Sylvain Massa's Brood Farm in South of France Flooded

Breeding

France

The renowned Lusitano and Luso-warmblood breeding farm of Sylvain Massa in the south of France has been flooded by torrential downpours.

On 20 October a torrential downpour of rain caused the lock of the Durance canal to overflow. It triggered terrible floods in the areas between Salon-de-Provence and la Crau in the South of France where "Elevage Massa" is located.

Entire Estate Flooded

"Unfortunately, our farm is on the natural path of discharging these waters," Massa explained. "Hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of water are still flowing and at this hour the water is still rising (d.d 22 October). In the boxes, in the houses, on the roads, in the pastures, everywhere."

Massa has two locations in France: the dressage stable in Les Arcs and the rearing station in Saint Martin de Crau. The latter has been struck by the flooding.

"You can't even spot the fence pickets or the water bins anymore. Nothing left," the team at the brood farm stated. "Batteries are drowned, hay is soaked, horses in the stables have their feet in the water. We do everything we can to keep their comfort and safety, but flooded roads are now making it impossible for trucks to pass to evacuate them.
Luckily we were able to get the ranch horses safely in the less affected pastures to avoid any accidents."

Climate change has affected the South of France severely with extreme weather beating down on the area, with either heat, draught, severe winds or rain. Massa said," "not that long ago we already had a terrible storm that destroyed our trees, fences and part of our facilities."

Elevage Massa

The French born Sylvain Massa made his fortune in the family automotive and tyre business. He sold the tyre company to Continental in 2014. Sylvain also developed the Font du Broc wine estate in Provence and with his wife and business partner, Anne-Sophie de la Gatinais, they run Elevage Massa.

At his large scale breeding operation numerous famous Grand Prix horses were bred and reared, including Santurion de Massa (Daniel Pinto), Come Back de Massa (Denielle Gallagher), Jedai de Massa (Wim Verwimp), Addict de Massa (Anna Kaprzak), Jojoba de Massa (Sabine Schut-Kery), Ultrablue de Massa (Arnaud Serre), Carpe Diem de Massa (Micah Deligdish), L'Espoir de Massa (Victoria Max-Theurer), Jibraltar and Vistoso de Massa (Anne Sophie Serre), and youth rider horses Vagabond de Massa (Isla Sully) and Caporal de Massa (Mathilde Juglaret, Mette Dahl), amongst many others.