Biography
Raúl Roa (Badajoz, 1977) is a Riding Teacher and Dressage Rider. He is qualified, by the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art among others, and has worked in various horseriding centres in Spain and around the world. He has taught clinics in Europe and the USA.
His vocation for the world of the horse comes from the time he was quite young. A vocation which began to give free rein when he was eleven years old, when he has his first contact with horses at stables in Extremadura.
Shortly afterwards, in the Municipal Sports Foundation of Badajoz, he practices jumping, cowboy dressage, high school. His skills at horsemanship find application in the riding school of Rubén Correa and Eustaquio Piñero. However, Raul’s wish to broaden horizons and improve his technique forced him to leave his homeland.
Mr. A. Duarte will be the person to give him the opportunity to train his horses for the Equestrian Raid.. They travel to the 1998 World Championship held in Dubai, where Raul goes as a coach of Jilguero, one of the horses taken.
From then on, the rider devotes his lfe and his training to the world of riding. Thus, in 2001, he was hired as a rider by the Centurion, Stables in Segovia, and participated in the show, named by D. José Manuel Lucena, the then Technical Director.
Show in the Royal School in Jerez, Cádiz
A year later, in 2002, he centers his professional activity in Trujillo, in the Cabaex Club, preparing horses for Morphological and Functional Contests
This professional work will be interspersed with constant learning process. Thus, in 2003 he receives classes by Mr Luis Valenca Rodríguez and Mr Manuel Fondón, from Cáceres and Portugal respectively, to go back to the Centurion Yeguada in Segovia in 2004 as a specialist in the area of classical dressage.
However, 2004 is for Raul a point of inflection in his professional career and his equestrian training, since he was selected as one of the four student riders of the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art (REAAE), in Jerez de la Frontera (Cadiz). to take the training course held between 2004 and 2008. During those four years of stay in the prestigious school, he received training from the prestigious riders José Gutierrez, Manolo Ruiz, Rafael Soto, Ignacio Rambla and Francisco José García and participated in various competitions and exhibitions.
After training at the REAAE, he works at the training center "La Cabaña" in El Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz), preparing horses at various levels. His first international recognition comes in 2009, when he receives the proposal from the 4 L Andalusians Breeders Stables in Canada, to prepare and train pure Spanish horses. This will not be the only proposal from abroad: the Heilan Ecuestrian school in China are also interested and ask him to train Central European horses and also riders of dressage there.
In 2012, the stud farm of YMAS (Toledo) hired his services as a rider and teacher. Currently, he continues doing the same work in the Epona Centre in Carmona (Sevilla).
Training in Wainwright, Canada
His professional work is combined with the clinics taught for ten years in Spain and around the world: Burgos, Cadiz, Cáceres, Rome, California, Ohio and Texas.