Im moving back to PA to the Manayunk area and while I know I ton of trainers in the area, I cant for the life of me think of who is close by. I have a 6 year old who could use some professional work and I like being able to take lessons on other horses to keep me strong and on my toes.
Help! Who do you recommend and why? I can afford the pricier barns and would prefer a barn that shows. I do hunters and eqs.
Welcome back! You’ve gotta try the crab cakes at Winnie’s LeBus right on Main Street and drinks at Jake and Cooper’s Wine bar. Trust me on the wine bar.
As far as trainers go, you’ve got a ton of options in Montgomery and Chester/Delaware counties- John Muldoon at Reinbows End, Leigh Berman at Two Bit Farm, Gaye Cohen at Low Key Farm, Dominique Damico at Ramble On Farm, Jeff Ayers at Equiventures, Mary Morrill/Bentbrook, Alicia MacDonald/Worcestor Stables. I ride at Lazer Farm which is up the Northeast Extension.
I’ve grown up in the area, so if you have questions on anything let me know!
I am so jealous of you. (um- can you say Wawa?). I am currently interviewing for a position to get back to PA 
What discipline do you ride more specifically? Not all the trainer above have “lesson” horses (some do). A few are really only interested in clients who are going to go on full training ($1000 and up) and want to show.
Also- I’d do a quick check of any violation (USEF) before settling on a trainer. A few have some- eh hem- questionable practices (not specifically on the above list, I’d check out anyone I was moving my horse to.
I grew up in that area showing in the As (in my 40s now) and worked a good portion of my life with a BNT in the area (still go up to groom for fun for the big shows Devon, Upperville, some HITS), so I know a lot of people and would be happy to share to help you find a fit.
Define “close” 
The few barns in the city sound far from what you want. Closest in area with barns close to what you’re looking for would be VFMA or Ramble On. Neither is probably an exact fit though. Most of the other barns are going to be an hour or so commute-- so which direction do you want to drive?! There are choices in Chester Country, Bucks County, and Southern New Jersey. Everything is going to be a bit of a traffic nightmare from Philly unless you’re going very odd hours. Welcome back!
Our Farm is closeish too. I’m not calling it Worchester
[QUOTE=vxf111;8746852]
Our Farm is closeish too. I’m not calling it Worchester ;)[/QUOTE]
ba ha ha. It’ll always be Our Farm
And so true- don’t expect much close time-wise in Manayunk/76/476 traffic from 4 PM -6:30. When I was back last weekend I thought I was going to have a stroke. East Coast traffic SUCKS compared to Midwest (and I won’t even touch the West Coast area).
But where will you be working? Manayunk will be quite the drive at rush hour to a number of the trainers listed here (I’m looking at you, Gaye and Leigh - both would be easily 1 hour, 15min++ at rush hour) Mileage does not necessarily correlate to travel time. Personally, I don’t think it’s realistic to go beyond, say Chester Springs area if you want to get out much during the week. The northeast extension & barns up that way might be better - seems like there is less traffic that way. (Diane Daly would be my rec in that area.)
Will add Taqueria Feliz and Goat’s Beard to the list for Manayunk!
[QUOTE=awaywego;8746862]
But where will you be working? Manayunk will be quite the drive at rush hour to a number of the trainers listed here (I’m looking at you, Gaye and Leigh - both would be easily 1 hour, 15min++ at rush hour) Mileage does not necessarily correlate to travel time. Personally, I don’t think it’s realistic to go beyond, say Chester Springs area if you want to get out much during the week. The northeast extension & barns up that way might be better - seems like there is less traffic that way. (Diane Daly would be my rec in that area.)
Will add Taqueria Feliz and Goat’s Beard to the list for Manayunk![/QUOTE]
Ah true- you can get to Diane’s on back roads from Manayunk as well (nice facility, she’s a great rider etc).
