Relocating from West Wales to Belfast - any horsey advice?

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Kat_

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Hi Everyone,

I used to have an account several years ago but no idea what the password is.... so starting afresh! I'm hoping HHO might be able to offer some advice on moving my pony from Wales to Belfast? As I have been offered a job over there!

I'm looking for any recommendations of livery yards within 30 mins of the city (ideally a quiet yard with a school and 24/7 turnout for the summer, and must be able to offer assisted DIY/part livery) and contact info if poss as I will need to arrange to go over there and have a look around properly at yards etc.

I'm also looking for advice on how to transport said pony there, she normally travels well but is less happy on her own so thinking letting the pros do it might be wise - any recommendations for who to use or avoid? Ideally a smaller shared load with not too many detours but just looking to see what all the possibilities are.

I will also be after dressage and SJ instructors, vet/farrier etc and any tips for XC courses and good hacking but the livery and transport are the first jobs!

Hoping you guys can set my mind at ease that this won't be too stressful and my pony will forgive me for putting her on a boat!!!

Thanks x
 
I don't have any yard recommendations but I was looking at buying a pony from England awhile ago and someone recommended Nimber- I'm an hour away from the city
 
I'd suggest Dalway's Bawn in Carrickfergus, talk to Jenny there. And the ferry trip is fine, most horses don't batt an eyelid. You can go over from Pembroke to Rosslare (longer road trip from there to up north), or Holyhead - Dublin - which is how I'd go; it's about 3 hours with a box from Dublin to Belfast from there.
 
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Hi, it's been a while since I moved my horse back to England, but we had a fantastic time in NI!

There are quite a few yards around Comber (eg "Ardnacashel Equestrian") or Lisburn (eg. "Danescroft"), if that's the side of Belfast you need to be on - they're in Co. Down.

I don't know if Eric Pele's would be too far out of Belfast for you - he's in Saintfield, but I remember he was really brilliant instructor. I went there for some SJ lessons. The first lesson, my horse spooked and spun round in the car park just after I'd got on. That day, Eric spent a long time trying to get to the bottom of his behaviour which turned out to be a confidence issue, and we spent quite a long time just walking up and down the car park to the arena. At the time, I was thinking "I was looking forward to my jumping lesson....!", but in fact getting that problem solved was a real turning point and it made such a huge difference going forward.

When I've relocated before, I've looked on the judges/trainers list for BD and phoned around asking for recommendations - everyone's been really helpful.

Finally, ref transport, a lot of people recommended George Mullins in Southern Ireland, but he didn't have any loads available so I used Harold Lusk from NI. I found Lusks very good but it was a few years ago now, so you'd need to search around to find more up to date recommendations.

Good luck with your relocation!

PS. you could also post on the regional board - I think there's one for NI.
 
It's not stressful at all! PP do you mean comber?

I'll pm you with a couple of yards close to Belfast, but do you know which side of Belfast you will be moving to? That will make farrier etc. Choices also different. There will be plenty of choices for yards within 30mins of Belfast, you will probably prefer one within 15min!

We've no bridleways, but plenty of forest parks and being near Belfast you will have mountains ranges such as ards, Antrim and mournes. Plenty of beaches too!
Competitions here will have less people in them than England, and you never get balloted out of eventing! Season for eventing works a bit differently as well; the north have events mostly on a Saturday and the south have events mostly on the Sunday. Events start March and run until June, where there's a month break in the north and the they restart last week of July usually.

Ps. Belfast is a very peaceful city usually, it's more peaceful than most people think. Apart from the holiday days where it can be more active. Of course you will have to get used to "security alerts" but these happen so often that it's rarely anything and have almost become "normal". They are very annoying though!
 
Thanks, I will definitely look into those yards etc. I do have a trailer so happy to travel for a few lessons when we're there, but for the move I think I will use that to take our own/pony's stuff over.

I will be looking probably at the west side of Belfast, or north/south - the job is at Queens Uni so Looking at the map I think west will be slightly easier to commute from? And until I have a yard in mind I can't know where to start looking for somewhere for the humans to live! (Priorities!) :D

And yes only_me - the closer the better, so if there is a yard only 15 mins out that would be brill! Though I don't want to exclude anywhere that would be a little further till I've had a chance to look round....
 
A girl I know has a livery yard about 15 mins from Belfast - it's on a road between Belfast and Lisburn. I can send you some info on it if you think it sounds good location-wise.
 
I moved from England to NI quite a number of years ago now - I did find it quite hard to find the right trainer, farrier, physio etc. and went through a few different people but I think that's probably the same when anybody moves somewhere new :)

I work in Belfast and live near Ballymena but I keep my horses at home so not really any help when it comes to livery yards etc.

Best to ask again for recommendations for farriers, instructors and the like once you've found somewhere to keep the horse and for you to live :)
 
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