Sarah LesslerFamily, Horses, and High Performance
PHOTOS BY Monarch Creative, courtesy of Team Welles
Andrew and Alex Welles understand that success in today’s equestrian industry requires far more than results in the ring. At the helm of Team Welles, the husband-and-wife duo has built a program defined not only by elite sport, but also by mentorship, adaptability and an intentional sense of community while shaping the next generation of professionals within the industry.
However, their journey to the top of the sport was not traditional.
“I’m more or less a first-generation rider in my family,” Andrew says. Growing up in Minneapolis, he was introduced to riding almost accidentally by a teammate from soccer practice. “I started going to the barn with him, and it seemed better to take lessons than sit there waiting.”
What began as an after-school activity quickly became something more. At the time, the sport felt worlds away from the small Midwest circuit where Andrew competed as a junior. Without social media or regular exposure to top competition, horse shows like Harrisburg felt almost mythical. “I remember showing up there and being completely mind-blown,” he recalls. “That was really the moment everything changed.”
After qualifying for major equitation finals and eventually finding his way to North Run under Missy Clark and later Chris Kappler, Andrew discovered not only a passion for competing, but also for teaching. “I always wanted to be a student, not just a client,” he explains. “When you’re around great teachers, you realize how powerful that mentorship can be.”
For Alex, horses entered her life even earlier. Raised on Long Island by a mother who rode recreationally, she was put on a pony at just 3 years old. “My earliest memories are all horses,” she says with a laugh. “I always joke that I wish someone had handed me a tennis racket at some point.”
Although her path initially followed a more conventional route, with plans for college and a career outside the industry, the intensity and excitement of the jumper ring ultimately pulled her back in. “I knew I needed to find a way to be in this world and not give it up,” she says.
The two met during a WEF circuit, thanks in part to a shared coincidence: they both owned horses named Tornado. Introduced through mutual friends at the horse show’s now nostalgic pizza trailer gathering spot, a friendship gradually evolved into a partnership. “At first, she didn’t even take my number,” Andrew jokes.
Team Welles
Andrew launched his own business, initially called Andrew Welles LLC, and Alex naturally became part of the growing operation. Over the years, with a wedding and a business name change, Team Welles evolved alongside them, from winters in Florida and years in Kentucky to the development of their current home base in Wellington. Andrew describes those Kentucky years as especially formative. “That’s really where we built the bones of what Team Welles is today,” he says.
Today, Team Welles operates as both a top-sport stable and an evolving mentorship system, something Andrew compares less to a traditional barn and more to a teaching hospital. “It’s almost like medical school,” he explains. “You have students who eventually become residents within the program. They begin taking on responsibilities while still having the support system behind them.” This structure reflects the changing realities of the modern professional equestrian industry, where the demands of operating a business, developing horses, managing clients, and competing at the top level increasingly overlap.
“You’re the athlete, the coach, the operations manager, and the portfolio manager,” Andrew says. “You’re balancing all of these roles at the same time.” For riders entering the profession today, particularly those without established family legacy operations behind them, those challenges can feel immense. Andrew and Alex know that experience firsthand. They explain that for established family businesses, younger generations already have infrastructure, networks, relationships, and support. “For first-generation professionals, building that takes years,” Andrew notes. This understanding has shaped the culture they are intentionally creating at Team Welles. Rather than simply training riders, Andrew and Alex aim to develop professionals capable of building sustainable careers of their own.
Central to Team Welles’ philosophy is identifying and nurturing individual strengths in horses and riders. “I always start with what I like,” Andrew says. “What does the horse do best? What does the rider do best? Then you build from there.” It’s an approach rooted as much in psychology as in technique. Team Welles places strong emphasis on mindset, preparation, and helping riders stay present under pressure.
Family
The balance between ambition and support extends well beyond the ring. As parents of three children, Anderson, 7, Adeline, 4, and infant Archer, Andrew and Alex have worked intentionally to build a life where elite sport and family coexist.
Alex explains how their goal as parents and professionals is to be present in both spaces and have the children be an extension of their lives. “The biggest thing for us is presence in the industry and presence for our children. It has to be in balance with our family.” The children ride but also partake in other activities like dance and golf, and Andrew and Alex value attending those activities as well. Wellington is considered home to the Welles, but the family travels as a team to Calgary and Michigan each year, and barn life has become a natural part of childhood. Some of Andrew and Alex’s favorite moments have little to do with competition at all. Instead, they enjoy watching their children give their pony, Otis, a bath and learn how to body-clip him, and hearing their giggles from inside his stall.
The goal for Alex and Andrew is not necessarily to raise future professionals, but children who genuinely love and respect the animals. “We really don’t care what they choose to do,” Alex says. “We just want them to appreciate how special it is to have a relationship with a horse.”
Andrew and Alex are also on a long-term journey to reshape how young professionals enter and sustain careers in the sport. “I know how hard it was for me 20 years ago,” Andrew reflects. “And it’s exponentially harder now.”
Over the years, Andrew repeatedly encountered talented young riders who shared the same dream: building a life with horses, but without a clear pathway forward. Excellent riders are unable to find a sustainable career in the sport despite their passion and talent. This growing concern eventually sparked the creation of Next Generation Professionals (NGP), an ambitious initiative designed to expand opportunities, improve accessibility, and provide long-term support for emerging professionals.
At its core, NGP addresses one of the sport’s greatest challenges: access to quality horses and sustainable financial support. “The most important thing riders need are horses underneath them,” Andrew states simply.
What makes NGP particularly unique is its attempt to bridge the gap between the equestrian world and outside investors through a structured, transparent investment model, which is something rarely seen in the sport. Andrew believes one of the industry’s biggest obstacles is perception. “When you ask people outside the horse world how they view it, they say: high risk, lots of bills, and no transparency,” he says. “And honestly, they’re not wrong.”
Rather than ignoring those concerns, NGP was built to confront them directly. The program uses a structured framework in which investors provide capital in exchange for a share of a horse’s competition earnings and resale value, with clear terms and reporting throughout.
Beyond the financial mechanics, the larger goal is cultural. Andrew and Alex want to help shift the sport toward greater transparency and professionalism, making it easier for talented riders without generational wealth to access the horsepower they need to compete at the top level.
NGP aims to create a more sustainable middle ground: a way for riders to access quality horses without shouldering the full financial burden alone, and a way for investors to participate meaningfully in a sport they love, with real transparency about risk and return.
For Alex, the project represents something deeply personal. Having grown up around the financial pressures of the sport, she understands firsthand how quickly talent can be sidelined by a lack of resources. NGP, she says, is one way of making sure that talent isn’t the limiting factor.
That sense of responsibility—to riders, to horses, and to the people who choose to invest in them—runs through everything the Welles family does, both in and out of the show ring.
Team
Throughout the conversation, one word surfaced repeatedly: team. For Andrew and Alex, success in the show ring is never a solo effort. It depends on grooms, trainers, veterinarians, farriers, and support staff who often go unrecognized despite being essential to a horse’s performance.
Andrew insists that in the equestrian industry, the horse-and-rider partnership is only the visible tip of a much larger structure. Team Welles is built to acknowledge and support every person who plays a role in getting a horse and rider into the ring ready to perform.
Perhaps that is what makes Team Welles feel distinctly modern: a recognition that longevity in this sport comes not from any single rider or horse, but from the people, the infrastructure, and the values that surround them.
“We’re proud that our priorities feel like they’re in the right place,” Andrew says. “At the end of the day, that matters more than any single accomplishment.”
To read this article in the digital Summer 2026 issue, click here.
