My maternal grandfather was a sheep farmer. In summer he used to stay in Pescasseroli, while in winter he used to go to Tavoliere delle Puglie, doing the “ Transhumance” through the “tratturi regi”. In my father’s family, they were farmers and “muleteers” and they used horses for the transport of goods and especially for a particular stone called “Pietra gentile (kind!)”: these were expressions peculiar to the local economy, that have been kept and handed down for thousands of years

My father Gaetano, learned a lot about horses when he was a soldier and in the Sixties’, when tourism peaked in Pescasseroli, he collaborated with the Riding School run by “Earl Santoro”. The Horse Centre operated on the estate of Vallecupa, and during that period, it belonged to the Tudini family who bought it from Sipari family, (founders of the National Park of Abruzzi and exponent of the country’s nobility).