About Us
Horse training is something you can never stop learning about. there are so many techniques out there that it can get a bit confusing for the horse. At N.L horse training our philosophy is simple; everything needs to be clear and concise, repetition is essential and reward is the golden rule.
Our Horse Trainer
Nico Leal has been training horses for as long as he can remember. Picking up techniques from other trainers and researching for the horses best interest, he has created his own method which has proven to be incredibly successful. You have to earn the horses respect first.
Nico has played professional polo for many years. In countries such as Dubai, Argentina, UK and Germany. As well as making polo ponies in these countries with a staggering success rate.
The Process
We lunge and do ground work only for the first few weeks, or until the horse is completely in-sync with us. If they trust you from the ground, they will trust you on their backs. A lot of issues can be solved from just groundwork, groundwork, groundwork.
The experience has to be enjoyable. There are too many horses out in the world that have been trained in a way that they are scared into being ridden. If this is the case then will they perform at the best of their ability? Will they enjoy being ridden? We highly doubt that.
We take horses from 2.5 to 6 for training/breaking. Its the owners preference to what age they think they should be broken in. We offer training to the 2.5 year olds in the form of lots of groundwork to establish respect on the ground and then we sit on them, walk and trot. This is so they get used to the weight of the rider. We then advise that they are then turned out until they are 3/3.5.
For the 3yr+ horses we do groundwork and then ridden work. The speed of this is determined by the horse.
We can then start their training in their selected discipline. For polo we start stick and balling and get them used to riding around other horses in a close format, we can play them in chukkas if wanted. For jumping we loose jump and lunge before they have a rider over them.
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