Juan Ramón Figueroa – El Gran Amigo del Gremio

PPF: Good afternoon, Juan Ramon, how are you?
JRF: I’m doing very well and I’m extremely happy because I am where I like to be; at a Paso Fino horse competition.
PPF: Really?
JRF: I am enjoying the competitions watching the guys from Ocala and people from other states who are here to show us what we like.
PPF: Yes, that’s right. And I love finding you here where I always see you. You love this vantage point, don’t you?
JRF: This is one of the best experiences PFHA has offered for our competitions. It is very pretty here and really practical.
PPF: Yes, it is very comfortable for everyone; for humans and horses. Right?
JRF: That’s right.

PPF: Alright, Juan Ramon, well you and I had met up here a few months ago and had this conversation pending.
JRF: Yes, as they say in the cockfighting sport, we had this cock fight pending. It is very nice, yes.

PPF: Well, I greatly appreciate the time and attention you have offered Perfiles del Paso Fino today. And I’d like to ask you to please share your beginnings as a horseman.
JRF: Well, ever since I can remember, I was always with my parents and grandparents. One of them was a cattleman and Father Kundá was a Paso Fino horse trainer, like us. We are from Puerto Rico, from Vieques, Puerto Rico. It is another island next to the island. It’s very nice because many trainers have come from that region. Even though it is a very small area, it has been a boom because we have grown incredibly. Very good trainers have come from there.

PPF: Now, tell me, your brothers, your nephews, your children, your entire family…
JRF: It’s great. The entire family enjoys Paso Fino competitions and at the same time, we make a living from it. My two daughters also rode in competition at one point. I moved to the United States in the effort for them to study here and everything has been very nice. What we had in mind did come to be.

PPF: When you came from Puerto Rico, where did you arrive?
JRF: We arrived to Ocala.
PPF: Oh, you came straight to Ocala.
JRF: Yes, but I used to come here already since 1970 because they would call me to come and ride. Also, how do I say this? They requested my presence at the competitions, and I would also ride. I would always come as a rider and to give equitation classes also.

PPF: Tell me about some of the most memorable horses that you have competed.
JRF: Here in the United States?
PPF: And also in Puerto Rico, everywhere.
JRF: Oh, in Puerto Rico, forget about it. I used to ride for the 3 associations and had up to 14 champions at once throughout all 3 entities at the same time. I used to alternate their competitions to decide which day to take which horse and that way I could keep everybody happy.
PPF: Of course.
JRF: Because, in other words, where I was, I had many clients who wanted me to ride their horse and that meant leaving other clients out. But the Paso Fino horse sport is about unity among us.
PPF: That’s right. And there can be time made for everything.
JRF: That’s exactly how it is.

PPF: So, when you began to ride horses, did you ride Paso Finos or was it mainly Pure Puerto Rican horses?
JRF: Let me tell you a story. When I was young, before training, what I liked was the rodeo. So, I started doing trick riding and also bull riding. At the military base there was a rodeo every year, and I always participated in it. I always did very well, thank God. Before working with Paso Fino, what I enjoyed was working the rodeo. I was a cowboy. I used to dress with a cowboy hat and uniform for competitions, complete with fringe shirts and all. It was very nice.
PPF: That’s so nice. So, how did you get into riding Paso Fino?
JRF: Let me tell you the story. My dad, Father Kundá, my Uncle Cesar, and other uncles on both my parents’ sides come from a long lineage of horse riders. They worked with cattle and with horses and that gave me the framework to start being a part of and loving that sport, to this day.

PPF: Was there ever a point where you were also a breeder?
JRF: Rather, I had several mares in competition. I had Yira Yira and Maringal. Maringal competed here in the US and earned 700 points in 6 months. She was very good. She came from a Colombian mare and a stallion named Anfitrion. Her name was Maringal and nowadays, there are many descendants of that mare. Just yesterday, a filly granddaughter of hers won a competition. She belongs to that new young lady, a woman from the Traverso family.

