for those who say you don't need an arena for schooling...

CMcC

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a Friend of friend bought a house with a sand school from a non-horsey person. They had planted a tree at X for shade. I thought it was perfect, would help you find X, the centre line and do the perfect (well not quite) 20m circle!
 

ForeverBroke_

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I did actually ride my horse in my garden once :oops: It's about half an acre of just lawn and really flat, and I couldn't be bothered to hack to my arena hire so I 'popped,' in the garden thinking meh, no one will notice ... Had a hard time explaining why there was hoof prints in there when the sun caught the garden a particular way one evening :eek::cool:
 

ycbm

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Do any of the eventers on here remember Sansaw?

A step bounce hedge into the garden along the gravel path, past the fishpond and out the other side.

I loved it, such a unique set of fences!
 

planete

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My young horse trampled all over somebody's lawn once. I had hired their unfenced sand school to lunge him and he made an unscheduled excursion onto their lawn. I apologised profusely and spent a couple of hours on my hands and knees raising the sunken hoof prints with a hand fork.
 

palo1

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When my older horse was just 4yo I took him for a lesson with a lovely trainer, using her neighbour's arena. This neighbour is pretty posh and the walkways to the school were gravel and lined with with rosebushes. The whole place was lovely - beautiful, well kept and calm. Everywhere you looked you could see wonderful gleaming bay warmbloods with smartly trimmed manes and perfectly banged, level tails. As I left my trailer askew on the driveway, unboxed my wiry, spotted and rather excited young horse, the owner squeaked very politely 'Ooh, how exotic!!' I had to do a few circuits of the car park with the halter to establish forward rather than upward motion and then as we made our way up to the school, my darling young horse stopped dead whipped his head down and started munching said roses. The final humiliation, just after I watched someone finishing their schooling with a very calm, perfectly executed half pass was for my trainer to say 'I think I might pop yours on the lead rein for a few minutes - he seems quite keen today'!! It was not the impression I had wanted to give tbh....
 

Honey08

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I got shouted at a few times as a child for cantering my pony round the garden when my dad wasn’t looking! (Pesky hoof prints gave me away!). Never did get those tempi changes in between the roses though!?
 

palo1

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Eek - I had a rather terrifying experience years ago with a runaway horse ( a serial bolter :( ) that took off down a very steep hill with me. I managed to steer him, somehow, into a garden where he proceeded to gallop round and round churning up the lawn and flowerbeds with a still terrified me clinging on round the corners. I was not aware until later that this was, in fact a very much loved garden that was occasionally open to the public for very special accompanied visits. When I called by to apologise for my intrusion the owner was so lovely, it just made me feel even more of a lemon but I was so grateful for her understanding and sympathy. Rose bushes were definately trampled...
 
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