About Helene Richards

Helene Richards started what later would be her career at the age of 5. She saw a girl on a horse while in the car with her parents and immediately knew that was her calling.

She was lucky enough to have parents who would shuttle her around to lessons a few times a week. This went on for a few years, until she was old enough to half-lease her first horse, after which she moved up to a full lease. It was at this time, around the age of 12 that she started wanting her own horse and told her parents she would have her own training barn one day.

Another couple of years of begging went by until her wish was granted, and Helene was given a Welsh/Arab stallion of 11 months old. She trained him from the ground up; ground driving, lunging, a lot of ground work and started him under saddle, as well as trained him to drive a sulky (used for trotting races which are very popular in Norway).

She also attended in-hand stallion shows with Chess Allegro and placed in the top 3 in the first competition.

She continued to train him both as a show jumper and dressage horse, as well as having others come to her with their “problem horses”. She quickly knew that this was going to become a career. She spent all her time at the stable. Even her home work was done sitting in the window sill in her horse’s stall.

She trained out of a stable where she gave lessons and trained show jumpers up to a Grand Prix level.

At the age of 25 or so she was offered a job at the then Olympic rider for Belgium Ludo Phillipaerts but decided to go to the US to pursue her dream of owning a training barn (as well as stunt work/film).

Helene continued to train with some very high end German dressage trainers, as well as Swedish Grand Prix dressage trainers in Los Angeles, where she also did sales/purchases for clients from training level to Olympic level , having connections with Olympians such as John and Michael Whitaker, Paul Schockemohle, Franke Sloothaak, Nelson and Rodrigo Pessoa and many more before moving to Idaho and purchasing a 10 acre commercial facility where she did boarding, training (starting young horses, dressage training, desensitizing horses), lessons, sales/consignments, seminars/clinics both on-site and off-site.

The competition aspect was put on hold as she ran the facility by herself.

Helene has permission from the Norwegian Equestrian Federation to compete for Norway in International competitions.

She also started a breeding program with a Polish Arab mare and also owned other stallions for breeding.

Helene has studied the “language” of horse her whole life and firmly believes in a lot of ground work and bonding with the horse and developing trust before ever getting on a horse.

She never pushes a horse beyond its mental or physical ability and the horse’s welfare is always of utmost importance.

Helene is now training out of Allegro Farms in Agua Dulce.

Here she is now focusing on training youngsters, as well as finishing dressage horses, rescuing horses, and developing a new breeding program with her newly acquired Andalusian stallion Da Vinci.