PPF: How does it feel to have been the trainer of a mare who gave so much future to the Paso Fino industry.
JRF: Oh goodness, that is one of the nicest things God has given me. I am going to tell you a story that is going to make you laugh.
PPF: Tell me!
JRF: There was a mare, a really good mare I had, Yira Yira, who used to win so many competitions. There was another breeder who had another filly that was also very good. We were at a competition once in Vieques, and the owner had already had several drinks. He started saying there was no good competition there for a mare like his. I told him the problem was that my mare had died or else I would be in there throwing his mare out of the ring. But there was another mare, the daughter of Anfitrion I told you about just now, that I used to train since she was young. One day her owner, Calmero, a very famous breeder from Vieques. He was Melba’s father and she was always traveling all around South America visiting horses. So, I went to Calmero and told him someone was offering 300 pesos for Maringal. And he said to me ‘what do you think this is, a goat?’! And, of course, that made us laugh. So, the story is that Efrain Figueroa, president of the association, Tito Valladares, a very important breeder in Puerto Rico who traveled often to South America, Wilo Fuertes, a very prominent horseman in Puerto Rico, were all there drinking. Mr. Valladares and I were talking about my mare having died and he said not to worry about it because he was going to give me that mare, Maringal. She was about 16 months at the time. I took a napkin and got all five of them to sign it, I was perfectly clear, but all of them were drunk! So, I became famous over that napkin in Puerto Rico. It would be nice to find it and publish it.
PPF: So, then he had to fulfill his promise?
JRF: Oh, yes! Well, my mare, Yira Yira, died and a few days later, this one was given to me, and it helped lift me back up. I have always liked to ride my clients’ horses, but I also greatly enjoyed having my own as well. But we laugh a lot when we talk about me being clear of mind and them being drunk out of their minds. That is a great memory. Anyone that I tell that story to always laughs.
PPF: Such nice experiences, right?
JRF: Yes, very nice. Back then, I used to ride so many horses for my clients. I had a farm where I cared for 50 horses at once. I had 4 other trainers working with me. We enjoyed those times so much; this was back in Trujillo Alto. We were at El Chaparral with Mr. Luis Betancourt, who greatly influenced the Paso Fino sport in Puerto Rico.
PPF: You have been able to work alongside so many people in so many areas.
JRF: Many trainers and riders in the rings today stemmed from that location back then.
PPF: Like who?
JRF: When you see these young kids riding today, know that if you support them and promote them, they will eventually become trainers. Nowadays, there are like 8 or 9 riders who were youth riders back then and today are professional trainers of Paso Fino horses.
PPF: Like who, for example, did you see riding as children in equitation who are the professionals of today?
JRF: The Suarez brothers who live here now, they were with me as children.
PPF: That’s who I was thinking. They told me about that too.
JRF: That is such a great experience. And their mother, I always tell her she is like Mother Teresa of Calcutta! You know what I mean? Because she is very sentimental towards us and she is such an avid horsewoman.
PPF: Mrs. Mirna, she sure is!
JRF: Let me share another story with you. Whenever we went to a competition, the three of them would ride in front with me. Mirna would come and say to us, ‘may all go well and may you be with the Lord and the Virgin.’ And I would tell her, ‘Mirna, please, don’t send anyone else in here, nobody else fits!’ And she would scold me, my goodness! She’d tell me this, that, and the other and leave me like a rag on the floor! She was an amazing woman for the sport of the Paso Fino horse in Puerto Rico.
PPF: She really was.
JRF: And seeing her raise those young men, it’s great to see the lengths they have reached here.
PPF: And their own sons as well. Their sons are now riding alongside them.
JRF: Oh, yes! They’re training too… Jorgito and Jaimito. About one month before the national show, I watched Jaimito competing with his father and tears came down my cheeks watching that because I never expected to see the son competing next to his own father. It was a very nice competition and then yesterday it happened again. I saw them. So, now I tell Jorge that I just need to see him alongside Jorgito, because I haven’t seen them both competing together.
PPF: Really? I will send you a picture I have of them together.
JRF: I’m pretty sure they are going to ride together today to give me the pleasure of seeing them in there.
PPF: Aw, that’s so sweet.
JRF: It really is.
PPF: Since you were the one who taught them when they were young, what anecdote can you share about them. Tell us a story, as you say, about something you remember.
JRF: Oh goodness, they had a lot of brio! They needed to always be kept busy, especially Jaime.
PPF: That’s what they told me too!
JRF: Oh, Jaime! Jaime needed to be kept entertained because he was like they say, a hot pepper! But he things that might have been mischievous, but they never hurt anyone. He would do mischievous acts, but they would stay within the family and friends. I had some 50 horses to care for, so there were people from all over. We would get together every month, and the women would make lunch; one would make the beans, the other the rice, and we had great times together. I tell you; those times will never come back. When they were here, we enjoyed them! Those times were very nice.
PPF: Yes, Sir. And always so family oriented. This sport is very family oriented.
JRF: And it’s all about unity! It united the nations; it unites the countryside where we came from. I came from a small town from a humble family in Vieques and slowly but surely, we started to win everyone over.
PPF: I understand.

PPF: How do you feel today knowing that you were one of the founding fathers of the Paso Fino horse in the United States?
JRF: Oh, wow. For me, it has been an honor because we can see now that what we started has turned out so nicely.
PPF: Yes, Sir, that is very true.

