30/06/2026
Saca de las Yeguas
Spain’s Five-Hundred-Year-Old Gathering of the Mares
Each June, in the marshlands of southern Spain, a centuries-long ritual unfolds for another year.
Before the heat of high summer settles over Andalusia, local horsemen ride into the wetlands of Doñana to gather the semi-wild Marismeño horses that have lived there for centuries. Mares, foals and young horses emerge from the marshes and begin the journey towards Almonte.
The event is known as the Saca de las Yeguas — the Gathering of the Mares.
At first glance, it looks like a festival. Dust rises beneath hundreds of hooves. Riders guide loose horses through whitewashed streets as families gather to watch a tradition that has endured for more than five hundred years.
But beneath the spectacle lies something older and more profound: a living relationship between horses, people and place.
A Horse Shaped by the Marsh
Doñana National Park lies in Andalusia, where the Guadalquivir River meets the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of Europe’s great wetland ecosystems — a shifting landscape of marshes, lagoons, dunes and scrub, shaped by the rhythms of winter rains and long Mediterranean summers.
Each year, millions of migratory birds pause here on their journeys between Europe and Africa. Endangered lynx slip through the scrublands, imperial eagles patrol overhead, and among the marshes survives the Marismeño, one of Spain’s oldest native horse breeds.
The Marismeño takes its name from the marismas — the marshes that have shaped both the breed and the people who care for it. These are not wild horses in the sense of being ownerless or untouched. They are better understood as semi-wild: owned and managed by local farming and herding families, yet living freely for most of the year, largely separate from human interaction, within one of Europe’s remarkable natural landscapes.
For much of the year, these horses live as horses evolved to live. They move across varied ground in family groups, grazing diverse vegetation as the landscape changes with the seasons. Winter flooding, summer drought, biting insects, changing forage and long daily movements have shaped the Marismeño for centuries.
Like many traditional landrace breeds, its greatest strength is not simply beauty or athletic ability, but resilience.
The Gathering of the Mares
The Saca de las Yeguas is traditionally held each June, with historical records tracing the practice back to 1504. While today’s gathering attracts visitors from across Spain and beyond, its origins remain deeply practical. Once each year, the horses are brought in from the marshes so that the work of stewardship can take place.
The horsemen responsible for the gathering are known as yegüerizos. Their role extends far beyond simply moving horses from one place to another. They know the landscape, the seasonal movements of the herds and, often, the family lines of the mares themselves. For generations, this knowledge has been passed from parent to child.
As the horses pass through the small village of El Rocío on their way to Almonte, they pause before the Hermitage of the Virgin of El Rocío. There, the parish priest traditionally blesses both riders and mares before the procession continues. It is a quiet reminder that, for centuries, these horses have occupied a place not only in the landscape, but also in the cultural and spiritual life of the people who have lived alongside them.
Today, 30 June
Today, the mares are resting in Almonte.
The dust raised by hundreds of hooves has settled over the whitewashed streets, and the work has become quieter. Owners and yegüerizos move among the mares and foals, identifying the year’s youngsters, carrying out the traditional tusa (annual grooming), preparing selected horses for sale and attending to the practical husbandry that is difficult to perform while the horses are dispersed across the vast marshes.
Around them, families gather, conversations continue, and generations of horse knowledge quietly endure. In a few more days, the mares will begin the journey back towards the wetlands of Doñana, where another year of freedom, movement and herd life awaits them.
Gathered, cared for and returned to the marshes that have shaped them for centuries, the Saca de las Yeguas is not merely a roundup.
It is a cycle.
What Can These Horses Teach Us?
For much of the year, the Marismeño lives in family groups, moving across varied terrain in search of forage that changes with the seasons. As winter marshes give way to long, dry Mediterranean summers, the horses move between different parts of the landscape, grazing grasses, forbs and browse wherever conditions are most favourable. Their lives are shaped by landscape, climate and social bonds rather than fixed routines.
Watching these horses, it becomes easier to appreciate how closely the horse evolved alongside movement, seasonal change and life within a herd. The Marismeño is not simply a breed preserved from the past, but a reminder that the environments horses inhabit have always helped shape the horses they become.
A Landscape Worth Protecting
The future of the Marismeño cannot be separated from the future of Doñana itself.
The wetlands face ongoing pressure from drought, changing water availability, agriculture and other human demands. Protecting the breed therefore means more than maintaining a studbook or preserving bloodlines. It means protecting the landscape, the knowledge of the yegüerizos and the annual traditions that have linked people and horses for generations.
A breed is more than genetics.
It is memory, landscape and culture, carried forward together.
Each June, the Marismeño horses emerge from the marshes of Doñana. They pass through dust, ritual, crowds, handling yards and human hands before quietly returning to the wetlands once more.
And in that enduring cycle survives a centuries-old relationship between horses, people and place.
Image: Marismeno horses during the annual Saca de las Yeguas
Image Credit: By simonsimages - P6262773a, CC BY 2.0
