Meet the urban cowboy (and former drug dealer) who is riding to the rescue of inner-city children by showing them the joys of caring for horses at his rural stables

  • Freedom Zampaladus teaches underprivileged children about horse grooming
  • The Urban Equestrian Academy in Leicester has 11 volunteers and 80 students
  • The children learn to ride and race horses, and even go on weekend field trips

With a solid gold front tooth, a glinty eye and streetwise swagger, he looks totally incongruous riding through the streets of Leicester on a horse.

He is so handsome that he could pass for a model. He also has an extremely shady criminal past.

But for the past 18 months, the exotically named Freedom Tariq Zampaladus has been running a riding school designed to give inner-city children the chance to learn everything about horses.

Freedom Tariq Zampaladus rides a horse through the streets of Leicester, where he teaches underprivileged children the joys of equine care

Freedom Tariq Zampaladus rides a horse through the streets of Leicester, where he teaches underprivileged children the joys of equine care

Three times a week, twice at weekends, this most unlikely riding instructor buses dozens of excited youngsters aged between six and 12 from some of the most deprived areas of Leicester to Park View riding stables, six miles out of town, with sweeping views of the lush countryside and a ripe smell of horse dung.

Here, they learn to ride, jump, race and groom the horses. They muck them out, breathe in their smell and, most of all, just relax and be happy.

At weekends, Freedom takes them on field trips — to horse trials where they meet Olympic riders, watch cross-country trials and handle birds of prey; to the British Racing School in Newmarket where they meet jockeys; and to Cheltenham racecourse where, later this year, eight of his gutsiest little riders will take part in national pony races.

Three years ago, most of these kids had never seen a horse, let alone ridden one. Many were struggling at school with learning difficulties, friendships and bullying. Most are from single-parent families living below the poverty line.

Zelina, nine, who lives with her mum and brother on St Matthew's, Leicester's most deprived estate, says she had just one friend before she discovered Freedom and horses. 'I was so shy. I worried a lot. I'd never seen a horse, but riding has made me more confident,' she says.

'The first time I couldn't work out what the feeling was. I'd never felt so calm in my life. It's made me so much calmer I am able to concentrate better at school.'

Freedom Tariq Zampaladus shows children how to groom a horse at the Urban Equestrian Academy

Freedom Tariq Zampaladus shows children how to groom a horse at the Urban Equestrian Academy

Mohammed, 12, counts down the days until he's back at the Urban Equestrian Academy. 'I love everything about it. It's changed my life. Everything is better now.'

Urban Equestrian was always about far more than learning to ride. Freedom says: 'I wanted to give inner-city kids something to care about and to strive for.'

And, in turn, help protect them from the gangs and knife crime sweeping the country. 'This is an early intervention, to give them confidence, role models, a future, a dream — before it's too late,' he says. 'I want to show kids caught up in all the knife madness right now that they don't have to be defined by their background.

'They can turn it around. They can change their lives.'

Freedom knows what he's talking about. While he has dedicated the last 13 years to community and youth projects, he wasn't always such a pillar of society.

A huge chunk of his youth was spent smoking and dealing drugs, intimidating competitors and playing the tough guy, both in Leicester and during a teenage stint in his father's native Antigua. 'I was notorious. Nobody would mess with me. I felt I was the man.' At one point in Antigua, he had 27 pit bull terriers trained to attack on the command 'kill'. 'I was a troubled kid,' he says.

Freedom has a lifelong love of horses

Freedom has a lifelong love of horses

Born in one of the roughest parts of Leicester, Freedom moved with his family to Antigua aged 14 and became a groom at his uncle's 11-horse racing yard. He'd only seen a horse once before — on a school trip when he was seven — but discovered an affinity so strong that he could communicate with them and train 'untrainable' horses.

Unfortunately, he also quickly discovered that his uncle, who owned a fleet of classic cars and a huge property portfolio, was not just a race trainer but one of the island's biggest drug-dealers.

It wasn't long before Freedom was helping to hide hundreds of kilos of Colombian marijuana, keeping look-out for the police, smoking dope and selling drugs himself. 'I went a bit wild.'

Meanwhile, his home life unravelled into a trail of domestic violence and divorce. But horses were his saviour, his redemption.

'They were my release. They brought me calm. They saved my life,' he says.

After Antigua was struck by Hurricane Iris in 1995 and the stable staff suffered losses, he took over, gaining his professional trainer's licence when he was just 17.

'When I'm with horses I feel totally free. I switch. I change. I can communicate with them. I have a connection,' he says.

His big moment came when he rehabilitated a supposedly untrainable colt. Subsequently, he returned to England and enrolled on a course in equine studies at the Brooksby Melton College.