PPF: Which do you think has been your greatest sense of satisfaction as a horseman?
JRF: When I moved to the United States, to Ocala, that I brought my daughters to study here. It was something I didn’t have, and I wanted them to have it. They went to school here and after they graduated, I went back to Puerto Rico. If you ask me, the best place to raise your children is here. Kids here have a lot of support. If they need something they can come to you, and you can find out what is wrong and help them. That is very nice because you can see them expressing an interest towards us and in a place that isn’t our home. It helps us to create a friendship, and, to this day, we have been able to make something nice. If you notice, North Americans now care about us, spend time with us, ride with us, and it looks and feels very nice.
PPF: That is so true and it has been thanks to people like you because when you arrived back then…
JRF: Yes, we were some of the first.
PPF: You won their respect.
JRF: Around 1974 or 75, I was already coming to the US to ride and my siblings were already here. It was Cesé, Rufo, and Eduardo. So, when there were competitions, they would sometimes ask me to come and help them to ride their horses. It was always very nice. I think it was in 1984, we went to a show in West Palm Beach and there were some presidents of the United States. I remember Reagan was wearing a cowboy hat, but he was very far away and everywhere you turned they had one of their agents.
PPF: Of course.
JRF: And they wouldn’t let us come near them, so what I would do was salute him from afar by crossing my arms like I always do and showing him my little flag. And he tipped his hat to us, and I remember thinking, ‘look at that, he accepted us.’
PPF: Wow!
JRF: Then, in 1979, we went to Pasadena, California and we won the award of Grand Marshall. We took 3 horses: Papiro, owned by Carmelo Figueroa, Picaflor, owned by Judge Lafitte, and Portaccelli, who belonged to our colleague, Luguito. They gave us a special welcome. It was a very nice experience. When the event was over, it was unbelievably cold. We had taken a few drinks of Don Q to warm ourselves up and when we finished, there were more than 40 children with muscular dystrophy. We were all buzzed and started to take them one by one for a ride on horseback. I would tell their mothers to hold them by the knee and that I would lead the horse. My goodness was that a game-changer. After that, we were invited to all the farms for dances and all that. The next day, we had to leave for Puerto Rico and many of them were crying because they wanted us to stay there. They liked how we took care of their ill children and that our horses were tame. I would just tell them that I would lead them and for them to hold the kids’ legs. Once they started to ride, they didn’t want to dismount! And I was shocked to see them upset! It was a very nice experience.

PPF: What do you think existed back then that is missing now? What do you think has been lost within the Paso Fino industry?
JRF: I think that we need to follow their example, see their sense of friendship, that is very nice. Seeing these young riders competing alongside each other and should be shaking hands. I was called the gentleman of the reins because I was always the type of rider that would congratulate my opponent and even hug him. Nowadays, we don’t see much of that. It should be more…
PPF: Brotherly.
JRF: Right, cordiality…
PPF: Fellowship.
JRF: Yes, fellowship. That is lacking now because I believe that when you partake in a sport, you should work on promoting it, working with it, and being able to raise your kids in this environment because it is very nice. This is an equitation academy in and of itself, and that is one of the nicest things in the world. Some of the most important academies in the United States require their students to ride horseback, so they teach you how to do it there.
PPF: I agree with you.
JRF: This is something that I have enjoyed very much. The best part is that my daughters rode as well. My siblings and I, there are 7 of us, and we all ride. We all have our own profession, but what we do is train horses. I, for one, studied accounting.
PPF: Really?
JRF: I also studied artificial insemination to implant embryos into cows and then with horses. I worked in accounting for about one year and I realized I didn’t like it at all. At least I had the experience of working in something I had studied, but I didn’t like it, in part because you had to be all dressed up and things like that. I worked on a construction project, doing payroll and all that. It was a nice experience, but I knew that I didn’t like it. I went back to horses.
PPF: I feel the same way. I can’t do offices. I don’t like them; I feel trapped in there.
JRF: It boils down to the brio we have in us to be outdoors!
PPF: In the sun! Right!
JRF: We want to promote and experience all this. In an office, you have a chair, a desk, and a pen.
PPF: And then once you get out of work, the day is pretty much over…
JRF: Yes, that’s right. That’s how it goes… but the horse industry has been very nice. With horses, I have helped many people and families, and things like that.

PPF: What is your favorite aspect about a horse?
JRF: To train it well so that people can enjoy riding it, especially for women and children to enjoy a horse without ever getting hurt by it. I have always put great effort into that. If women and children came to ride, they would ride a horse they could handle because it was well tamed. But, sometimes, we had experiences where a child would fall and break an arm or something and that was completely our responsibility. It would be our mistake. So, it is always important to provide a tame horse the rider can enjoy and be safe. When people had accidents, it was usually because they were given angry horses that would rear up and make them fall. If you aren’t trained to handle a horse rearing up, you will fall off.

