Gareth Hughes
I spent most of my childhood in Australia competing mainly in showing & western riding. At the age of 23, I had the opportunity to return to England & was offered a my first job as a rider at Paradise Farm. I arrived wearing jeans, western boots with my chaps slung over my shoulder, amazingly I got the job, they must have thought they were hiring a cowboy. It was an amazing opportunity to ride superb horses, if anyone told me that 10 years later I would be living there I would never have believed them. The job was for six months and as I left I never thought that I'd see Paradise Farm again!
I then moved back to the north of England and worked on a freelance basis.In that time I did everything from showing Arabian Horses (my entry into horses in Australia was showing Arabians) to teaching western as well as getting involved in the Dressage world.
In 1999 I was offered a ride and in need of a place to keep the horse, I got in touch with Stephen Clarke.
From that point on Stephen has been one of the biggest influences in my career. He has been a great support and been a huge help in his advice and training.
The next step was for me to venture out on my own and rent a yard. This came about in 2001. I was based on a great yard owned by the Bell family in Cheshire. In the 3 years I was there I slowly started to develop a small group of competition horses and started to get some great results including half a dozen National titles.
At the end of 2004 a move to Aspen Grove came about (you can read how that started on Aspen's "our History page").
I have been very lucky to have had and still do have the opportunity to ride some great horses and meet lots of great people.
I am living my Dream.
