Riding in Northern Ireland

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Thelwell_Girl

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Hello everyone!

We are going on holiday to Ireland in the summer, for the most part the Downpatrick area of County Down, NI, and I would lovelovelove to ride :)

Does anyone have recommendations of places to ride? I have seen these so far:

Tullymurry Equestrian Centre in Downpatrick
Lessans Riding Stables in Saintfield
and Ardminnan Equestrian Centre in Portaferry

Tullymurry seems to be closest, but would be more than willing to travel a bit to find a good place.

Thank you lovely HHO-ers!

Triple servings of Ben&Jerry's to all :D
 
What sort of riding do you want to do? Tullymurry is good but I'm not sure if they do hacking, more of a competition centre and lessons.

If you want a lovely ride in Castlewellan Forest I can recommend Mount Pleasant http://www.mountpleasantcentre.com. Website says they do beach rides but they didn't while I was there. If you're a reasonable rider you they'll take you for some decent canters and the scenery is gorgeous. The horses can look a bit 'rough and ready' but they know their job and are very well looked after.
 
Portaferry is miles from Downpatrick unless you get the ferry across to it from Strangford. Lessans is good, I used to get lessons there but it would be a good distance to travel.

How competent a rider are you? Are you looking a lesson or hacking?
 
tullymurray is good if you want to do xc etc. I dont think the hacking is great in that area :) its got a fab xc, eventing ireland holds events there :) i think they may organise trips to tyrella beach, but cant remember really sorry!

Wouldnt reccomend lessans personally!

Hacking in norn iron though is mainly on roads :(

If willing to travel castle leslie is very good (in monaghon) and so is ravensdale lodge which is just out of newry (ie. 5 mins) both are in the south, but on the border really :)

Tollymore has fab hacking as far as I can remember, and mount pleasant is probably the most excellent one :D

Go for mount pleasant if you want fantastic hacking imo :)
 
Thank you everyone for the reccomendations! I am an novice/intermediate rider, I can walk/trot/canter but steering in canter is still a bit iffy :o

Will look into theses places :)
 
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