Where did you learn to ride?

I can't remember the name of the place where I first started to ride...but I properly learned (well, not quite...still learning
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) at Chiverton Riding Centre in Cornwall....and I still have the odd lesson there now!
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In Nairobi, Kenya at a riding school run by a Mrs Gould.

Started in 1981 on a piebald Shetland pony called Domino who was fun, then progressed to "Rebel", a grey Welsh pony, who taught me how to stay on!!!
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After that we moved to Tanzania where I was lucky enough to go to an international school complete with stables and riding as one of the extra-curricular activities- best years of my life.

Rode briefly when we moved back to the UK and then had a 15 year break before buying my current horse.
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At White Cat Stables, Bristol. Then ended up working there when not at school or Uni. The owner's retired and it's a livery yard run by somebody else now but the owner is still my instructor and I see her at least 2 times a week.
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The yard appears to be falling down though which is really sad.
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I had my first few 'lessons' at a place called pound farm but didnt stay long as my instructor left and was replaced by an instructor i had a bad experience with (wont go into details). I then moved to a place called 'The holistic horse and pony centre' which changed locations a few years ago, i stayed there until early 2005. Both places are in surrey
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I learnt to ride at Hall Place stable near Reading and rode and helped out there for many many years. I know a few people on here used to ride there and Charlie76 is now the manager. I've not been there for many years as I'm now in Essex.

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I had my first lessons there in the mid 1970s. When we were in the 6th form a group of us used to hack out on Monday afternoons as our PE lesson, we organised it ourselves instead of doing something boring like swimming.
 
I started aged 7 in the ... er ... '60s at Haydon Wick Riding School near Swindon, run by a lovely lady called Janice Brown. Was a member of the VWH pony club and learned so much from both sources, and from the innumerable local gymkhanas and small shows that we were (mostly) able to hack to. Then we moved north in 1967 and I went to the Ord Mains riding school near Berwick-upon-Tweed, run by Josephine King. I also worked there at weekends and school holidays in return for lessons, although by the time I was 15 I was teaching and getting paid the princely sum of £5 pw!
 
I started to ride because one of my best friends did so i went with her to a ' pony day ' at farnham castle stables , surrey . These days consisted of basically just spending a saturday at the yard , you got a lesson or hack , helped tack up and groom the ponys , cleaned tack , ate lunch ect . great fun and the whole day 9-4 for just £25 . When the riding school there turnt to a livery yard i moved to another riding stables just down the lane , where i got my first horsies on loan (=
 
a riding school in aberdare in south wales, Greenmeadow riding school,, started riding there when i was 5, started helping when i was 10 and helped for 7 years but left late last year when i got injured
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I learnt to ride at Matthews Riding School in Gillingham Kent, it was closed down a few years later and the lovely spanish style building was just left and is now derelict. Someone (Rambo I think) posted some pics of it, and it looks so sad.
Here are some pics I found
http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=483717
They later opened another smaller place in Capstone and I worked there for a while as an instructor teaching people on the same ponies I learnt to ride on!

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Wow thanks for the memories I used to compete at Matthews and knew Tony what a charecter. What a shame it was a fantastic facility been sitting here having umm how much would it cost to buy and put right fantasies
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I was lucky enough to ride at school when I was very tiny. Then Broomhill in Ayrshire; later Leigh in Dorset. With my own ponies it was good old Pony Club!
 
I was self taught. Read riding books as a small child then was put on my sister's friend's pony whereupon she gave him an almighty smack on the arse with the whip, resulting in pony galloping up and down. Evil witch, she was, but I stuck with the pony and learnt to grip sharpish!

I learnt more on my own friend's pony when I was 11, briefly, then worked at Mavita Riding School in Westhoughton at the weekends, when I was 16. AWFUL place and I never wanted to go to a riding school again, but that changed when I was at Uni. I finally had lessons at 21, at a place beginning with W (might be Warton), which refined my riding a bit (I had 10 or so lessons there). Since then I snatched rides on Henry (who I now own and have done for nearly 10 years) and have learnt most stuff on the job, as it were. I'm definitely a do as I say, not as I do, kind of person, lol!
 
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