If I didn’t want to visit Ireland someday anyhow, I sure do now!! That looks amazing!
Did you go with a booking agent / riding trip agent? Who did you use?
A friend and I are starting to tentatively plan things. We’re thinking 2ish weeks or less. Any suggestions? We’d like to ride daily (or almost daily) but also be able to visit places like the INS and Curragh if time allows.
Forgot about those. I’ve only seen them at 70mph from the motorway, but they would be cool to walk around.
When you know exact dates, it’s worth checking this calendar of agricultural shows - most of which are horse related in some way: https://www.farminguk.com/country-shows-and-events.
You’ll obviously need to have google maps open too to see proximity to where you are, but it’s a pretty good resource. Any thing that says it’s a show, or a county show will have horses, unless it says ‘sheep/Alpaca/something specific show’, so don’t just go by the picture in the calendar!
Shows tend to have a range of events showcasing different breeds of horse/pony - from tiny tots to traditional heavy horses and also often have show jumping classes too - as well as rural crafts and the agricultural classes
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I went to Blair last year and it was a blast. A little bit of everything for spectators, in addition to the international horse trials/eventing there is show jumping (not grand prix) and a variety of breed competions - highland ponies, draft horses etc and plenty of shopping. If you can’t make Blair, you could potentially head down to UK to the Burghley Horse Trials - one of 7 5* horse trials in the world right and great for spectating XC day woud be on Saturday but they might have some other competitions going like young event horse Thursday or Friday which is also dressage days, lots and lots of shopping, good food etc The grounds are gorgeous. Have to purchase tickets in advance and I’d suggest paying for the members tent and I think you can pay for the day or for the entire event.
Not who you asked, but a horsey friend and I also did about 2 weeks in Ireland in fall of 2018 and our riding portion was 4 or 5 days at Flowerhill Equestrian Center in Galway. We did mostly XC, a drag hunt, and a real hunt. XC days included morning and afternoon sessions plus an optional lunchtime hack (on three different horses every day). We didn’t really get what I would call instruction, but the horses know their jobs really well and they let you do decent-sized jumps. It was a really good confidence-builder and cemented my decision to buy an event horse with some experience the next year! Here are some of the jumps we did:
We rented a car, and I planned the rest of our trip myself (I’m an amateur travel agent lol) and did all the driving. I’m happy to send you more info if you want! Ireland is absolutely gorgeous and very easy for self-drive, IMO.
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Thank you! I would love more info, I’m sending you a DM.
It looks like my friend is interested in this tour:
https://www.irelandequestriantours.com/dublin-city-country-estates-rugged-north-coast-6-nights
Dates would be in October 2023.
My perfect vacation trip would be something where I could ride daily over varying terrain, would love to do a few XC sessions (with instructor preferably) and would be amazing to ride with the hunt.
So our trip was ~$3,000/person, all in, which I think is pretty reasonable for 10 days in Europe including a lot of riding. Per person that broke down to:
$756 - Flight (not sure if this is remotely attainable these days)
$145 - Insurance (trip and health, which was recommended or maybe required by Flowerhill)
$132 - Car rental for 10 days (manual transmission Mini Cooper)
$553 - Lodging ($373 of that was the nice B&B associated with the XC outfitter; the remainder was Airbnbs at $50-130/night and the two of us shared a room)
$871 - Riding (4.5 days total, including the 2 days of hunting)
$255 - Additional for 2 days of hunting (capping fees and shipping I think?)
$111 - Other activities and random stuff (bus passes in Dublin, bicycle rental, park admission, etc)
$49 - Fuel for 10 days of driving (it’s expensive but nothing is far away by our standards here)
$193 - Food (we didn’t eat out a ton and chose lodging where we could cook for ourselves sometimes; breakfast and lunch on riding days was provided by the B&B; lunch on other days was typically some bread, deli meats, fruit, etc from a grocery store)
Our itinerary was:
Day 1 - fly to Dublin
Day 2 - arrive in Dublin, explore the city in the PM
Day 3 - pick up rental car, drive 3 hrs west to the Dingle Peninsula with sightseeing on the way
Day 4 - rent bicycles and do 30-mi ride around Dingle with stops for picnic lunch/sightseeing
Day 5 - drive north to Galway via Cliffs of Moher and the Burren with stops for sightseeing/hiking etc
Day 6 - Connemara Loop (5-hr sightseeing drive with stops for hiking etc)
Day 7 - XC AM, lunchtime hack, XC PM
Day 8 - same
Day 9 - drag hunt
Day 10 - live hunt
Day 11 - XC AM, drive to Dublin
Day 12 - fly home
This sounds morbid but we scheduled the riding for the end of the trip in case one of us got hurt, haha. Also a fun thing to look forward to I guess! Of course there’s a LOT more horsey stuff you could do in Ireland. I had visited the Irish National Stud on a previous trip.
Regarding the riding, I have mixed feelings about Flowerhill. Like I said above, you get a lot of riding and jumping, and it was a good confidence-builder. There was hardly any instruction though, unless you really screwed something up. It was more just “go jump this, go jump that.” We went out in a largish group (8-12 people maybe?) and cantered jumps in a spread-out line. It was mostly in pasture-type fields with some stretches through the woods, but wasn’t incredibly scenic. I suspect the link you posted is much more scenic, but of course less XC…
As for the Flowerhill horses/tack, they were safe but nothing special. I was loosely horse shopping and although I didn’t make time for it in the trip, I was open-minded about falling in love with one of my mounts and bringing it home, which is a thing I’ve heard has happened to other people riding in Ireland. On a previous XC vacation years ago I would absolutely have bought at least two of the horses I rode! I didn’t feel remotely that way about any of the Flowerhill horses. And the horse I was put on for the live hunt was the roughest, most uncomfortable jumper I’ve ever sat on–I was jostled almost to the point of falling off over every fence. I have no idea what he was doing…it was almost like the front end and back end were doing separate things. Thankfully another woman had to head in early and she suggested I switch with her because she had ridden the horse I was on before and knew how uncomfortable he was. If I hadn’t switched it would have been an utterly miserable day. I actually don’t remember/know if that was a Flowerhill horse or provided by the person who took us hunting though… The live hunt was arranged through Flowerhill but we met someone else there and the horses might have been his.
I wouldn’t do exactly the same trip again but I think it was good value and we did get a ton of jumping time. We also went in October and got absurdly lucky with the weather. I think it rained lightly once or twice but that was it!
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