Dressage instructor Boaventura Freire returns home to Portugal

Raised at the Dressage Plus stud farm—known as the birthplace of the equine prodigy Zonik Plus—Boaventura Freire’s love for dressage was practically instilled in him from birth. The stud’s director is Boaventura’s uncle, Vasco Francisco Freire. Horses have therefore been a part of Freire’s everyday life since his earliest childhood. As a teenager, his talent caught the eye of Nuno Palma E Santos, a horseman already well-known in Portugal at the time, who now lives in Wedel near Hamburg and is equally well-known in Germany. When Nuno Palma E Santos decided to move to Germany, Boaventura Freire followed him—at just 16 years old.

There, he began an apprenticeship as a horse manager and trained alongside Manuela and Dolf-Dietram Keller at the Medingen Monastery Courtyard. He then moved to the Wintermühle as a trainer, where he worked for three years. Most recently, he collaborated with Belgian trainer Johan Zagers on training his own horses before deciding in 2012 to return to Portugal for the first time and take over the training of horses at his home stud, Dressage Plus. He stayed in Portugal for two years, but returned to northern Germany in 2014. This time, Luhmühlen became his home, where he was able to work with Dolf-Dietram Keller again. In 2018, he started his own business there.

The “Plus Horses”

Freire achieved his greatest successes with Sai Baba Plus, a Hanoverian son of Sir Donnerhall. Although the chestnut—who is now a school horse in the U.S.—was not bred by Dressage Plus but was born at Robert Gaus’s farm, he belonged to the stud farm. He was also Freire’s flagship horse as a trainer, as Freire personally developed him from the very beginning all the way to Grand Prix level. Freire competed with him at the 2017 European Championships in Gothenburg. Prior to that, as a junior and young rider, he was a member of the Portuguese teams at the European Junior and Young Rider Championships.

Other horses that have enjoyed success with Freire include Fellow Plus, Dante Alighieri OLD, and the Lusitano Jasmim Plus, who also competed successfully up to the Grand Prix level. Not only does he belong to the Dressage Plus stud farm, but he was also born there. Horses like him—or, for example, the half-Lusitano Hit Plus, who was successful under Maria Caetano—are the reason Boaventura Freire has now decided to return to Portugal. He wants to start a new chapter of his life there because he wants to support his family and because he believes in Lusitano breeding, says Freire. “Besides, I’m very proud to be part of what I consider to be one of the best companies in the industry, Dressage Plus.”

His friends, colleagues, and students in Luhmühlen held a solemn farewell ceremony for him.