Spanish Grand Prix dressage rider, trainer and breeder Luis Closas Perez has spent all of his life working with horses. His riding career started in his home town, a village close to the city of Madrid and his quest to work with and learn from the best has taken Luis to countries such as Denmark and Germany. Now based in the Netherlands; close to Armhem, Luis runs a dressage stable were where he trains, competes, breeds and sells horses. He says “Our goal always is to try to get the best possible of each horse.”
Within your business you breed, sell and compete, can you share more?
Luis and Freddie working at home
Since the beginning of my career I have always been very interested in all the different phases a horse goes through, from starting to choose a stallion for your mare up to Grand Prix, this is for me the most beautiful part of our work and that’s the reason I decided to start my own company I wanted to be able to do all this things. In order to give the best possible treatment to each horse we try to keep it in a small scale, therefore we only breed around one or two foals a year and sometimes we buy some other foals or young horses on the way. When the horses are old enough we start them here and we slowly start building them up to the highest level and giving them some competition experience. Due to the fact that we do this for a living some of the horses get sold on this way, this is one of the most bittersweet parts of our work, on the one hand nobody likes when one of their most talented horses goes away, but on the other hand it can be quite gratifying help others to find there perfect match. Also, besides that we have horses from clients that come to our stable for sales or training of a certain problem.
How many horses do you ride and what is their training schedule?
I normally ride between 10 and 12 horses a day, depending on the day. About half of this horses are young horses so we normally just ride them around thirty minutes. I normally don´t like to train the horses more than two days in a row in the schooling arena, after that I like to go the forest or do some small jumps/poles in order to keep them fresh in their mind. Off course depending on the age, temperament and level of the horse, the weekly schedule can change one way or the other.
Can you share your dressage journey from the beginning?
My father and I started riding in a local riding school next to my house every Saturday morning in order to do something together in the weekends. At this moment I was just riding some horses from the riding school, so I had no horse or pony of my own. After winning a couple of local dressage competitions although I still kept doing some show jumping I decided that dressage could become my main focus and it was then when my parents decided to lease a small horse for me.
After this I started doing more competitions and taking more lessons which made my interest for dressage became bigger and bigger realising that if I wanted to be around the best I would have to travel to Germany or The Netherlands. Shortly after becoming eighteen I took the step to move out of Spain in order to learn from the best of this sport.
Who have been your most influential mentors?
Luis and Kasper pirouette
Working and living in the Netherlands for more than ten years has giving me the possibility to work and train with some of the best riders in the world. In my opinion I have been lucky enough to work for three stables whose philosophy was always to train horses from zero up to Grand Prix; this has been Johan and Penny Rockx, Bert Rutten and Stal Hexagon. Although all of this stables had a different approach I could recognise a lot of similarities in terms of what they are looking for in a horse and the mentality a good rider must have.
At the moment I have been training for more than five years with Grand Prix rider Harm Dijkstra and we normally train once a week with several horses focusing mainly on the basics of each horse.
What do you love about dressage?
The bond you get with your horse and climbing the way up together.
Can you share some of your highlights?
Spanish team bronze medal juniors, Several times Regional champion in The Netherlands. Several times winner of young horse competitions
Dressage always comes with challenges, what has been your hardest one?
When schooling a horse through the levels you always have challenges, but that’s actually what makes this sport so interesting, each horse is different so you need a different approach, otherwise it would eventually get boring.
What do you think horses have taught you?
Patience.
What is your training philosophy?
Always try to listen what the horse needs.
When looking for a dressage horse with Grand Prix in mind, what should we consider?
I think one of the main things a horse should have is a good character, if they are not willing to do the job for you, it can be quite difficult to get them so far. Of course, you also need three good paces, suppleness and they should be sensitive enough.
What advice can you offer for buying a youngster?
Bloodlines are important, but they don´t say everything about the horse. Try to look at how the horse moves when he is relaxed and also try to see how he is reacting to small aids.
Your Top Tip
Don´t rush with your horses, take time so that they can develop.
What is the best piece of advice that you have ever been given?
With horses less is more.
It takes a team to do dressage, who is in your support team?
I am lucky to have a good team around me, from the dentist, blacksmith, vets, etc to my family that is helping me a lot from Spain and my girlfriend with whom I share most of my days.