Adapted
Bred from stock suited to West African heat, ground and disease pressure.
The Programme
What we breed, how we breed it, and how each horse is developed and recorded.
The Thesis
A Proprietary Programme, Not A Paddock
Arewa × Champion Pride is a breeding programme with a single objective: to produce a sport horse adapted to West Africa and to develop it under one recorded system, from the mating to the first season of work.
Arewa means the north. The programme starts in the Sahelian herds and crosses that foundation with established sport bloodlines. What makes it a programme, and not a stud with a field of foals, is that every stage — selection, mating, identification, screening and development — is planned, gated and written down, so each cross can be judged against the last.
The Conditions
West African Conditions, Not European Ones
Heat and humidity. Long dry seasons and heavy wet ones. Ground that changes with the calendar. And two diseases that decide which horses survive here: African Horse Sickness, carried by midges, and trypanosomiasis, carried by the tsetse fly. Imported horses meet all of this with bloodlines bred for none of it.
We breed toward the conditions, not around them. Foundation stock is chosen from animals already adapted to this environment, and every animal is health-screened — screening, not assumption, because resilience is not immunity.
The Breed Standard, In Formation
The Nigerian Sport Horse
The type we are breeding toward, defined before the first foal so we can hold ourselves to it.
Athletic
The speed, balance and scope to play polo and to perform across sport disciplines.
Sound
Built for durability on the ground it will actually work on.
Trainable
A temperament that holds its composure under pressure and takes the work.
This is a standard in formation, not a finished breed. It is published so the programme can be measured against it.
Foundation Mares
Selected Before They Breed
Foundation mares pass selection gates before they enter the programme. Nothing breeds on looks alone.
| Gate | What It Protects |
|---|---|
| Soundness | Comfort and durability under work |
| Temperament | Composure under pressure |
| Type | Balance, movement and suitability for sport |
| Health Screening | Screened and recorded before breeding |
Sires are thoroughbred and sport lines chosen for speed, scope and size, and named only once confirmed. Imported genetics carry an import permit and a batch record, and we keep both.
The Development System
Bred, Then Developed
Breeding produces the horse. A recorded development system produces the athlete. Every pony is started and progressed under the Champion Pride gated protocol — a minimum sixteen-week backing, then generalisation, then structural hardening — with a veterinary sign-off before work begins and before each stage that raises load.
Young stock is held to short sessions and no strength work until a vet confirms skeletal maturity. The system is run the same way for every horse, so the programme compares like with like and improves cross by cross.
Provenance
Every Horse, On The Record
A horse whose mating was not filed cannot be called Studbook-bred. Every pony leaves with its record.
- Identified
- Passport and microchip.
- Parentage
- DNA parentage test on file.
- Screened
- Trypanosomiasis and equine infectious anaemia tested before breeding or sale.
- Developed
- The start and development record travels with the horse.
The breed register will be kept by the Nigerian Sport Horse Society, an independent body now being established. The programme breeds to that standard and will register to it when it launches.
Programme Status
Where We Stand
- Breeding Plan Numbers
- To Be Announced
- Sire List
- To Be Announced
- First Foal Dates
- To Be Announced
- Pricing
- To Be Announced
- Sale Terms
- To Be Announced
- Match results
- None to report.
We publish results when they exist. None are claimed today.
First Look
Hear First When The First Ponies Are Ready
No ponies are for sale yet. The interest list hears first.
Join The Interest List