The founders of this project are David Usón and Malen Jaume, international show jumping champions, as well as sports coaches and parents.
They met in 1998 on the national and international equestrian circuits. For three years, they shared victories, defeats, great achievements and difficult moments, injuries and joyful memories in short, everything that this wonderful world of horses has to offer.
Three years later, they decided to get married and start a family. Later, they decided to create their own training centre, bringing together the experience and knowledge they had both gained through many years of training and competition.
What began as a shared passion for equestrian sport and life together soon evolved into a greater vision: creating their own space where they could share everything they had learned.
Thus, in 2005, La Gubía Equestrian Club was born at the foot of the Tramuntana Mountains, within the Sierra Norte National Park, a landscape that has been recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2011.
It was initially created as a high-performance training centre. They worked exclusively with riders at competition level, enjoying the opportunity to train and compete alongside them while drawing on their extensive experience.
However, they soon realised that riders who came to train with them with gaps in their fundamentals or acquired technical mistakes found it very difficult to rebuild their foundations or correct errors that had become deeply ingrained over years of riding.
For this reason, and coinciding with the arrival of their first child, Malen and David recognised the need and importance of creating a riding school in Mallorca focused on building strong foundations. Their vision was not only to offer horse riding as an outdoor extracurricular activity, helping parents instil values in their children and develop their psychomotor and emotional skills, but also to give young riders who aspire to go further the opportunity to build a solid foundation and receive a strong sporting education, enabling them to enjoy equestrian sport at competition level and achieve a high standard.
Malen and David firmly believe that great athletes are developed from the ground up, and that sport—and equestrianism in particular—is one of the best companions on a child’s journey through life, helping to shape their education, character, and future. This belief led them to create the Guiza Method.
Since founding the riding school and Pony Club, Malen and David have carefully selected the finest horses and ponies specialised in teaching children, meeting the high safety standards they were looking for. After purchasing more than 100 horses and ponies from different cities across Spain, Belgium, Austria, France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom over the past 10 years, they have now selected a group of 30 school horses and ponies, specially suited to teaching children and adults of all levels.
At the same time, they have carefully selected and trained their team of instructors to apply their method across all levels of the riding school and Pony Club. This has resulted in a strong and well-structured combination of horses, ponies, instructors, facilities, and students, establishing La Gubía as a benchmark among riding schools throughout Spain.
Today, David Usón is the manager of La Gubía Equestrian Club, one of the school’s supervisors, and the coach of its competition teams. Malen Jaume is a member of the management committee and plays a key role in the Club’s decision-making. Their two children have also progressed through the different levels of the school and are now members of the Club’s competition team.
Since then, more than 1,000 students from 18 different countries have been trained in various disciplines, developing not only as riders but, above all, as individuals. In addition, La Gubía Equestrian Club’s competition teams have won the Mallorca and Balearic Islands Championships on several occasions. Four of the Club’s students have also achieved outstanding sporting careers in different years and categories, reaching the highest levels in their respective disciplines and ultimately being selected to represent Spain on the national team.
