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Historia
Den argentinska criollon härstammar direkt från de hästar som kom till Sydamerika med Christopher Columbus på hans andra resa år 1493. Hästarna sattes iland i San Domingo och spreds sedan därifrån vidare till Sydamerika, Centralamerika och Mexico. Men den första importen som var av riktigt stor betydelse för Argentinas hästbestånd ägde rum år 1535. Den bestod av hundra andalusiska hingstar och ston samt lättare draghästar vilka emottogs av Buenos Aires grundare Don Pedro Mendoza. Men då staden vid senare tillfälle plundrades av indianer kom dessa hästar lösa. I frihet förökade de sig sedan i en sådan exceptionell omfattning att det femtio år senare fanns tusentals vilda hästar. Det uppges att en del hjordar utgjorts av mer än 20.000 individer.

De extrema vedermödorna av att leva vilda på Pampas med de hårda vintrarna och torkperioder på somrarna har gjort criollon till en av världens mest hårdföra och sundaste hästar med förmåga att tåla stora påfrestningar och ha motståndskraft mot sjukdomar. Indianerna bedrev dessutom jakt på dem.

Nybyggarna började sedermera att fånga in och tämja de bästa hästarna, och det var de som gav rasen namnet "criollos". Hästarna fick bära sina ägare med tunga packningar över de väldiga slätterna och klättra igenom passen genom bergen Anderna. De tuffa arbetsuppgifterna bidrog ytterligare till att göra rasen härdig och uthållig.
Under 1800-talet importerades hingstar från Europa och Förenta Staterna och rasen höll på att ödeläggas genom omdömeslösa korsningar. Avkommorna blev visserligen snabbare och elegantare, men de förlorade de nödvändiga motståndskrafterna mot foderbrist och sjukdomar.

I början av 1900-talet sammanslöt sig argentinska uppfödare för att återigen bygga upp rasen. De började med en sträng selektiv avel av de bästa exemplaren och återbringade efterhand rasen. År 1918 bildades en avelsförening och den ser till att stambokföra de hästar som är berättigade till det i den argentinska statens stambok.
Exteriör
Criollon har en mankhöjd av 142 till 155 cm. Förekommande färger är black, brun, fux, isabell, skimmel och ibland skäck. Vita tecken är vanliga.

Criollon är kanske inte en så särskilt vacker häst, men den har andra kvalifikationer med sin kraftiga benstomme, utomordentligt starka leder och förträffliga hovar som sällan drabbas av skador eller sjukdomar.
Huvudet är i mitt tycke något stort. Det har en rak eller något konvex profil, brett ansikte, kort avsmalnande mule, små spetsiga öron samt livliga ögon. Halsen är medellång och rejält byggd. Manken är välmarkerad, ryggen rak och bred, länderna kraftiga, flankerna rundade i formen, svansen väl ansatt, bröstkorgen muskulös, djupt bröst, revbenen är rundformade samt bogarna långa och sluttande.
Benen är relativt korta med välutvecklade leder. Hovarna är hårda och välformade.

Criollos i andra länder
Criollo har avkomlingar i andra länder. Dessa criollovarianter står att läsa om under egna rubriker: caballo chileno (Chile). campolinon (Brasilien), chola (Peru), costenon (Peru). crioulo (Brasilien), llaneron (Venezuela), mangalarga (Brasilien) samt morochuco (Peru).

Användningsområden
Criollon är, som redan framhållits, en mycket uthållig häst. I tävlingssammanhang används den således med fördel som långdistanshäst. De argentinska uppfödarna arrangerar uthållighetstävlingar över mycket långa distanser på upp mot 60 mil vilka skall ridas på endast 14 dagar med tung packning och utan fodertillskott eller extra vatten. Hästarna får således under tävlingen visa sin förmåga att klara sig enbart på vad den finner i naturen.

Criollon har också gjort sig känd som en framstående poloponny världen över. De bästa poloponnyerna brukar vara criollos med inslag av fullblod i.

Länk till deras stambok/avelsförening

The Criollo (in Spanish), or Crioulo (in Portuguese), is the native horse of Argentina (1918), Uruguay (1923), Brazil (1932) and Paraguay. It may have the best endurance of any horse breed in the world next to the Arabian. In fact, due to the crioulo's low basal metabolism, it may be a better long-distance horse than the Arabian in prolonged races over a week in duration with no supplemental feed. The breed is most popular in its home country, and is known for its hardiness and stamina.
The word criollo originally referred to human and animals of purebred Spanish ancestry that were born in the Americas, or, in Portuguese crioulo, to animals or slaves born in the Americas. With time, the significance of the word would simply come to mean native breeds of the Americas.

Breed Characteristics
The criollo is a hardy horse with a brawny and strong body. They have short, strong legs with good bone, resistant joints, low-set hocks, and sound, hard feet. The long-muzzled head is medium- to large-sized and has a straight or slightly convex profile with wide-set eyes. The croup is sloping and the haunches well-muscled, the back short with a strong loin. They have sloping, strong shoulders with muscular necks. The body is deep with a broad chest and well-sprung ribs.

