Eva's horses are the Colonial Spanish Barb horse. They were the noble and courageous war horse of the Berbers of North Africa and later the Spanish Conquistadors. They were favored by royal courts throughout Europe. The Spanish Barb shares a direct linage to the horse traditions of Spain and to Mexico’s Haciendos and Vaquero traditions. The Barbs' compact size, their great lung capacity, and agileness on the rocks made them the perfect companion for long distant explorations into the unknown frontier. Eva's strain of the Spanish Barb came in 1687 with the Jesuit missionary Eusebio Kino, "The Padre on Horseback." Kino rode over 50,000 miles exploring, mapping and saving souls, establishing a network of twenty four missions and ranches in the northern frontier of New Spain, now the borderlands of Mexico and the southwestern United States.

Security never came later in life for Eva or the horses with the sale of the ranch to the Nature Conservancy. Eva’s rock ponies, were endangered again slated for removal or slaughter. Synchronicity, a chance of fate, it just so happened wildlife biologist Steve Dobrott, had just finished reading Eva’s book. Dobrott wondered if the horses were related to the horses of Padre Kino. Calls and tests were made. Dr. Phillip Sponenberg,

DVM, Ph.D. confirmed the rare genetics of the Wilbur Cruce horse strain as “critically endangered” by the Livestock Breeds Conservancy. The genetics of the Colonial Spanish Barb horses is one of the rare strains scientifically verified to be of the

direct descendants of the very first horses reintroduced to America and of Padre Kino’s breeding stock. Eleven thousand years ago the vast wild horse herds disappeared from the continents of North and South America. Presently a 2014 census registers just more than 150 Spanish Barbs in the world. The Wilbur Cruce horses were saved by the miracle of Eva’s stories.