A Peruvian passion

By Karen Mitchell Smith

In 1972, under the cover of darkness, Jose Antonio Dapelo V. and six other men crept along the Peruvian coastline to a neighboring ranch where, night after night, they stole a total sixty head of horses and a large number of dairy cattle and premier fighting bulls. Was this a cutthroat band of Peruvian rustlers? Hardly. Prior to 1968, Jose was heralded as one of the wealthiest, most powerful property barons in Peru, owning numerous brick factories, ranches and department stores. He raised the best fighting bulls, at times hosting competitions in his own arena. He owned over 200 head of the most beautiful Peruvian Horses and was a legend in the show arena, performing for dignitaries and heads of state. But in 1968, with the Agrarian Reform in full swing, the government began confiscating property from the wealthy, and in a socialistic attempt to spread the wealth, redistributed it to the poor. By 1972, Jose and his family were left with a mere 15 acres. His two sons, the family chauffeur, their two horse trainers and the ranch manager helped him steal their own herds back.

On a mild December day in Parker County, Texas, I sat at the dining room table of Jose’s youngest son, Luis, nicknamed “Lucho.” Andrea, Lucho’s seven-year-old daughter, and I listened with wonder to this fantastic tale of her family’s lost fortune. Through the plate glass windows lining the entire back of the Dapelo home, I watched maybe twenty Peruvian mares and foals feeding contentedly under the pecan trees that dot the rolling hills of Pecan Valley Ranch. The pastoral setting made a perfect backdrop for the story this fourth-generation horseman related. Judging by the impressive array of outbuildings, horses and homes on the 200 acre property, I knew I was hearing a riches-to-rags-to-riches-again story. I wondered whether I had come here to write the history of an amazingly resilient family or the story of Pecan Valley Ranch. Perhaps the two could not be separated.

I couldn’t get enough of the story. How did the Dapelo family move their horse operation from the ruins of Peruvian agricultural reform to the land of the free, I wanted to know. “I came to the U.S. in 1980,” Lucho told me in his beautifully accented English. Despite a few syntactical quirks, his command of the language is excellent. “My father made a business with three other breeders. They decided to bring horses from Peru to Texas, since this was a new market. The market in California was very full, see. So, where is a good place to go open a market? Texas. A good place to go with horses,” he said.

By 1983, Lucho was managing his father’s business, as well as training horses for his own clients and himself. An amazing accomplishment for a man who only three years earlier could barely speak English. “Hello. How are you? Bathroom. Coke. That was about all I could say. But my father told me, ‘If people want to listen to you, they will listen to you.’” Lucho said.

Jeanelle Anderson, who originally owned Pecan Valley Ranch, 8 miles north of downtown Weatherford, was listening. In 1983, she had purchased a black colt that needed trained. “She thought this horse was gorgeous and everything…,” Lucho began to tell me, but he was quickly interrupted by Jeanelle, now his wife of the past five years. “Oh, Lucho, do you have to go into all that?” she said, laughing. “Just tell it.” Lucho laughed, too, the affection between them obvious in their easy verbal sparring. “OK,” he conceded. “Let’s just say I didn’t agree with the gorgeous part.” Still, Jeanelle saw promise in the high-spirited colt, and since she was already working with Lucho, she asked him to train the horse. Lucho accepted the challenge, and they ended up winning first in halter at the Regional Southwest Peruvian Horse Show in Fort Worth that year.

It was the beginning of a prosperous business partnership, and later romantic partnership, that went on to include a seal-brown stallion that Jeanelle says put Pecan Valley Ranch on the map. “The main breeding started here with Fenix in 1990,” she said, pointing out a lavish painting of the horse hanging over the fireplace. “He was known worldwide. Always in the top ten.” Although Fenix succumbed to colic this year, at age 27, his legend remains. He was the first of the breed to become syndicated, and Peruvian Digest published an article entitled “In Memory of Fenix” to honor the horse. The article stated, “Fenix touched everyone who met him. He was what cowboys call ‘an honest horse’-strong, good tempered, willing, just, proud and full of energy. But he was also an incredibly good Peruvian Horse, with plenty of brio, excellent conformation and superb pisos. These are the traits he passed on to his 237 direct sons and daughters - and his 477 descendents!”

Indeed, many of the Pecan Valley Ranch broodmares are Fenix’daughters, and the ranch still sells his frozen semen. However, no ranch can rest on the laurels of a deceased horse, and Pecan Valley has two other stallions that prosper their breeding business, as well as an up-and-comer that Jeanelle sees as the ranch’s future. Already a champion, two-and-a-half-year-old Ramses has won every show he’s competed in except the 2007 U.S. National Peruvian Horse Show, where he took Reserve Champion. Ramses helped the Dapelos earn Best Breeders at the Deep South Peruvian Horse Show in Jackson, Miss. “He has the nature,” Jeanelle told me later when we stood in Ramses’ corral. “That’s one thing we’re picky about.”

