I cannot praise these people in Cumbria enough. They will tailor your holiday and riding program to do anything you want from ground work, to preparing horses to travel, shows, riding on the beach/fells and lessons in the school. You say what you want to learn and they will teach you in a really friendly but totally professional manner. We initially went to learn basic riding skills and basic horse groundwork/tacking up skills. That first week we learnt about hoof picking, catching horses from fields, stable and field management, and diet of a horse. We took bridles apart, cleaned and put them together, we tacked up each day and generally got our horses ready for the ride or lesson. By the end of the week (I think we had 20 hours) we were competent to tack up, could walk trot, and (my husband cantered for the first time) and felt so much more confident around horses on the ground. We have since been back and it is still as great as ever, but has got a little busier as they now have more horses.
They do lots of adult holidays now, and they do beach rides and fell hacks out 2/3/4hour durations so its quite busy for a lot of the year. But then you can't keep great places secrets forever!
but the beauty is they still treat everyone as an individual with individual needs.
Cath the owner still teaches when they are really busy
, but they have a good team there who are trained well and are just as friendly and knowledgeable.
The place is in Cumbria at a village called Silecroft. We stayed with our caravan at a CL in Port Haverigg, but Cath can arrange accommodation on a B&B basis for those who wish. Oumbagirl...
www.murthwaitegreen.co.uk