PPF: What would you say is key to teach a horse to be that tame?
JRF: A horse needs to have a proper training since a young age. If the horse comes to you later, then you apply the same training that you would apply to your wife. Just like when you start that relationship and make her fall in love with you, well, it’s something like that. With a horse, the most beautiful thing is to establish proper communication with the animal, that’s just how it is.
PPF: That was excellent!

PPF: Okay, with that being said, what advice can you offer trainers who are starting out their careers?
JRF: Well, if they are working for someone, the best thing they can do when training their horse is to prepare that horse for the owner. Many times, people will sell horses that have been drugged and then the next day, you have a different horse on your hands. A trainer has to think about all those things and provide a good training for the horse; teach it to be tame and to have manners. Have the rider participate in everything with the horse. Have the horse and the child be part of the same family. For that, the horse has to be well-trained.

PPF: What do you think makes you feel the proudest today about the work you have done?
JRF: I have more or less been able to see the advances in the industry, the kindness among the audience which is always nice to see. And then, we go into the ring for competition, but this part shouldn’t be taken so personally. I mean, nobody should do bad things in there. When you enter the show ring, you should be willing to help one another. One time, I was in a competition at Tropical Park in Miami, and there was an American lady who was riding very well. At one point, I saw her horse reluctant to move forward and I did a reverse with my horse and put it next to hers to help lead her horse onto the rail.
PPF: You led her with your horse.
JRF: I led her with mine when nobody else was doing so. They were probably thinking she would beat them, but I don’t think about that. All I think about is the sport, and unity among all of us.
PPF: That is so nice of you, Juan Ramon. I wish we would see those acts more often.
JRF: There has to always be more amity among all of us because that is the nice thing to do. It is important to provide a good example for the audience as well because sometimes there are people who aren’t always with us, and they might see us do something negative in the show ring and imagine what they are going to think. I’ll give you an example of what happened in Puerto Rico. There was a very famous lawyer in Puerto Rico, he was the director of all the Olympic games. He went to tell one of the most prominent journalists of the time that he was going to leave the horse industry because of all negative acts. So, the journalist said to him, ‘if there isn’t rivalry, there isn’t a sport’ and left him speechless. You know how it is here, you have to be on your toes to respond. That is why the sport lives on. There was nothing left to say because it was the truth.
PPF: I suppose that’s true. But do you feel that in today’s competitions, there is a lot of tension being felt.
JRF: Listen, when you are in the show ring, you need to be focused on your horse and on showing him very nicely so that the spectators can enjoy watching the Paso Fino horse. You can find angry and calm Paso Fino horses, there is everything in there. And you do well based on good education and good manners. I’ve been observing the sport since a few months ago and it was holding back for a while, but now after nationals, it has regained its strength. Now it is always full in here and there are so many horses in competition. Now, it’s time for the trainers, including my own colleagues, to make an effort to give a good example for the horse and for ourselves as Paso Fino horse trainers. There are some trainers out there that say they know it all. I have been in this sport for over 70 years, and I always attend every seminar I can. If there is a younger trainer that is giving a good example, I will follow him. We learn from this every day, and so does the horse. The horse learns alongside you when you are learning from him because you both realize what is happening. There are times that you want to flex a horse and he won’t do it, he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t want to… and that is just how it is. There will come a point where you teach each other how he will turn completely in both directions.
PPF: That’s very true.
JRF: Yes, this is all very nice.
PPF: You’re right about that! There is so much information and so much to learn. Right?
JRF: Yes, that’s right. And there should be a lot of fraternity in the Paso Fino sport.
PPF: And in your case, there is so much to teach.
JRF: Oh, that too! When I was in Puerto Rico, I would help a lot with the seminars and all that. Sometimes, young riders came to meet with us and thought they knew more than the those of us offering the seminar. I’d tell them, ‘well, if you know so much, you stay conducting the seminar and I will go.’
PPF: That’s right.
JRF: They would finally sit still and stop making trouble.

PPF: I see that you are wearing a wristband to be sitting at the VIP tables, but I always find you here in the bleachers. Why is that?
JRF: I like it better here than there because you can observe the horses better from here. All you do down there is focus more on the friendship with the owners more than anything. But I like being up here because I can observe the horse better and all that goes on.

PPF: Alright, Juan Ramon, I appreciate this meeting so much.
JRF: Oh, it was so nice!
PPF: Well, thank you so much. It is an honor for me to have had the opportunity to feature you on Perfiles del Paso Fino and also to call you my friend. It is truly an honor.
JRF: Oh, you make me feel proud to be here with you because if you are in this position, it’s because you know what you are doing. And that is why I have strived so much with you because you know what you are doing.
PPF: Oh, thank you for saying that.
JRF: As I say, you are no lame rooster, you are a fighting cock!
PPF: Oh, what an honor!