Riding Lessons
Available on your horse or one of our school horses
English riding lessons are available to adults and children ages 7(ish)* and up. We have one resident trainer, and as needed sometimes hand students off to a couple freelancers we like a lot and will allow to use our lesson horses, who can take students from beginners on up. All of us are big believers in the importance of cross-training, making work enjoyable for horse and rider alike, and instilling values of caring for yourself and your horse like the athletes that you are.
We have lesson horses available for students up to 200 lbs. to take lessons and (if desired) compete on at the lower levels of dressage, eventing, or hunter/jumper, and who are sometimes available to half-lease. More advanced students are encouraged to begin looking into purchasing or leasing a horse that can take them further up the levels, and we will do our best to find a spot for your new partner here when one of our students finds the right horse to take them to the next level.
Truck-in lessons are welcome, but all horses coming onto the property must present proof of negative coggins test and rabies vaccination within 12 months and flu/rhino vaccination within 6 months, and not be displaying signs of illness at the time of visit. Visiting horses must not be permitted to touch noses with resident horses.
*This is not a firm number. If you are wondering whether your child is ready to start lessons, ask yourself the following questions: Can the child follow directions, at least so long as someone prompts them one step at a time? Are they able to obey simple rules (“no doing ___ in the barn”)? Do they have the attention span to walk to the paddock, lead a pony in, brush the pony, help put tack on the pony to the extent that they can reach/lift it, ride, untack, brush, and put the pony back out? All students are required to participate in all parts of pre and post ride care as we feel strongly that that is one of a rider’s basic responsibilities to their horse and instill that in our students from day one, but as parents know, the ability to have that sustained focus at a scheduled time is not necessarily there yet in younger children.
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Current pricing with our in-house trainer is $70 for private lessons on a lesson horse, $60 for group lessons on a lesson horse, and $55 private/$45 group on a horse that the rider owns or leases.
Unfortunately we are NOT able to offer a discount for children as their lessons take just as much of our horses’ and trainer’s time as adult lessons do.
The freelancers who sometimes take students here set their own rates.
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In order to safely and productively take part in group lessons, we have a couple of criteria that a student must meet (beyond schedule compatibility).
Must be able to trot and steer at the same time. We have found that it is simply not practical to wrangle multiple students at a time before they are at this point.
Must be able to fetch, groom, and tack up their horse without any instructor assistance. Children using their parents to reach things they can’t reach is fine as long as the child is able to talk their parent through the task they need the parent’s height/strength for. This is a pre-requisite because if one person in a group lesson runs late, it is not fair to the rest of the group to delay the start of instruction so that the instructor can help the person who was late tack up—the lesson starts without the person who was late, and once they’re ready to go they come in and join us.
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It depends. Your lesson start time is when you should be ready for the trainer’s assistance. For a beginner who isn’t confident catching and leading a horse, you should arrive right at your lesson time and the trainer will walk with you while you fetch the horse. For a more advanced rider, you should already be on the horse and warming up at your lesson start time, which will necessitate giving yourself enough time before your scheduled time to fetch your horse and get ready and on. In between those ends of the spectrum, you should be arriving with enough time to do the parts of getting ready that you’re comfortable with prior to your scheduled time so that at your scheduled start time pretty much all that’s left to do before getting on is the part you need/want help with.
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Treat animals with kindness whether the horses or the barn cats
Treat humans with kindness—we have a zero tolerance policy for bigots!
If you want to ride it you have to participate in all parts of pre and post ride care for it.
Follow all rules and instructions from staff/management.
Pay at the time of your lesson.
If you have to cancel/reschedule let us know ASAP—we plan our own and our horses’ days/weeks around when lessons are and which horses are in which lessons, and the more notice we have the better we can adjust our plans to spread the labor optimally between horses, use our time efficiently, fit in people asking to add a lesson, etc.