Nathan Wilson and Brydie Hughes have developed a training enterprise with a stellar reputation and undeniably impressive results. Their success comes from a combination of Nathan’s horsemanship and well-honed training methods; with Brydie’s attention to detail, business management, and pride in the presentation and care for the horses they train.
The results from horses they have put through some of Australia’s biggest performance horse sales in recent years are nothing short of astonishing. In 2021, anyone living under a rock who had not heard of Nathan Wilson Training Stables surely pricked their ears after the Nutrien Classic Sale, where the 16 horses they trained and presented grossed a whopping $516,000. The Dalby ASH Sale had similar success, the horses they offered on behalf of clients grossing $235,000 with a top price of $110,000.
Nathan is also well known and highly respected as a trainer and competitor in Stockmans Challenges and Campdrafting, where he has won and placed in the highest level national events over many years.
For Nathan and Brydie, training horses is not a numbers game. Their vision for their business is focussed on quality. They put every effort into the care, presentation and ability of the horses that come to them. They want every horse that goes through their program to leave confident, happy, highly skilled, healthy, and ready to go on and do great things for their owners.
For Nathan, who grew up with his Dad’s mustering, campdraft and race horses, the original motivator was to train and compete on his own horses. He had a great sense of curiosity and wanted to learn from some of the greats. With this goal in mind, he travelled as a young man to the USA to work as a strapper for cutting trainer Lindy Burch, where he was also influenced greatly by Chilla Seeney. At that time, Nathan had no plan to train horses for the public. In Australia, he continued to finetune his knowledge and skills and learned a lot from Ian Francis in particular.
A decade after coming back to Australia, Nathan started training horses full time. At this time, Brydie was on the campdraft circuit, enjoying her own horses. She was a qualified vet nurse, living in Brisbane and riding track work full time. The two had known each other for many years. They reconnected in 2014 and when Brydie joined the business the scale of what they were able to achieve began to grow.
While Brydie also enjoyed riding the horses, and is a skilled and respected horsewoman; her influence on the business management side of the operation made a big impact. With this team approach their clients really get a whole and complete package.
Under Nathan’s program the training of the horses is second to none. The development of their mindset and confidence as well as their athletic ability is extremely important to Nathan and he produces horses that are consistently soft, advanced, confident and happy.
While the training progresses, Brydie ensures their diet and day to day care is top notch, and on sale day they are a beautiful picture. She promotes every horse on behalf of their client to ensure they are given their best opportunity to attract the ideal buyer come sale day.
In Brydie’s words, “our philosophy is to run the business as if we were clients that had horses in training. We look after the horses like they are our own. On sale day we want people to stop and look, to prick their ears when Nathan rides in on a horse and say, ‘what’s Nathan got’”.
What is it about Nathans training that makes him so sought after? How does he get such consistently great results and train a diverse array of horses with various bloodlines to be so consistent?
Obviously with time he has built a program that works well. At the heart of it is the understanding that each horse will improve gradually. Nathan looks at the big picture but doesn’t skip any steps to get there. Each horse is allowed the time and patience needed to progress one incremental step at a time to ensure they have a solid foundation.
As Brydie says, “Nathan is kind, and he knows when enough is enough. He never puts too much pressure on a horse in any session. He has his program worked out and he knows how much time he needs and how a horse needs to progress to get them where he wants them to be. He is very good at what he does. The foundation he puts on the sale horses sets them up well. If you buy a horse he puts through the sale, you know you don’t have to go spend another cent training it – when you hop on, they are ready to do their job”.
Not only are the horses well broke and soft, they are also given a foundation on cattle, bison and buffalo. To achieve this Nathan likes to have horses for 8-12 weeks prior to a sale.
As far as competition horses go, Nathan limits the numbers he trains these days, usually including 3-5 outside Classic horses and 2 or 3 Open horses. They usually come to him as 3-4 year-olds and he carefully considers their breeding, conformation, temperament and the foundation they have had. He prefers not to compete on his own horses against those he trains for clients, so Brydie rides most of their own campdraft and challenge horses.
Among their many achievements, personal standouts for Nathan include winning the 2 main Australian Stockmans Challenge Rider categories – The Classic Rider in 2017 and Open Rider in both 2018 and 2019; as well as the Open Horse of the Year and Reserve Champion Open Horse of the Year in 2019; and the Nutrien Classic Challenge in 2016 on Amaroo Diamantina’s Last.
For Brydie her memorable achievements centre around her favourite horses, Royalle Double Your Money (owned by Gennie Woodall & Hume Simpson), and their own stallion Beniah. She has a particularly fond memory of winning separate events on these 2 horses on the same day at Coonamble, the Ladies Draft on Royalle Double Your Money (her first ever ride on him) and the Restricted Open on Beniah.
For Nathan, Tassa N Smart is a standout favourite. He bought him as a 2yo colt and Brydie says he likes everything about him as an individual, and he has come along with him as he has evolved his training. He holds him in such high regard that he aims to have all his broodmares sired by Tassa N Smart. “They are the types of horses he likes to ride. Everything by him is soft and enjoyable”. Those mares by Tassa N Smart are joined to Beniah to produce a consistent line of horses that Nathan and Brydie think are ideal to train and compete on. “That cross is just right for what we want to sell, ride and continue to breed. Both sires are very versatile”.
Tassa has been a high level competition horse in reining, snafflebit cutting, challenges and campdrafting. Beniah is an open camprdaft horse, open challenge winner and snaffle bit winner. Their combined pedigrees include Tassa Lena, Smart Little Lena, Docs Freckles Oak, Playboy Roy, Acres Destiny, Docs Spinifex and Chickasha Dan.
It is clear that Nathan and Brydie are committed to excellence. They work hard at everything they do and they are fully dedicated to doing the best they can for every horse that is in their care.
