Riding schools Northern Ireland

[skoll]

It’s me again, lol!

After some encouragement about getting back into horses I’m thinking about lessons. I posted here last year about a riding school near South Belfast and a lot of very nice people recommended Lusks, but I also saw other threads where people suggested Birr House, Gransha, Laurelview and Tullymurry. Lusks and Birr House would be the closest to me, followed by Gransha, then Laurel View on the other side of Belfast, then Tullymurry which is south but is quite a drive away.

So if there’s any NI users on here, ultimately where would you recommend for an adult rider to get back into it after a few years off?

Thank you!!

 

[Sheep]

I’ve not had lessons at any of those places but I do go to Laurel View quite often for competitions, it’s a very nice place, very well run and the staff are absolutely lovely. They are BHS approved etc and run as a training centre too. It probably looks a bit out of the way but genuinely about 5 mins from the motorway, so it is handy to get to.

 

[Rowreach]

Laurelview for sure. Wouldn’t go near Lusk’s personally

 

[ArklePig]

The woman who runs lusks has very poor communication in my experience and it's all very haphazard. I last went there about 4 years ago and some of the instructors were excellent and one or two were not. I just found them a pain in the arse to deal with tbh but maybe thats just me. I had some excellent private lessons there but the group lessons were not so good (more so than the usual difference between group and private).

For some reason I could never get laurelview to return my calls to arrange a lesson but I hope you've better luck than me, I know people who love it.

I only tried Gransha twice, it was fine.. I gave up on riding schools as I got a share and then I gave up riding.

I'd be interested to hear how you get on, I'm tentatively thinking about giving it another go as the reason I gave up is starting to stabilise.

 

[Sheep]

If you try Laurelview, maybe even try dropping them a msg on fb first, I’ve always found Linda who seems to man the page to be super responsive.

 

[skoll]

I’d probably be inclined to message first anyway as I get a bit tongue tied over the phone sometimes - no idea why! Laurelview then maybe, if I can arrange it. I keep putting it off thinking “I need to get fitter again” since I let things slide a bit after I stopped riding - even though I’m well below their maximum rider weight I still feel a bit bad! perhaps lessons would help with that, lol! Arkle if I do go ahead I’ll let you know what happens