Being a relative novice to the horse world - I started riding about six years ago - and having access to these amazing Costarricenses de Paso has been such a gift!

These animals will gift to you continuously. My first horse was a sixteen and a half hand thoroughbred named Playboy and this horse loves to play. He also gifted to me dynamically and the Costarricenses are the only horses that I found that actually gift in that same way. For example you can ask, "Can we go faster now?" and just think it - and I am a relative novice so the use of my body as far as riding goes is not what it would be if I’d been riding for twenty years, or was a great, real excellent horseman - yet I’ll ask and these horses will gift. Ask to go faster and they will go faster; ask to go right and they go right. And if I ask to go left, they go left with minimal use of body and minimal use of force. It’s like they just seem to know what you are asking for.

You know, it seems like that connection I have always wanted with a horse, that I always thought you should have - you know reading Black Beauty and some of these stories you read growing up - I think that is the way it should be and you find horse after horse where it doesn’t seem like that. And you wonder why can I not create that connection? 

Well partially because of this amazing breed and partially because of how they are trained - and how they have been trained and brought up over the last 150 years - this is an animal that actually seems to match the energy of any rider you put on them. To see a six-year-old climb on one of these horses and know that the child is going to be taken care of is really an amazing gift. And to see me climb on one of these horses, for me to know that I will be taken care of is also an amazing gift.  

It is an interesting thing to have such a horse; it’s sort of like driving in a BMW sports car or your favourite Corvette that you like. You climb in and you know that even if you are going twenty miles an hour you’re going to get a great ride and it’s also got the capacity to go a hundred and fifty if you’re able to take it that far. It’s an amazing thing where you have an animal that will gift to you at any level you happen to be at and be happy to do so. 

I am part owner of a few of these Costarricenses now, simply for that reason, because these are amazing animals. Once you make a connection with them, you don’t want that connection to end. It’s such a gift to be able to ride them and also just to be in their presence. You know, and once again I am not a horse person from way back, so that hasn’t been my experience – well it is now! It is quickly becoming my experience as I now have a half-Costarricense and half-quarter horse in Costa Rica and it’s a rocket on four hoofs. That horse goes faster than anything I have ever seen let alone been on - and my thoroughbred horse was a former race horse - and he goes faster than that; but he is so sure footed that we can go at a dead run up a hill and I know I will be taken care of. It is the same with all of these horses, they’re there, they’re under you and they’re listening to you because they are so present the whole time. How does it get any better than that?

I love this amazing breed of horse because there is nothing they won’t do for you and nothing they won’t give you if you simply ask. They’re not fighting you, they’re always there to give you anything you desire and it’s one of the greatest rides you will ever have. 

- a rider's testimonial from Dr. Dain Heer. California. USA