Ali Nilforushan Equestrian. LLC
Gets Bigger
Jamie Taylor’s arrival enables the international
veteran to take on students with big ambitions.


Veteran international Grand Prix rider Ali Nilforushan has always been a busy guy with big ambitions and equally big successes. He is taking on yet another challenge in expanding his San Diego business to include training clientele. The 2000 Olympic show jumper is well known for his own equestrian accomplishments and for the horses he has imported and developed for the U.S. market over the last several years. Until now, however, he had taken on only very few students.
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Ali has long had ambitions to run a full training program. And his success with the few students he did accept, most notably Junior Jumper contender Danielle Korsh, indicated that he’d be great at it. But, as a self-described perfectionist, he was unwilling to move forward on that idea unless he was sure he could meet the high standards he sets for himself as both a horseman and a businessman.
Enter another familiar name on the California show scene: Jamie Taylor. As a junior campaigning with the Karazissis family’s Far West Farms, Jamie won just about every winnable honor in the equitation, hunter and jumper divisions. She turned professional five years ago and has continued to impress the competitive hunter/jumper community.
“The opportunity to hire a rider like Jamie doesn’t come along too often,” Ali explains. With Jamie on board as his assistant, “I feel we can accomplish great things in all divisions.”
Ali is open to everyone from pony riders to those like 16 year old Danielle who are well on their way to achieving Olympic level dreams. Slackers need not apply. “I am looking for a very select, elite clientele,” Ali says. Riding ability and a solid work ethic are required to be part of Ali’s new program.

Perfect Practice
Danielle Korsh came to Ali two and a half years ago as a Low Childrens Jumper contender. For the first six months, Ali took Danielle’s riding back to the basics and since then her progress has been quick and remarkable. A regular winner in the High Junior Jumper ranks, Danielle was a star of West Coast Active Riders’ Spruce Meadows squad this past summer and of Zone 10’s gold winning North American Young Riders team. She logged a double clear at Spruce and zero- then four-fault rounds at the NAYRC competition, where Danielle also finished individual fourth. Her equine partner was San Diego, a horse Ali imported from Europe and developed, as he did with another two, Billy Orange and Landovery, of the eight mounts ridden by the gold-winning A and B teams at the Young Rider Championships.
Danielle describes Ali as “like a second father” as a friend and “very strict” as a coach. “He’s strict because he’s confident in my riding abilities,” Danielle elaborates. “It’s been very beneficial to my riding. He doesn’t sugar coat things. He’s like coaches in other sports. Others may wonder why he’s yelling, but he’s all about making you get it right in your riding.”
Ali believes that “perfect practice makes perfect performance.” That was certainly the case for Danielle at the Young Riders Championships, an FEI-sanctioned competition at which many riders have felt over-faced and under-prepared. “Everything we did leading up to this led me to feel perfectly prepared,” Danielle reports.
“I am a disciplinarian, for sure,” Ali confirms of his coaching style. “Riders need to know when they are doing something right and when they are doing something wrong. I am big on keeping horses mentally fresh and on keeping riders challenged without repetitive work. If you do the same thing all the time, kids get bored and tune out.”
As is clear from Danielle’s progress, Ali believes in letting students progress as quickly as they are capable of progressing. “If you stay at one level too long, the next level begins to seem unachievable.”
“I am very hands on,” he continues. “I am more likely to get on and ride the horse myself, so when the student gets back on, they can feel for themselves the difference in the horse. To me, that’s much better than sitting there trying to explain it to them for 45 minutes while the horse gets worn out.”
“He is definitely intense,” observes Jamie Taylor three months into working for Ali and after many years watching him on the show scene. “It’s because he really cares about each rider and each horse improving. That’s why he’s good.”
In addition to working with students and horses in Ali’s program, Jamie has her own Grand Prix aspirations. As such, she’s seen first hand the benefit of having an international Grand Prix rider as a coach. “He helps you understand that it’s not about jumping one four-foot fence,” Jamie relays. “It’s about how jumping that jump helps you jump the much higher fences and putting it all together.”
Jamie is the finishing touch for a stable support staff that Ali gratefully describes as “the nicest, hardest-working, happiest guys in town.”

