The Spanish Civil war exploded in 1936. Madrid and Toledo were being occupied by the Republicans. The Duke of Veragua was assassinated in his palace alongside his brother and few of his servitors. The stallions were massacred or confiscated : one of them, Razada, was killed while trying to escape. The palace (and all of its content) was destroyed, in particular the records of all his horses. Fortunately, part of Valjuanete’s mares and foals survived. They were finally recovered by the army which would take them to their depository of Moratella in Cordoba

"Guernica"by Picasso

 In 1938, all the breeders in Spain were ordered  by General Franco to hand over all the available horses for military needs.
            At the end of the war, in 1939, all the surviving horses were given back to their owners except from the Duke of Veragua’s horses. The army recovered many of them, especially the stallions Nana Sahid, Kashmir, Sirio III; few mares were sold to private breeders. 

             Only two of the Duke’s mares kept their identification number : Veragua 159 and Veragua 27 ( dam line of Senorita, Brava, Dona d’Aigua,…)                                                                                                          
            The youngstock which records had been destroyed and which identification was impossible were renamed with the prefix VERA in honour to their late breeder.       
            As for the Duke of Veragua’s family, they only recovered few fillies which were sold to the Duke’s niece : the Marquise Avella at the Valjuanete’s stud.

 The end of the Civil War marked an important step in the Spanish Arabian breeding. It would take years to Spain to dress its own wounds. The country was falling into ruins!
        The Yeguada Militar collected all the best stallions who had survived the war and bought some others to private breeders, especially to Luis Ybarra who sold them Soliman, Aboukir, Sherif, Congo

      The army decided to stop importing new blood lines
        From now on, Spain was going to live in isolation for few decades and the Purebred Spanish Arabian will not change in its type. The only important acquisitions during this period were 2 mares given as a present to General Franco by King Abdullah of Jordan in 1949 : Saklauia Yadran (dam of Betonica ,Jacericina) and El Yadidia. Few mares were also imported from Portugal, Germany or the United Kingdom between 1970 and 1980, the stallion Cranleigh Karim was imported from England in 1973

        This isolation of Spain was reinforced few years later by the outbreak of equine plague which cut Spain from the rest of the world and forced breeders to restrict the number of births in order to face inbreeding problems as well as the lack of  opportunities to sell their stock.
        The current challenge for Spain is to introduce new blood lines while preserving what makes the originality of the …

Purebred Spanish Arabian Horse! 

The  Yeguada Militar in Vicos
near Jerez de La Frontera 
( between Séville and Gibraltar) )