The criollo is tractable, intelligent, willing, and sensible. Criollo horses average 14.3 hands high. The maximum height for stallions and geldings is 15 hands high and the minimum height is 14 hands high.The maximum and minimum heights for mares are 2 cm less (approximately one inch). The line-backed dun is the most popular color, but the breed may also come in bay, brown, black, chestnut, grulla, buckskin, palomino, blue or strawberry roan, gray and overo colors.
The breed is famous for their endurance capabilities and ability to live in harsh conditions, as their homeland has both extreme heat and cold weather. They are frugal eaters, thriving on little grass. They have good resistance to disease and are long-lived.

Breed history
The breed dates back to a 1535 shipment of 100 Pure Bred Spaniards - Andalusian stallions coming from Cadiz, Spain, to the Rio de la Plata imported by Buenos Aires founder, Pedro de Mendoza.

Criollo horse with winter coat (Strawberry roan) in a Rescue Center in Toscana (Italy)

 

In 1540, Indian hostility forced the Spaniards to abandon Buenos Aires and between 12 and 45 surviving horses were set loose. When Buenos Aires was resettled in 1580, it is estimated that the feral horse population numbered around 12,000. Since it largely reproduced in the wild, the criollo developed into an extremely hardy horse that was able to survive the extreme heat and cold, subsist with little water, and live off the dry grasses of the area. Settlers later came and started capturing horses for riding and for use as pack animals. The Native Americans had already been doing that many years before.

Throughout the 19th century a large proportion of the horses were crossed with imported European Thoroughbred, coach and draft horse stallions and a larger, coarser, long striding multi-purpose cart and saddle horse resulted. However, the crossbreeding nearly ruined the native Spanish horse type. In 1918, the Argentine breeders decided to create a purebred criollos registry. The breeder's association was formed in 1923. Much infighting occurred between the bands of Emilio Solanet and Enrique Crotto as the first promoted the Asian type crioulo and the latter the taller African type with a coarse convex head, fallen croup and thinner mane and tail.

It was not until 1934, that Dr. Solanet was able to firmly take control of the breeders association and set a new goal for the breed as a shorter more compact stock horse which emulated the Chilean Horse breed he so much admired. In 1938, 70% of the registered crioulos were culled because they did not possess the phenotype aspired by Dr. Solanet and his followers. The new breed standard which he had written in 1928 was finally made available to the public now that he was assured the breeders were more united in their breed objectives. It would not be until 1957 that the registry was closed for Argentine native breeds but the registry has remained open for the Chilean Horse breed that has been so influential in giving shape to the crioulo as a better stock horse. Nevertheless, the breed maintains its own identity in a taller, leggier and squarer body conformation with a more angular hock that gives it the long stride it requires to cover the great distances in the flat Argentine plains (known as "pampas"). The modern crioulo head prefers with a straight facial profile and a shorter muzzle and longer ears than is typical in the Chilean Horse breed.
The breeders implemented rigorous endurance tests to help evaluate horses for breeding. In these events known as "La Marcha" the horses ride over a 750 km (466 mi) course to be completed in a 75-hour split in 14 days. No supplemental feed is allowed: the horses may only eat the grass at the side of the road. At the end of the day, a veterinarian checks the horses. The horses are required to carry heavy loads of 245 lb (110 kg) on their backs.
Today, the horse is used mainly as a working cow horse, but is also a pleasure and trail horse and has contributed a great deal to the Argentine polo pony (criollo/Thoroughbred crosses make excellent polo ponies). They are also excellent rodeo and endurance horses. The national rodeo competition is known as "paleteada" and it involves a paired team of horses and riders that approach a steer from both sides at a full run. The steer is sandwiched in between the two horses that lean into the bovine, practically carrying it down a 60 m long delineated path which the horses must not step out of during the defined trajectory. It is an amazing demonstration of control that can literally pick up a steer and place it wherever it needs to be.

 

Crioulo horse in a Rescue Center in Toscana (Italy)

 

One example of the breed's fantastic endurance was the ride made by the Swiss-born Argentine rider Professor Aimé Félix Tschiffely (1894-1954) in 1925-28. Tschiffely took two crioulos, 16-year-old Mancha and 15-year-old Gato, on a 13,350 mile (21,500 km) trek from Buenos Aires to Washington D.C., crossing snow-capped mountains, the world's driest desert, the thickest tropical jungles and riding in all types of weather. Alternating the riding and packing between the two horses, the trio took three years to finish the trip. Although Prof. Tschiffely went through many hardships on the trip including a bout of malaria, the horses did wonderfully in the wide array of extreme topographies and climates. Gato lived to be 36, Mancha lived to be 40, living out the last years of their lives as celebrities in La estancia El Cardal (El Cardal Ranch), the breeding establishment of the man most credited for developing of the crioulo breed, Dr. Emilio Solanet.

In 1987, Jorge Saenz Rosas, owner of the Argentine Estancia Cristiano Muerto, offered his criollo Sufridor to the American Louis Bruhnke and the Russian/French Vladimir Fissenko for a horseback ride from the Beagle Channel in Tierra del Fuego to the shores of the Arctic Ocean in Deadhorse, Alaska. After traveling for five and a half years, the ride was accomplished in the summer of 1993. Having made the entire journey, the Criollo Sufridor is likely the horse that has traveled the furthest in a single dirrection. The ride was chronicled in the book "Sufridor," Emece 2000, written by Louis Bruhnke.

 

All text from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criollo_(horse)