Our Team

By the age of 11 Claudiu had joined the Steaua Bucurest Club where he went on to represent the branch on all the important national competitions with a great success. This was the beginning of a long and successful career as a rider and a trainer / coach.

Claudiu is fascinated by and passionate about horses – he is inspired by the great riders he has trained with and has competed against over years. Claudiu holds many Grand Prix titles, on national and international plan among them 8 of 5* Grand Prix medals and a participation to a World Cup Finals in Gotteburgh in 1993. 

Over the years he has found himself in many different situations and yards.  He has successfully competed in most disciplines and on a wide variety of different breeds and types. His flexibility has been and still is, a great strength, and because of this wide ranging background he now finds his skills are sought after by a wide ranging clientele.  He enjoys the challenge of teaching people from all sorts of walks of life, at all different levels and on a wide variety of types of horses.  

He coaches riders from Pony Club to Grand Prix.  He is as happy to get a hairy cob moving forwards and freely as he is to get an advanced jumping horse to perfect his style.

Claudiu is very rider focused:  as a rider, trainer and a course designer he is used to looking at the rider from all three angles.  He has great empathy with riders and understands how one rider can easily perfect a movement where another one will find it extremely difficult to execute. Claudiu will concentrate on bringing out the best an individual rider can offer not drill them with exercises which ‘should be good for them’.

He is equally horse focused: as a rider, trainer and course designer he is also used to looking at horses from many different perspectives.  He has worked with so many different types and breeds over the years that he has great insight into an individual horses’ capability; which buttons to push; how much to expect from them according to their age and experience; and when to reward them for doing their best.

How would you sum up Claudiu?  He is approachable, flexible, fun, competitive, enthusiastic, dedicated -  he wants to see a result and will make every effort to get it.  He wants to achieve high quality work – it does not have to be high school movements – it just has to be correct.  If both horse and rider are smiling at the end of the lesson he knows he has achieved