Because of what I have perceived as an increased interest in residencies, I have undertaken a trip around the world to check out the home turf of some of the Sims top places to join with your stables. The trip is being sponsored by those lovely ladies at the BTB as they realize how much our readers will enjoy this inside look.

I have to admit that my week in Louisville for the Derby and Oaks last week was like a marathon and I was really beat but how can you possibly reject an invitation from our recognized Hispanic Residency for a trip and party on Cinco de Mayo? So I packed up and grabbed a plane in Louisville and after layovers in Atlanta and Miami, I landed at Arturo Michelena International Airport in lovely Valencia, Venezuela. I grabbed a cab and moved through this charming city and countryside towards the Hipodromo Nacional de Valencia race track.

The Hispano Parlante Residency is relatively new and hasn’t yet picked a spot for their headquarters as their members are spread out across the globe and there is quite a bit of politicking to put the main offices in their county of choice. Whether that ends up to be in Venezuela, Spain, Mexico, Chile or Southwest USA is still to be determined but is joyously argued over many bottles of Spanish Red Wine or very cold Mexican beers. I was in Venezuela to meet with SimHispano the spokesperson and leader of the residency who currently lives in Venezuela. We are meeting in Valencia to visit the track for a day of watching horse racing South American style and enjoying the local flavors and beverages.

We met at a rustic and friendly outdoor café along the Calle de los Cafes in la Viña neighborhood where we enjoyed both the temperate weather and the view of the senoritas while chatting. Although he kept apologizing for his English, I found him easy to understand and his friendliness translated across any language barriers we may have had.

SimHispano “First I want to welcome you in the name of all the Hispano Parlante residency members, we would like to thank you for the opportunity you are giving us to go “Sim unplugged”, and we feel honored to seat with a very distinguish and respected member of the Sim Community. I apologize that our meeting has to be conducted in this local “tasca” but we have not yet decided where we will end up with our headquarters. Right now mainly you can find our offices at certain tracks on certain countries where the “butifarra” and other “fiambres” are allowed to be exported from Rafa’s Bodega in Spain.

He had ordered us both “Butifarra” which is a fantastic grilled white sausage served with white beans and wild mushrooms. We also had a platter of “Fiambres” which was an incredible sampling of local cold cuts and sausages. There was cured Serrano Ham, local cheeses and wonderful “aceitunas and pimientos” (olives and roasted peppers). While we ate, there was a live band playing a sampling of Flamenco, Rumba, Boleros, Tangos, Musica del Cuzco, Cuecas from Chile, Baladas (soft rock) en Español, and on and on. Occasionally, there were beautiful young senoritas that would bet up and dance, swirling their colorful skirts. I could get used to this in a hurry! It was all washed down with “Tintorro” which is a robust Spanish red wine that matched perfectly with our spread of tasty foods. I was truly enjoying myself but finding it hard to get back to the interview!

SimHispano By the way PazJazz, forget about a timed interview. We know when we start, but who knows at what time the interview will be finished. We know you are a family man so you better called your lovely Señora (Lady) and your beautiful bundle of DNA (children) and tell them that you have no idea at what time you’ll go to sleep. Hey, we might end up closing the tasca and then continue the interview at the backstretch in one of Haack’s Barn and maybe finish it after a “siesta” in one of the Hammocks Lukita has at his barns. Our lunch meetings tend to last into the wee hours of the morning.

PazJazz Around mouthfuls of the incredible sausage, I asked him about the residency and the members.

SimHispano He poured more wine in our glasses and told me, “We’re a cosmopolitan group of trainers who run their horses all over the place, even there are sometimes that Otto (Haack) runs his smalerl horses at a dog track. LOL Led (Ledwith) sometimes say there are no a racetrack bad enough for his horses and he ends his horses to a rodeo, we can understand that. I also understand that sometimes Rafa (Zambaygo), uses his slow horses as “rejoneadores” en la “Fiesta Brava” or Bullfighting rings (These are Bullfighters on horseback in the Bull Ring). Paton and Lukita seem to use his slow horses for tours and carriage rides close to the beach in Valparaiso, Chile!”

Regarding the theme, basically what has put us together so far is our language, which is Castillian. Our Message board is not in English. We write in Castillian although sometimes it seems a couple of guys talk in Gibberish, me being one of them and no one can understand us!” He laughed his infectious laugh again and added, “For some members, although they are able to read English sometimes they don’t fully understand what is said in the Message Boards, so a tacit rule is we’ll be able to communicate effectively in Castillian due to web translators don’t capture the essence of the real meaning behind sentences & many times make no sense. Our trainers are located in Spain, Chile, Venezuela & USA so sometimes there are dialect differences between us.

PazJazz – I asked him about how long the Residency had been in existence.

SimHispano– We started out last year around at the beginning of January I believe; Haack and I were in “Las Vegas” for a New Years celebration at the Mandalay Bay and we were talking stuff about our Sim horses, our Sim dreams and we decided to start this business. Who woulda’ thought that after a year we were going to have this effective stats as a residency?

The pretty young waitress brought more of the “Arepas” which is a delicious fried bread made from maize that goes great with the sausages and is really hard to put down!

