern Department of Tacuarembó (Don Andres Ranch). Andre selected and brought horses from some of the best bloodlines in Brasil. Among the ancestors of Millet´s horses are some of the pillars of the breed in Brazilian, such as Malibu de Santa Terezina, Irapuru Bela Cruz, Charlatao J.G, Catuni Japao and others. Andre passed away soon after he brought the first horses without having the opportunity to develop the breed in Uruguay. Some of the most outstanding horses were acquired by Helmut and Elks  Herzing, who in their farm El Madrigal (Florida), continued with the breeding of Mangalarga Marchadores. By end of 2013 we got in contact with Don Julio and Doña Julia from El Madrigal. After several visits we decided to buy three mares to set the basis of what it would become later Haras Marchadores del Uruguay.

El Madrigal had mares with good bloodlines, but no stallion that would allow them to continue developing the breed inUruguay. For that reason we started to explore the possibility of bringing a stallion or frozen semen from Brazil.

The MM breed has spread all over Brazil. There is a strong presence of Marchadores breeders in the surroundings of Novo Hamburgo (40 Km from Porto Alegre and 500Km from the border with Uruguay). These farms have excelent bloodlines brought from the very best Marchadores Haras in Brasil.  In Abril 2014, contacts were made with owners and managers of several Haras in the Novo Hamburgo area.

Joao Carlos and Marlene Hartz, owners of Porto Palmeira, one of the top Stud farm breeders in Brasil (have been among the top three breeders of the country for several years) were the first to open the doors of their Haras, encouraged us to become breeders and provided full support to take the first steps in this challenging initiative. In the first visit to Porto Palmeira we met Extrato Do Minatto (the main stallion of the Haras) and two of its renowned descendents: Trapiche and Xuvisco.  Riding these garanhoes (stallions in Portugese) was a powerfull experience that showed us that the breed was unique in many ways and triggered even further our fascination and pasion for these special animals.

With the unconditional support of Joao Carlos and the excellent work of Paulinho (the veterinary of Porto Palmeira) we imported semen of Trapiche and Xuvisco. Thanks to the outstanding professional work of Nicolas Cazales and Jorge Estevez from Equus (a top Breeding Center in Uruguay) we were able to successfully inseminate our three best mares. By the end of 2015, our first Marchadores, Avatar, Azar y Atizado were born at the Farm.

As time went by, slowly but surely our dreams started to turn into reality. In early 2017 our biggest dream became a tangible reality. At 1am on the 6th of January, the Magi/Three Wise Men arrived at the Farm (riding a big truck) with one of the most amazing “gift” that a breeder can expect: Atrevido do Porto Palmeira, “descended” from Brasil to become the “father” of a new herd of high quality Marchadores in Uruguay.

This are the first chapters of our story as MM breeders. Stay tunned. We will be writting several chapters more of this fascinating adventure.

Some people say that breeding MM is our hobby, we say that is our LIFE.

And it was with the arrival of Atrevido that something began to shift within us.

Until that moment, our focus had been on the breed, on genetics, on learning how to breed horses. But with the first births at Las Nativas, another question began to emerge… quieter, harder to name.

We started to ask ourselves:
what does it really mean to raise horses in this place?
And what do horses actually need — beyond what we want from them?

Without fully planning it, the horses themselves began to show us the way.

The ones born at Las Nativas grew differently. More free. More connected to each other. More aware of their environment. There was something in them that did not come only from genetics, but from the place… and from the way we were beginning, almost intuitively, to relate to them.

Over time, we understood that what was happening had a name: nativization.

For us, to nativize a horse does not mean making it “wild” again.
Rather, it is about stepping back from interfering with what the horse already knows how to be.

It is about creating the conditions for it to express behaviors, rhythms, and ways of relating that are closer to its nature.

And that also changed us.

We began to observe more and do less.
To intervene only when necessary.
To trust the intelligence of the horse and the wisdom of the system it is part of.

The landscape stopped being a background and became a protagonist.

The horses are born and grow among native forest, water that never dries, diverse pastures, and trails that they themselves gradually create. They live in herds, organize themselves, regulate each other, and teach one another.

We accompany them.

We take care of their health, we hold the management, and at certain moments we enter into a more direct relationship. Especially when each horse, in its own time, seems to “call us” to deepen the bond.

That is where natural horsemanship and the EPICCA approach come in.
Not as a technique, but as a form of dialogue.

Today we feel that breeding Marchadores at Las Nativas is no longer only about breeding a horse breed.

It is part of a living process.
A process that includes us, transforms us, and keeps changing all the time.

Sometimes we experience it as exploration.
Other times, as a delicate balance between doing and not doing.

But above all, we experience it as a continuous learning:
that of returning — together with the horses — to a more essential way of being in the world.