By nature, Jeanelle is referring to qualities judges watch for in the show arena. Peruvians are judged on conformation, smoothness of gait, good temperament, brio (or spirit and willingness) and arrogance. As if on cue, Ramses demonstrated his arrogance and brio, suddenly blazing past me, neck arched, long mane flying, forelegs thrown out in a swimming motion called termino. Around and around in the pen, then stopping right beside me to nuzzle my hair. “He has true brio,” Lucho said, sounding very much like a proud father. “That neck goes to the sky, and he performs!”

He went on to explain that these traits are inbred in Peruvians. Ramses’ sire, Anibal, who is the current senior stallion on the ranch and has blood lines going back to the horses of Lucho’s great-grandfather, is known for passing the desirable qualities to his offspring. Lucho filled me in on the details as he saddled Rejeanador, another of the ranch’s stallions, for a performance demonstration. And saddling a Peruvian is no small feat. Even for everyday workouts, the horses wear all the traditional Peruvian tack, which includes wooden stirrups, an ornately tooled leather tail-piece, a horn-less saddle, and braided harnesses and reins. Finally, with Rejeanador appropriately attired, and Lucho’s Peruvian hat firmly on his head, we ambled down the tree-lined lane to the large outdoor arena. I watched the stallion prance regally with each step. The up and down motion of a western horseback rider was practically non-existent. In fact, these warm-bloods are so gentle and comfortable for riding that The Make a Wish Foundation purchased their first horse for a cancer-stricken child from Pecan Valley Ranch. Child and horse both live happily, and healthily, in Florida.

“These horses are so sure footed,” Jeanelle told me, “that they can go anywhere a llama or alpaca can go. They’re used for field trials in the mountains. And everything about them is completely natural. We don’t shoe or blanket these horses,” she continued. “You aren’t allowed to show them in the arena if they are shod. We also do drug testing before the shows.”

As I listened to Jeanelle extolling the virtues of her beloved breed, I watched the intricate patterns and spins Rejeanador and Lucho performed in the arena for my camera. Their maneuvers were ballet-perfect, horse and rider an integrated unit.

When the show was over, I accompanied Lucho to his tack barn. I counted no less than 21 Peruvian saddles hanging on wall-mounted racks, each with its own ornate set of harnesses and stirrups beneath it. Lucho told me proudly that his family began showing Peruvians in the 1800s, when his great-grandfather immigrated to Peru from Italy. “My family has diplomas and trophies dating back to the 1800s. Back then they gave you real silver and real gold trophies,” he said. Andrea, who had tagged along all day, interjected an impressed “Whoa!” Finding out about her family history had been as much fun for her as for me.

The Dapelo family memorabilia collection also contains historic Peruvian tack, some two centuries old, passed to Lucho by his father, an avid collector of equine equipment. Lucho showed me a two-hundred-year-old pellon, an ornate saddle drape made from braided sheep’s hair, which once was owned by a Peruvian president. He also proudly brought out a how-to book, authored by his father, focusing on the training and national apparel associated with the Peruvian Horse. In the book is a picture of his father performing for the King of Spain, the President of Peru, and First Lady Rosalyn Carter. His father’s impact on the Peruvian Horse breed is so strong, in fact, that the Jose Antonio Dapelo V. Perpetual Trophy honors the Best Gaited Horse of Show at the national level. The Peruvian passion runs deep in Lucho’s blood. True to the family tradition, he judges shows, and he is the First Vice President of the North American Peruvian Horse Association (NAPHA).

“In the future,” he said, “my goal is to be able to bring a mare, a gelding and a stallion out of our own breedings to win the Premio Aficion. That trophy is the most desired for a breeder to win. As a showman, I’d love to win it. And I won’t stop until we do.”

How close are they? “We already have the mare, Doña Luisa. The future stallion is Ramses. We need the gelding. I have a colt I might geld just to get that trophy,” he said, a determined twinkle in his eye.

Doña Luisa won the Triple Championship this year at Las Vegas by taking First in Bozal, Best Bozal Horse of Show and Champion Junior Filly. Her winning record, combined with Ramses’ championships, certainly puts the ranch ever closer to the mark. But even without the most coveted of trophies, Pecan Valley prospers, standing their stallions and selling foals to clients both domestic and worldwide.

With winning bloodlines running deep in the horses and the rancher, it’s easy to believe Lucho will attain his goal. As I stood in the tack room, surrounded by the pungent smell of leather antiquities, I thought about the meaning of brio. Spirit. The willingness of a horse to do what it is supposed to without being told, Jeanelle had said. I thought about four generations with a singular goal-to breed the best-galvanized into the man before me. And I looked at the fifth generation, the little girl who had absorbed her family history like a thirsty flower, opening her eyes to the realities of her past and the possibilities of her future. This must be how it’s done, I thought, how championships are created and passed on. The Jose Antonio Dapelo Perpetual legacy.