I did the drive from Center City to Malvern for 4 years. NEVER AGAIN. Obviously everyone’s personal tolerances differ but some of the suggestions (while good trainers/barns) would be a really l-o-n-g commute even at off times/on backroads. Manayunk is IN the city. You’re talking sometimes upwards of 25-30 minutes of traffic to go 5-7 miles just to get OUT of the city and onto a road where traffic is moving. I personally found a much easier drive going to NJ (Woodedge is a close in suggestion and actually might work for both OP and her daughter’s needs) but she’s going to have to decide what direction she wants to go/when she’s going/how much time she can spend getting there before we can give her really tailored suggestions.
Just gonna say, it is Worcester, not Worchester! 
That is a pet peeve. (I grew up in Worcester ;)) It is easily the closest to Manayunk, although I can’t say that I would recommend it other than the location.
From center city, I would agree that NJ would be better, but from Manayunk, I find NJ less practical because you have to cross the city (and yes, that would easily add another 30 minutes at peak times). There are many places that I would love to ride/board but the distance is just not practical (for me) from the city.
*also, I read 6 year old as horse not daughter
I agree with you vxf/Penny/Away, lets be honest there’s probably no good drive out of Manayunk at rush hour unless they convert Mad River into an indoor!!
OMG you are so right that the 6 year old is a HORSE not a child. My bad!
I have attempted most of these drives from the Bala Cynwyd area, and doing them after work is stressful. For me the easiest was out to Reinbow’s End, it cleared up ok after the 476 interchange. Our Farm/Worcester was theoretically closer but my GPS ended up having me take all sorts of creative ways to avoid rush hour so it didn’t save me anything.
Now that the SEPTA trains are all messed up I’ve had to quit riding because I can’t guarantee I’ll make it out there even for the latest of lessons. If I had to do everything over I’d either live in Jersey or one of the horsey counties, but due to the nature of my work I need to be closer than that.
I live in Lower Merion and work in Center City. I have been riding in Harleysville for 23 years, and have been doing the drive up there for 20 years from Center City on weeknights. 20 years is a long time to do that drive. It has not gotten any easier, and sometimes I want to pull my hair out. For instance, last night, I left my desk at 5:15 p.m. and got to the barn at 7:05 p.m. I was so tired that I took one look at the mud covered beast that is my horse and decided I would just give him a bath instead of riding. This is an oft-told tale in my life.
That said, from Manayunk, going up that way on the NE Extension or out West are your best bets. As the one poster above said, if you have to cut across the city to get to NJ from Manayunk, you are not going to have an easy time. The worst part of my ride west from Center City is the Schuylkill, specifically the stretch from the Art Museum to Conshohocken. If you start off in Manayunk, you cut out about 20-30 minutes of that nightmare that you would otherwise have to go through if you came out of Center City.
Welcome back, good luck in your search and feel free to PM me if you want any help.
Consider heading north. Check out Timber Edge in Horsham.
thank you everyone! I am lucky that I can afford a bit more on the high side of board, but I know high is sort of subjective. I’ll reach out to my bucks county friends (where I grew up), and check out Dominique. I can ride at odd hours of need be and I do plan on showing!! Thanks so much!
I live in Manayunk. I work & ride for Jenn Post in Bucks County. She’s awesome. It’s kind of a hike but I’m pretty much always there crazy early in the morning so the drive isn’t bad. Jenn is great but if you’re looking to travel and show all year we usually only go to rated shows during the summer and there’s a lot of IEA IHSA during the winter.
Penny Silcox is near Jenn she’s pretty incredible. Lot of 1.20m + jumper horses and she does fun stuff like one year they got a BLM horse and she trained it to show the camp kids how to do it lol he turned out incredibly perfect. I don’t really know her at all but I’m sure you could get a lot of training rides from her, everyone says that all the babies that come out of her program are perfect and just stay perfect when they leave lol.
Legacy Farm in Telford Pa has great training and they show
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