PazJazz I am really enjoying the food and wine and the surroundings are mesmerizing. Tell me, how many members do you have in Hispano Parlante and do you have any rules about membership?

SimHispano– “We just have 82 stables supporting us at the moment. Most of them, a little more than half, come from two players. Sadly my busy personal life has not allowed me to promote the residency and organize more and better contests. But we have been growing little by little. But again, once my real life stabilizes and I get more free time I’ll work on the residency. Fortunately for me, our members are patient, they are relaxed & they are waiting for me to deliver what we have promised.”

“Regarding rules of numbers of stables, we don’t have a rule, basically you can come and support us with as many stables as you would like although we might have to change this in the near future. One rule that we do have is that your stables must have Hispanic help; at least 50% of your workers must come from Hispanic countries and be able to recite at least fifteen famous soccer players from the 20th century and some famous World Cup goals too!”, He laughed out loud again.

PazJazz– How do you all communicate when you are not having these “all day – all night meetings” at these local restaurants ?

SimHispano– We actually try to have these “meetings” as often as possible but when we aren’t able to, we have our Hispano Parlante Message Board located at Hispano Parlante . We have some lively conversations there at times.

PazJazz– I picked up my glass of red wine and asked SimHispano about contests. “You mentioned contests, do you run those for the residents?”

SimHispano– Yes, we have some now and they are continuing to increase. We had at the beginning of the year, four Stakes races bought that were run in Kentucky and Dubai. We are planning to keep doing this twice a year and maybe choose when credits allow, a day where we can celebrate the horses and trainers of our residency.

We had a Hispano tags contest last year where you had to breed any horse sired by a Hispanic tag sire and you were going to get points according to where that horse placed. On the future we are still grinding on a couple of ideas that will be disclosed once the members are agreed upon.

Actually, we had planned on having a few more contests but Otto bet all the residency’s credits in one race promising his MAMA CON YUCA horse, who is now mysteriously a retired horse, was going to win a claiming track race. Of course his son, O.A. Haack at track 46, was the jockey of MAMA CON YUCA and he “accidentally” lost the whip at the beginning of the stretch losing the race and making the residency almost go into chapter 11. Coincidentally, in the meantime Otto has bought a new house and a brand new car.

We are not planning on betting all of the credits on future races, no matter how much of a “sure thing”! LOL

PazJazz– One of the reasons for these residency trips is that the Equinics is coming up this year. Does Hispano Parlante plan to compete?

SimHispano– “We are very much looking forward on competing on this important event. I know Led and Rafa had already won some Equinics Races in the past and now there will be some new trainers in our residency that are very enthusiastic about this event. We are eagerly looking forward and although we know we are a very small residency we hope that we can get a Gold Medal. We know that in the overall stats is going to be tough for us as we don’t have the depth required to win the event but there’s no doubt that on the spirit of the event we’ll be tough to beat as we are already celebrating our participation by eating and drinking like champs!”, he chuckled.

PazJazz– You’ve mentioned a couple of residency members, are there any that others in the Sim may know?

SimHispano -I think we have a couple of members that are known in the Sim community:

Rafa “Zambaygo” Usoz, whose horses consistently win big races. He is the trainer of 2007 Sim Bluegrass Derby Winner ATAUN and many other graded winners. He always has very good horses with interesting pedigrees. Very effective trainer in very big races.

Otto “Venezolano” Haack, who is leader in win % on the STC contest, and has a bunch of good looking and promising three year olds. He has been playing the game for long time now, seven years I believe. Since last year he has gone wild breeding top pedigrees. Probably his most famous Win came with HIGH OTTO in the $2 Million race at Japan.

Led “Pompeya” Ledwith, he trains all those K’s horses. He is very effective winning Stakes races with old horses and he also has very high win % with FTO in Stakes races. Although he’ll tell you that most of his success is due to “lady luck”. Personally I think there’s some knowledge involved on his wins! K’S ARAKU and PUPPET REGIME are two of his best horses and in my opinion, they don’t get the press they deserve.

PazJazz– I have had a fantastic time here at the tasca. Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers before we head to the track?

SimHispano– Not for the moment. Once I’ll be able to dedicate more time towards our residency, I’ll post in the main Message Board although we welcome interest from new members.

We ate and drank for a while longer and enjoyed the music and watching the dancers. It seems like time just doesn’t matter here and no one pays attention. We later went to some of the races, got together with some other Rez members and had dinner at SimHispano’s house and went out on the town that was lit up with festivals for Cinco de Mayo. I ended up crashing back at this house just as the sun was coming up. It seemed like we were able to wring every possible minute out of Cinco de Mayo!

At one of the places we stopped at during the night, I noticed this Snow Globe on the back bar and offered to purchase it for Roys. They happily gave it to me and how much more local can you get than that?!? I hope that she likes it. I think that the Hispano Parlante Rez is really special and may turn out to be a big thing in the Sim some day. I think I may have to brush up a bit more on my High School Spanish and send a stable or two over there. They sure know how to party! I know that I have made a few amigos that I will cherish. I may have to sleep for a few days now to get over the combination of Derby Days and Cinco de Mayo! See you about Thursday!

Looking forward to seeing you in your little corner of the world!