All That Remains
(Originally Published in Barcelona Metropolitan, August 2007)
One would expect that travelling by horse-drawn carriage in Barcelona should instill intimations of a bygone era, when the din of traffic consisted of nothing more than the gentle clop-clopping of thousands of horses along cobbled streets. But even while gazing into the swaying croups and swishing broomtails of two chestnut stallions, the nuances of such intimations were dispelled by the heavy roar of automobiles as Miguel Cuenca swung a Victoria carriage slowly out onto Avinguda Parallel and crawled along.
Impervious to the irritation of drivers who pulled out from behind and raced past, he tapped the horses with his whip, which was less like a whip and more like a fishing pole with a thin leather strap on the end. Miguel, in a dark cashmere sweater and plaid English riding cap, called out “’Taño. ’Tañooo.” He was talking to “Castaño,” a 7 year old Breton who was misbehaving in some way indiscernible to the uninitiated. Miguel squinted his entire face –in an apparent effort to prevent his large glasses from falling off. A balled-up wad of cotton was wedged in his left ear and he had to turn his head in order to absorb questions through a single, tiny hearing aid. “He’s very restless, young. I call his name to wake him up. The other one –his name is Guapo—is about 15 years old. I don’t have to remind him.”
Miguel spoke in the sing-song voice of Andalucía, ending most sentences on a high note, as if counting off a list. “Horses are never happy working. It’s better for them when they’re eating. These are poor horses; they have to work. You know what a rich horse is? I’ll tell you. A rich horse is one who eats without working. He doesn’t even know his own name, that’s how foolish he is. If I see a poor horse, and I have a bonbon, I give it to him. But not to a rich horse. He doesn’t deserve it.” At that moment Castaño halted, followed immediately by his co-worker, Guapo. Again, Miguel saw something not quite obvious. “Vamo’. Pish, pishhhh. Pishhhh, ‘Tañooo.” Just then Castaño blasted the asphalt with a stream of urine that sounded like a string of firecrackers. Nearly two minutes later, when the horse had finished, the carriage began to move forward again. Miguel touched him gently with the whip. “Anda que es guapo. Anda que guapo.”
At the turn of the last century, traffic in Barcelona was primarily a horse-drawn affair, much as it had been for nearly two thousand years. Heavy goods and trams, private carriages, stage coaches from the outlying pueblos, all moved by horse –as did the taxis like the Victoria that Manuel maneuvered down Montjuic to the foot of the Ramblas. According to the Barcelona Register of 1908, there were nearly 13,000 registered private and industrial vehicles. And Professor Enric Ucelay de Cal, of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, cites sources from 1921 (the earliest extant census) that counted 34,583 horses plus almost 27,000 mules and asses –this being at a time when automobiles had already begun to replace draft animals. That industry has long since evaporated away and all that remains is the concession (Andres Pujadas, S.C.P.) that Manuel works for. The owner of that concession, Alejandro Pujadas, comes from a long-lineage of draymen that traces back to his grandfather’s grandfather.
“It’s a family business. We’ve always had carriages and horses. They used to transport rubble from all the construction. By my grandfather’s time, 90% of the business was funerary, until such things were replaced by automobiles. Eventually he was reduced to a branch of the business in Sants with one coach and 4 or 6 horses. In Sants, there used to be a ton of stables. But by then he was the only one left. He got by little by little, doing things like Spaghetti Westerns in the ‘60s. When he died, I took over the business. We had to close off the street to let the horses run; so, I went to the Ayuntamiento to see what we could do. They gave us the concession to be here.”
“Here” is up in Montjuic, behind the Poble Espanyol on Avinguda Montanyans, where Alejandro, his three employees and 15 horses have co-existed alongside a riding school, the Escuela Municipal Hípica de Puigcerdà, for the past four years.
It’s a strange thing about people who work with horses: The activity seems to breed barrel-chested men with skinny legs while women tend to become statuesque below a thin waist. Such were the people who groomed and fed their horses while Alejandro explained his business. The men wore flannel and blue jeans; the women sported high, tight boots and riding trousers. Held by a halter in one of the two riding rings, a black stallion galloped in circles as children bobbed atop ponies toward a nearby pond. “This is one of the best places in Barcelona. We’re close to the center, and yet, when you’re here, you don’t know if you’re in the city or out in the country. It’s like being apart from the world. When I have an errand –like going to the bank or something—it’s a real sacrifice.” Yet, despite such satisfaction for his environment, Alejandro admitted that the work is difficult. “The horses don’t understand holidays or vacations, whether it’s day or night. You have to feed them every day. If they’re ill, you have to take care of them. It’s hard. Don’t doubt that they will get a colic the moment you’re about to leave the stable.”
Alejandro’s wife, Dorota Yagodzinska, a Polish emigré, concurred. She works for the Escuela Hípica. “A horse is a living creature that can’t take care of itself, because it’s locked up in a box for 23 hours a day. I come here at eight in the morning, have a half hour to eat, and go home at about 10pm. Monday through Monday. If I have a day off, it’s maybe for an afternoon. But for some reason, I love it.”
Aside from the four coaches that Alejandro sends out to carry tourists, he also provides all the horses used in Christmas cavalgatas, weddings and films. When Perfume was filmed here, for example, all the horses used were provided by him. “Every part of our business is essential. We can’t stop carrying tourists, we can’t stop doing films, we can’t stop doing weddings.”
It definitely appears to be for love and not money that Alejandro, his wife and employees are attracted to their profession. As Miguel said while cutting through heavy traffic into the left lane, circling around the Estatua de Colón, “You won’t get rich working with horses. My father and brother had seven or eight coaches, and they never got rich. We used to say, ‘In this business you eat what you earn.’” He pulled to a halt at the foot of the Rambla. The elder Guapo stood splayfooted while Castaño crossed his back legs like a young ballerina awaiting her number. Miguel climbed down from the carriage and began to beat the dust off his vehicle.
“Now, I’ll just wait here until the fig falls.”