Dressage barns near San Francisco Bay

[analarue]

Hi there,
I am looking for a decent dressage barn in close proximity to San Francisco downtown area. I am an amateur dressage rider who will be moving there in October from Europe. I have been taking dressage lessons all my life and would like to continue with a desire to move up the levels. Part-time leasing of a horse is also a possibility. My biggest problem is transportation - getting to the barn as I will not own a car in San Francisco. Are any of the barns there reachable by public transit or is that completely impossible? Would people generally be willing to share rides?

Thank you.

[hvfdressage]

Just sent you a PM. Getting out to the barns without a car is practically impossible but you might want to look into zipcar or other car share programs.

[Pocket_Pony]

Practically impossible to travel outside of the city (to a barn, no less) without a car, so you could sign up for a Zipcar whenever you need it. Dressage barns are on the Peninsula (between SF and San Jose, roughly), in the East Bay (across the Bay Bridge) or in the North Bay (across the GG Bridge). Nothing is easy to get to and depending on time of day (like before or after work), traffic sucks.

Welcome to the Bay Area.

[exploding_pony]

As others have mentioned - I don’t think there is an option that would be viable without a car. You might look at Skyline Ranch in Oakland - you could get close using public transport, maybe adding in a bike?

[Appsolute]

I am going to be another bay area native to say - practically impossible unfortunately - but may be doable if you are willing to do a bit of bicycle riding, and have spare time.

We have a decent train line that comes down the peninsula (caltrain), but connecting busses are slim, take too long (you would be looking at a 2 hour one way journey). The train ride one way is about 45 mins.

I think your best bet would be to take Caltrain down the Peninsula to Menlo Park or Palo Alto stations, then ride a bicycle.

Portola Valley Training center is 3.5 miles from the caltrain stations, and has a dressage trainer (mostly a hunter jumper facility these days).

http://pvtc-ca.com/OnSiteTrainers/Trainers.html

Seven Oaks dressage http://www.sevenoaksfarm.com/ Is just beyond the training center (so again, a 3.5 - 4 mile one way bike ride)

Glenoaks has a dressage trainer as well http://www.glenoaksequestrian.com/trainers.htm and is a bit further down the road, a little over 5 miles from the train station.

Edited to add!

Almost forgot about Stanford! The “Red Barn” is just two miles away from the Palo Alto Caltrain station. Rachel Williamson is a good dressage trainer that works out of the Red Barn… but not sure if outside riders have access to lesson horses in her program. They DO have lesson horses for the general public (NICE horses), but I am not sure if they have dressage specific lessons in that program.

http://set.stanford.edu/barn/programs.htm

http://racheldressage.wordpress.com/