Of 900 students, his was the only black face, but he excelled and was picked to work on the largest Arabian Stud Farm in the UK at the time, Umm Qarn Farm, owned by the ruler of Qatar, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Khalifa Al Thani.

'When I'm with horses I feel totally free. I switch. I change. I can communicate with them. I have a connection.' Freedom has a special bond with horses which he hopes to pass on to the children he works with

'When I'm with horses I feel totally free. I switch. I change. I can communicate with them. I have a connection.' Freedom has a special bond with horses which he hopes to pass on to the children he works with

But the loneliness and isolation he felt was hard to handle. 'I lost the joy. I felt out of place. I loved horses but it wasn't my world.'

That's why he wants the Urban Equestrian Academy's 80 young riders to feel included. 'Riding shouldn't just be for rich people. It's about community and cohesion.' The youngsters are of all ethnic backgrounds — Afro-Caribbean, Somalian, Polish, French Algerian, Tunisian, Pakistani, mixed race, white.

But they mix brilliantly with one another — laughing, joking and singing on the bus together. Freedom hopes these early friendships which straddle the city will help prevent so-called postcode knife crime between rival gangs later and give them a sense of purpose.

'A lot of young people — particularly black and ethnic minority kids — have no long-term plan,' he says. 'They don't think ten years ahead. They think for the moment. They look for the easy route and they're limiting their chances to be something.'

He knows this well from personal experience. After falling out of love with the racing world, he dropped back into his bad old ways — drug-dealing on street corners and smoking dope. It was only when, in 2005, he fell in love, decided to go straight and was persuaded to organise a community event involving horses, that the spark reignited and everything changed. 'More than 700 people came. I thought, 'Whoa! I'm good at this!'

Working with horses saved Freedom from a life of drug dealing on street corners

Working with horses saved Freedom from a life of drug dealing on street corners

He looks me hard in the eye as he insists that in the 14 years since, he hasn't looked back. He is the father of a 12-year-old daughter and twin boys, aged nine. He spends every spare hour ploughing his energy into good causes.

He started Urban Equestrian after a pilot scheme, charging just £7 for an hour's lesson (with youngsters transported in a minibus paid for by crowd-funding). It has been a stunning success.

Eleven volunteers help with the lessons and more than 100 parents and community leaders support the project.

As well as the 80 kids learning, there are 50 more on the waiting-list — no one ever wants to leave. Of course they don't. It's such fun at Park View, with the sun slicing through the April showers and the horses whickering. It's light years from their grey, concrete inner-city homes.

Inside the covered ménage, the Advanced group are cantering, mastering tight turns like pros and beginning to tackle jumps. Outside, the younger kids are splashing though the puddles, mucking out the ponies, leading them round the yard and hanging on Freedom's every word as he explains the difference between a body brush and curry comb.

Freedom started Urban Equestrian after a pilot scheme, and he now has 11 volunteers and more than 100 parents and community leaders supporting the project

Freedom started Urban Equestrian after a pilot scheme, and he now has 11 volunteers and more than 100 parents and community leaders supporting the project

They glow with joy and pride. 'I am the only person in my class who can ride,' says Zelina. 'And since I've started riding, I've feel like I've got better at everything — maths, literacy, everything. It's changed my life.'

Azeezah, 12, says riding has helped her concentrate. 'I'm much better at school now.'

Eesa, 11, was an early recruit. He has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism and, according to mum Rachel, would have been on medicine for his unmanageable behaviour, but for the horses. Instead, he has flourished — at school and at home. 'I don't know what we could do if he couldn't attend,' said Rachel. 'I never knew the value of horses. I wish all children had access to them.'

Freedom, meanwhile, is striving for more. Next term, he's adding a 'Rebel Riders' class — for 12- to 16-year-olds.

He says representatives from across the country have been in touch to see if he can advise on similar schemes — a national franchise, maybe. Others have been in touch from the U.S. to see if they can team up on a joint initiative.

And that's just the start of it. His dream is to raise £1 million through crowd-funding to buy enough land to include a social hub, stables, fields, two proper classrooms. Ultimately, he wants to turn the Academy into a proper school teaching the national curriculum as well as everything equine.

He's already in discussions with the council to identify land. 'I work every hour I have,' he says. 'But it's not work, it's my duty.'

It couldn't feel further from his bad old life. 'I would never go back there,' he says. 'I have flashbacks of how I was — hiding from the police, looking over my shoulder, getting raided — and I tell the kids: 'It's not worth it — certainly not all this knife madness.'

'So these kids need to find something in their life — riding, school, family, whatever — that is worth it.'

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