Where would you live with an EU passport?

[Greypolopony]

I live and board in Los Angeles and this year has been off to not a great start to say the least I have US/EU citizenship and lately leaving the country has been looking more and more appealing. If I’m going to start over though, I want to make sure I actually pick a horse-friendly area this time! So my question is, if you were in my shoes, where in the EU would you go?

Some things I hate about being an equestrian in LA:

• Wildfires
• Lack of vets, saddle fitters, farriers
• The nearest horse hospitals are 90+ minutes away (assuming normal traffic)
• Call fees can run up to $200+
• Timothy hay is $40 per bale
• Lack of tack stores
• Turn out is a huge luxury. Pasture is unheard of.
• I live in a million dollar house but that’s not enough to get me a horse property 🥲
• The horse community is being aggressively driven out by non-horse people, even in equestrian zoned neighborhoods

[Scribbler]

It’s going to be hard to really settle in a foreign country unless you have total fluency in the official language. If you are a monolingual Anglophone that really limits you to the British Idles.

[alpine1]

Can’t go to the UK due to Brexit, but could do Ireland, which seems like a great country for horse people. Obviously would depend where you live there, and the weather will be very different from LA weather

[Greypolopony]

I’m aware of language barriers, and I speak decent Italian and Spanish. I’m asking about which countries are the most pleasant to be a horse owner though, not which countries are compatible with languages I already know.

[sparkygrace]

Portugal. Beautiful weather, lots of horses.

[luvmyhackney]

Depends what you want to do with your horse. I’d move to Belgium in a hot minute but not sure the horsey areas within Belgium.

[HPFarmette]

I love Ireland. But it would tear my heart out to leave the farmette.
Lots of great horse life there though.

[Kirikou]

I think it depends what you like doing with horses? Belgium/Northern France/Netherlands is great for the show-jumping/dressage circuits but not so great if you enjoy trail riding. Portugal is supposedly the “best place to retire” at the moment for EU people (cost of living, etc) but much fewer opportunities for “traditional” showing, etc. Ireland is great for fox-hunting/Pony-Club, etc - but it rains a lot
What are you looking to do with horses there?

[MunchingonHay]

I would add Austria to this list and possibly Germany.

I heard that Portugal is getting ruined by all of the US Ex-pats.

[Manni01]

Well if you want a horse friendly country go to Germany… Nothing in the world tops Germany as a horse country. Go to the area around Warendorf. There you have everything…

[Belmont]

Ireland.

I was 1/2 way moved there before I met my now husband. If he wasn’t in the picture and we didn’t have a daughter, I’d still move there in a heartbeat. It’s totally horse country, incredible people, great train system for access to bigger cities if you want to live in the country, and the weather is mostly mild (IMO). If you hate rain/wet, you’ll hate it, but I really didn’t mind it at all.

[sophie]

It really depends on

1. what you want to do with your horse (trail riding? Dressage? Eventing? Showing a lot? Etc)
2. do you prefer good weather or is it indifferent to you (northern Europe is a no go for me, for instance, I am really sensitive to grey, humid weather)
3. do you want to buy property? Some EU countries, such as Spain, are implementing new taxes aimed at non-EU citizens trying to buy.

[2DogsFarm]

I’m surprised nobody mentioned the Netherlands.
English is taught in schools as a 2nd language.
On my visit to a friend & her family there was never a problem (on their part ) communicating.
A sister kept her horse on her very small farm there & the culture is very much attuned to horses.
DWB, anyone?
Things horse aside, I fell in love with the country.
I spent a week in the countryside, a couple days in small towns & a day/night in Amsterdam.
The food! The landscape! The people!
I would relocate there in a hot minute.

[sparkygrace]

It’s fine if you don’t mind long, dark winter days and gloomy weather. I was there in late February. Very depressing. Temps hovered just above freezing with rain. It got light around 8:30-9:00 and dark at 3:30. Yes, the horse culture is great, but there are challenges. I didn’t see much turnout at barns we visited. However I didn’t see the entire country, just parts.

[nutmeg]

Dutch people in general get very cranky when February passes and it becomes clear that a warming climate has once again robbed them of the Elfstedentocht, the Eleven Cities Race which is a massive travelling party on skates.
It was agonizing last year when the ice thickness fell short by two centimeters. You don’t want to meet them then. Check them out in April.

[sparkygrace]

That’s something I didn’t know! I did know they skate on the canals in winter but had not heard of the Eleven Cities Race. I can understand why they are upset.

[SBrentnall]

Where in Los Angeles are you? There are two good vet hospitals in Somis, which is close if you’re in the valley. There’s also a Dover store in Moorpark. We have pasture at our lace in Thousand Oaks, and so do many of the Moorpark/Somis places.

[2DogsFarm]

I was there in May
Weather was great, lots of cycling (borrowed e-bike) & the sole brother - of 8 sibs - took me to an Eppeljeck tack store.
Timing was right to go to the Once Every Ten Years Floriada show.
Also visited the Bukkenreiter(sp?) forest.
& The food!!!

[Greypolopony]

I’m in Palos Verdes. Somis/Chino/Norco and the Moorpark Dover are all 90 mins from me on a good day.

Ventura is just as flammable as LA so I’m not really looking to move there.

[Willesdon]

Any where in the world is not the same as ones home country. Any country in the world is not the same when living there as when passing through as a visitor.

As a very general way of making an initial choice, what equestrian disciplines are you interested in? The American Hunter-thing doesn’t exist in Europe.

Showjumping then Belgium and the Netherlands have top shows every week. The distances are so small you could be from one side of Belgium to the other in about two sneezes.

Dressage, then Germany, Netherlands, Denmark are probably the tops.

Eventing, then the UK

Endurance, France

Western is very niche but France, Italy and Germany probably have the most activity.

Many EU countries actively promote equestrian sport and the horse is deemed to be an agricultural animal. The UK, of course, is different: very little official support. Such subtleties can impact e.g. access to club stables and other facilities, training and licensing for professional horsemen, structure for amateur riders (in France, for example, an amateur must meet minimum requirements and be licensed to show), how much access there is to the countryside to ride… Such things take a lot of research and local knowledge.

One consideration is that the South/Mediterranean Europe doesn’t have grass like northern/Atlantic Europe. The best hay I have ever seen was in Finland.

Northern Europe has long, dark winters which are longer and darker the further north one goes. The British Isles are further north than the USA and the big Canadian cities.

Land is expensive: populations are large and dense and history prevents urban sprawl.

Travel with horses within the EU is very easy, passports for horses being accepted in other states, veterinary requirements being standardized. The exception is the UK - now outside the EU so costs to travel a horse to compete in Europe have more than trebled and the bureaucracy is a nightmare.

There is great variation within the larger nations: the south of France or Germany is very different from the north, for example.