Behind The Scenes At Cavalia, continued.... by Elizabeth
McCall
JUST
SAY AHHH....
The last
thing Mandarin expected in San Francisco was a visit from
the equine dentist, but when Magali Delgado noticed that
the handsome buckskin Lusitano stallion was not eating his
food one recent morning, she quickly deducted that he was
loosing his second baby tooth.
Born on her
parents farm in the the South of France, Mandarin is more
like a child than horse to Magalia and her husband
Frédéric Pignon, the equestrian co-directors for CAVALIA--as
are all their horses. Far from being just an
analogy, Magali actually saves her horses baby
teeth, a tradition she continues from her own
family. The Delgados are Lusitano horse breeders.
Photo by Garry Stauber
"Mandarin
is very special. He has lots of charisma," says
Magali of a fact readily confirmed by CAVALIA
audiences. In an act where Mandarin briefly follows
an acrobat maneuvering across the stage atop a
gigantic ball, the stallion steals the spotlight when he
strikes an inquisitive pose that seems to ask, "What
the heck are you doing up there?"
One of the
younger horses in the show, Mardarin makes only a single
appearance in CAVALIA. "It¹s important for him
to be very confident and very quiet," explains Magali,
who shares a philosophy with Frédéric about working with
horses slowly. But from the looks of this
recently-turned four-year-old, Mandarin is already
enroute to stardom.
Elizabeth
McCall is
CAVALIA's Horse Industry Liason. For general information
on CAVALIA, please contact: Françoise Cabana in Montreal,
Canada at 514-879-9002 Ext: 33, francoise.cabana@cavalia.net |
