JORGE MARTINS PEREIRA

PROTEGEE OF NUNA OLIVIERA FOR MANY YEARS

Jorge is a Grand Prix rider and Portuguese Horse Master who regularly conducts clinics in the United Kingdom, U.S.A, Germany, etc. Jorge also prepares both horses and riders to achieve Prix St George and Grand Prix level and finds and sells horses all over the world for his clients..

His equestrian C.V. is very briefly as follows:

1980 – 1984: Member of the Portuguese School of Equestrian Art.
1984 – 1987: Horseman in the Academie Equestre de Guyenne.
1988 – Certified as a horse-mounted bull fighter.
1989 – 1991: Manager of the Equestrian Centre Quinta da Fonte Sants.
1990 – 1998: Technical Director of the Picadeiro da Quinta da Horte.
1998 – Present: Owner / Director of Centro Hipico a Cavalo where he starts, trains and works horses mainly in Classical Dressage and general equitation.
2004 – Qualified for Olympic Dressage for Portugal including his protégé Hugo has also qualified. Jorge is currently competing on the Sunshine circuit and consistently finishes up in the top 5

Classical Riding Tuition in Portugal

When one thinks of dressage training in Europe countries such as Germany and Holland automatically spring to mind. Rarely, if ever, does one seriously consider Portugal, and this is an immense loss to the horse world because Portugal, with its strong tradition of classical horsemanship and court riding, today has a depth and breadth of horsemanship that would leave many people agape.

With the exception of Vienna, Portugal is probably the only country where the concept of court riding has been upheld from its sixteenth century origins: where young men are brought up to consider and pursue equitation as an art form. Anyone fortunate enough to have seen the Portuguese School of Equestrian Art will bear this out.

Maybe it’s because Portugal is not a player on the world dressage scene. Maybe it’s because the country’s indigenous horse, the Lusitano, is not a fashionable dressage horse, Maybe it’s because people wrongly view Portugal in a similar manner to neighboring Spain and notions of bullfighting and harshness arise. Or maybe it’s because those that have discovered Portugal are so overwhelmed by what they have uncovered that they hold the secret to themselves wanting to shout it from the rooftops yet dreading the day when the world at large finds out.

The average British rider would be amazed to see a typical, Saturday morning, riding lesson in Portugal stallions working in a line, shoulder-in, traver, half-pass, piaffe being undertaken, side-by-side, by the students. Movements considered as advanced in England are bread and butter over there. Emphasis is on correctness and suppleness with the horses rounded, forward going and in front of the leg. Compare that to an average lesson in the U.K. where you can be worn into the ground trying to cajole your mount to canter to the rear of the ride!

But the good news is that training in Portugal can be for everyone and it is possible to be taught by the best men such as Jorge Pereira, a former rider of the Portuguese School, now training horses for competitive dressage. Francisco Bessa de Carvalho, senior rider with the Portuguese School, ento Castelhano, leading exponent of traditional Portuguese equitation and leading rider at the 1998 Lisbon show. Men whose life’s work is based on classical principles yet who remain aware of what is required in competitive dressage. And the message that comes through from them time after time is “the basics must be correct”.

Jorge Pereira

Jorge has a significant following in England where he comes over three to four times a year to give clinics. I first met him in 1994 during a trip to the annual horse fair at Golega when a party of us was invited to the home of Snr, Henrique Abecassis, a friend of our host and a breeder of Lusitanos. Jorge at that time was Henrique’s trainer.

What struck me immediately, apart from his good English, was his ready smile and relaxed manner despite being descended upon by upwards of 15 strangers. My second impression was the way he related to the stallions and they to him: the mutual respect was obvious. Lastly, and as the afternoon wore on, I became aware of the unspoken yet innate pride this man had in his horses and his work.

For our benefit Jorge worked a number of Henrique’s horses and the chatter died to the point where you could have heard a pin drop. There was a quality and stillness that one usually associates with Kottas or Klimke and he appeared motionless except for his face which was constantly smiling. Hands and legs seemed not to move yet the horse was supple, rounded and happy. Hardly surprising as Jorge, I later discovered, is himself a former rider of the Portuguese School of Equestrian Art.

His last ride of the morning was an eight year old stallion. After completing his work (which included halfpass, piaffe, passage and tempi changes) he offered the horse to members of our party to ride. It was at this point that his diplomacy came to the fore for not once did he show his bemusement or disbelief despite being presented with various degrees of the English hunting seat and overuse of hands and legs time and time again. Instead he worked tirelessly on people he never thought to see again to improve them sufficiently enough to get something from their time with this Lusitano horse.

A year or so later Jorge moved to his own training center and he welcomed dedicated riders to Portugal to train with him. It is now three years that I have been coordinating his diary and helping people to go and in that time my respect for Jorge and his ability as a trainer has increased twenty-fold. My great pleasure is in hearing time and time again “why don’t we have facilities like that over here?” and “I learnt more in five days than I’ve learnt in the last five years”. Hen I know that Portugal’s magic spell has been cast yet again.

Published by Field Galleries – the web site of Equine Artist Sue Wingate MA RCA