Excellent Influences
Ali attributes his coaching abilities to the excellent influences he had as a young rider. He was born in Iran, but moved to the United States as a young kid. Growing up in Del Mar, he had the good fortune to start his riding career with Hap Hansen. Bernie Traurig, Mike Endicott and Robert Ridland were his successive coaches as he prepared to pursue his dream of becoming Iran’s first Olympic show jumper.
At 18, Ali set his sights on Europe and secured a working student arrangement with Dutch star Piet Raymakers. For three years, he worked for Raymakers and contested the highly competitive European circuit. Ali’s first attempt at his Olympic dream was a noble effort: at 19, he missed qualifying as an individual by just one rail. Four years later, and after experience with another international veteran, Frenchman Eric Navet, Ali qualified as an individual to represent Iran at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
“I’ve been very fortunate to have worked with some of the best in the business,” Ali observes. “I’ve taken something from all of them.” Navet, in particular, was a huge influence. “He has incredible instincts as a horseman and an incredible desire to be the best. He beats himself up everyday to be the best.”
Because of its Hong Kong location and the fact the equestrian events will be held separate from the rest of the 2008 Olympics, which will be staged in Beijing. Ali is not making a run for next year’s Games. The 2008 World Cup Finals and the 2010 World Equestrian Games are firmly in his sights.
Nine year old Voice, 8 year old Warco van de Haloeve and 7 year old Peter Pan are Ali’s top Grand Prix mounts at the moment. All are the product of his many years experience in importing young horses from Europe. In shopping for hunter, equitation and jumper prospects for all levels of the American market, Ali imports about 50 horses a year. Although price tags in Europe are typically big, Ali observes that it is still usually less expensive to buy a started horse in Europe. “The cost of campaigning a young horse in the United States for one year is about the same as doing the same in Europe for two or three years.” As more American buyers shop the European market, Ali has become “pickier and pickier” about who he buys from and the horses he purchases.
Ali has had Voice since the horse was a 3-year-old. Most recently the jumper helped him attain the Leading Rider honor at the Del Mar National Horse Show. Many fans are familiar with Ali’s longtime Grand Prix horse, the Cellist, who is now going nicely in the Junior/Amateur jumper ring with one of Ali’s students, Francie Snedegar. “He’ll retire with me,” says Ali fondly.

New Facility
Ali’s imminent move to the new River Park Equestrian Center is a key component in the expansion of his business. The facility is located just down the road from the Del Mar Horsepark on El Camino Real and was developed in a partnership between Ali, Danielle’s parents and Tri-Sar Farms. The new training facility has been designed to perfectly suit the needs of what Ali plans will one day be a 40-horse business for his Ali Nilforushan Equestrian, LLC.
The 130-horse River Park Equestrian Center has a lovely grand prix field, a 350’ x 300’ sand ring and another 175’ by 250’ arena. Nearly constant ocean breezes and a view of the coast enhance the experience of riding at River Park. There is plenty of trail riding space on site, and connections to Rancho Santa Fe’s surrounding trail networks are expected to be completed soon.
Expanding a training business and moving to a new facility would fill the plates of many professionals, but Ali has additional interests. His Re-Cover blankets that enable the application of icepacks on almost all parts of a horse’s body have become a big hit. The ability to ice an equine’s main power source, the stifle, is one of the reasons Re-Cover horse blankets have become so successful. Ali is now working on similar blankets for people.
Outside of the equestrian world, Ali owns the night club 4th & B. The downtown San Diego venue is one of the area’s biggest and hosts a full slate of concerts and other entertainment events.
Ali smiles as he reflects on the busy schedule he’s built for himself. “I shoot big and I dream big.” So far, that simple but ambitious plan has served him quite well. With the expansion of Ali Nilforushan Equestrian, LLC, more riders can tackle equally big and ambitious dreams with the help of Ali’s horsemanship and highly motivated coaching.
Ali Nilforushan can be contacted at 858-945-5237.