Deb Titone, along with her business partner Patti Firpo, of Coastal Andalusians celebrated a happy birthday on June 13. In fact, they celebrated two of them.
The birthdays were those of two colts born at Renegade Ranch, the home of Coastal Andalusians, in Montara, a small town 20 miles south of San Francisco on the coast.
“What a day that was,” Deb says. “To find out that we had two colts, born just hours apart, was really a gift.”
Coastal Andalusians focuses on breeding high-quality Andalusians from the Escalera and Bocado lines.

Left to right: Feminista’s colt, Corazon, at one week old and Daifa H Daifa H’s colt Desencion. Both colts are out of four time national champion stallion Gitano MOR.

Both colts were sired by Gitano MOR (Corsario IV x Explendida XX), a 2000 black/bay stallion who is out of an Escalera mare. Gitano MOR, who was imported by Herradura Andalusians of Denton, TX, is a four-time national champion. In 2006, Coastal Andalusians had two black-bay fillies born, also out of Gitano MOR.
This year, one colt was born to Daifa H Daifa H (Ascension x Dehesa) and the other to Feminista (Teodoro x Kibla TG). Deb says she will retain one colt for the Coastal Andalusians breeding program but will offer the colt from Feminista for sale.
That colt is a deep chocolate brown with a small white star. “He has chiseled features and has very correct conformation,” Deb says.
The colts joined a filly that was born at the ranch on March 31. The filly, also sired by Gitano MOR, was born to Galena G (Entendido XXII x Hermosa) and has been named Gialina.
“The filly was born big boned, like her daddy Gitano,” Deb says. “She is spectacular. She has charisma and her personality is so true to the Andalusian – so people-oriented.”
“She takes my breath away,” Deb says. “She would really have to go to a special home if she were to be sold. If that does not happen, she will only enhance my breeding program.”

Personality Plus
It was the personality of the Andalusian horse that caused Deb and Patti to begin Coastal Andalusians in 2005.
Patti works as ranch manager and provides natural horsemanship-style training, which helps their youngsters get off to a good start, Deb says.
“There’s a lot of talk about breeding sporthorses but we decided to focus on breeding only purebred Andalusians,” she continues. “We believe that the Andalusian is a natural sporthorse. Given a chance, an Andalusian can do anything you put in front of them.”
“There’s just something special about the Andalusian horse, which was named for the region in Spain where the breed originated,” Deb says. “I have owned Arabians, Thoroughbred crosses and Mustangs. There is nothing like an Andalusian. If there was only one horse I could own, it would be this breed.”
Before Coastal Andalusians was started, Andalusians were not readily available in Northern California, Deb notes. She had to search throughout the United States to purchase the five mares that would become their foundation broodmares.
“I had to travel to three states to find mares of the quality I wanted,” Deb says. “Now, we’ve brought the Andalusian to where the people are.”
Deb and Patti plan to continue focusing on producing athletic Andalusians with willing temperaments, but also hope to concentrate on producing black and dark bay horses with little or no white. So far, all of their five foals are just that.
Only about 10 percent of Andalusians are black but Deb would like to see more blacks be available.
To that end, she and Patti have added Careta, a 9 year old mare who carried the black gene, to their herd. Careta is bred to Herradura Andalusians’ Chulo, a son of Gitano MOR. Chulo is confirmed as having the dominant black gene through DNA testing at UC Davis.
“The hope is that we will have a black foal in 2008,” she says. “I love breeding Andalusians. I am so fortunate to be living my dream. I would love to have other folks live their dreams also.”
It looks like there will be many more happy birthdays to come at Coastal Andalusians.
Contact Coastal Andalusians at 650-728-5448 or visit www.coastalandalusians.com. The web site is expected to debut in early August.