Try It Horse Riding Sessions at Dunbyrne

Due to popular demand, we have added some more weekend “Try It” sessions to our schedule. Try It Sessions cost 20 euro for thirty minutes and are perfect for seeing if your child enjoys horse riding before committing to a term of intro lessons or a Summer Pony Camp.

Try It Sessions are suitable for children aged six upwards. Children must be accompanied by a parent or a guardian aged 16 or over who can lead them.

Visitation to our yard is strictly appointment only so to enquire or arrange a booking, please email dunbyrnestud@gmail.com

Summer Pony Camps at Dunbyrne Equestrian

We are delighted to have our Summer Pony Camps up and running for Summer 2024. We will be running pony camps every week starting the 2nd July.

Camps will run Tuesdays to Fridays from 9am to 5pm making them ideal fort busy parents, working parents and avid pony fans aged 6-17!

Camps will include 2 riding sessions each day, arts and crafts, stable management and games. We will have a camp riding display on the Friday that parents are of course welcome to come and watch.

Camps cost 250 euros which works out at just under 8 euro per hour giving great value for anyone wanting to learn about horses and ponies.

For our existing customers, camp can be booked using the links and information that the office will have sent you.

For anyone who hasnt ridden with us before we would ask you to come for a try it session (for beginners ) or an assessment session (for those who can ride). These last 30 minutes and cost 20 but if you proceed to book a camp afterwards, we will take the 20 euro paid off your camp balance for you. This means that you will essentially get your try it or assessment session free of charge,

For beginners, try it sessions allow parents to ensure their child enjoys horse riding before committing to a pony camp. For those who have ridden before, an assessment session allows riders to become familiar in a new place and allows our instructors to gauge their riding ability to ensure we place them in the right group.

You can learn more at this link - https://dunbyrneequestrian.ie/pony-camp

We are based at the Hill of Allen just between Milltown and Kilmeague in Kildare.

Please pop us an email dunbyrnestud@gmail.com with any enquiries

Summer Pony Camps at Dunbyrne Equestrian - August 2023

Can you believe it’s August already?

We are running half day Summer pony camps all through August at Dunbyrne Equestrian in Kildare.

Our camps run Tuesdays to Friday. Our morning camps run from 9.30-12.30. Our afternoon camps run from 2-5pm. Riders aged six or over of all levels are welcome

*for beginners aged ten and under we recommend riders to come for a 30 minute try it session costing 20 euros before booking camp. The reason for this is 1) it allows parents to see if a child enjoys horse riding before committing to a camp and 2) it means that the child can attend camp without having to have a parent or a guardian aged 16 or over accompany them the first day of camp to lead them.

Camps include horse riding, horse and pony care, arts and crafts and games. On the Friday riders will perform a riding display and parents and family are more than welcome to come and watch.

Children must be at least aged six or over to attend camp. We will provide riding boots, helmets and back protectors for use during camp for new riders. Riders must wear long sleeved tops without a hood, thick leggings or tracksuit bottoms (no shorts!) and given its Ireland a waterproof jacket an sun cream are always wise to bring as you will probably need one or the other. Long hair must be tied back and jewellery aside from stud earrings must not be worn for safety reasons.

What to bring - suncream, waterproof jacket, a snack and a drink.

Camps cost 120 euros and a 30 euro deposit via online booking is required. Full payment of balance must be made the week before camp. Deposits are not refundable. Camp payments after one week before camp are not refundable.

To book camp -

Book online - https://itsplainsailing.com/org/dunbyrne#merchandise

Enquire Online - just pop us an email at dunbyrnestud@gmail.com and tell us your childs age and level of riding experience. We can then discuss your enquiry with you.

Thank you

COVID- 19 Riding School Update

COVID-19 Update.

Riding School:

• Please note that we do not allow any drop in visitors to our yard. Access is restricted to liveries and riding school clients who are attending a pre booked lesson.

• Our governing bodies have given the go ahead for under 18 group lessons from 26th April.

• We will be giving preference for group classes to our existing client base and will be in touch with all existing clients later on this week regarding lessons – please bear with us and thank you for your patience.

• We will initially be offering lessons for off-lead and above level as for safety reasons our team cannot provide hands on assistance to beginners. New aged 6-18 riders who are at off-lead to novice or advanced level who wish to be added to our waiting list should email dunbyrnestud@gmail.com .

• We have an existing waiting list for beginners. We will be in touch with riders on our waiting list when we have a suitable class available in the future. To be added to the beginner waiting list for aged 6-18 please email us.

• Please note that we do not offer private lessons for adult beginners.

Camps:

• We do not know yet if we will have Summer pony camps available. This will depend on government restrictions.

• If permitted we will aim to run half day camps for children aged six upwards Tuesday – Fri during the school holidays.

• Preference will be given to existing clients and to those already on our waiting list.

• To be added to the waiting list please email us. Please note that beginner riders will need to be accompanied by a parent or a guardian over the age of 16 years old for their riding sessions.

🦄Thank you very much to our clients who have supported us throughout the last four months and for your lovely messages. 🦄

Prices

Aged 6-18

• 1 hour group lesson : €27.00 per hour.

• Block of 6 group lessons €140.

• Block of 10 group lessons €225

Adults

• 1 hour group lesson €30

• 30 Minute private lesson (only available during off peak times) : €30.00

• 50 Minute private lesson (only available during off peak times) : €50.00

  Peak times - weekends and 3pm onwards Tuesday to Friday. off peak 12-3 Tuesday to Friday

No Slacking November

Forget no stirrups November - what we have got here is no slacking November! The weather has turned, leaves are falling, the evenings are dark and yet we have been so impressed by the dedication of our clients to continue to work hard with their horses and improve.

Halloween Pony Camp

We had our Halloween Camp from the 30th October to the 2nd November. This was our biggest camp ever with over 30 attendees! Thank you to our instructors - Tara, Rebecca, Samantha, Mary and our team for making it the success that it was.

Pony Club Halloween Show

On Friday the 2nd November a group of DBS Tail Blazers went to Coilog with Lorna for the Newcastle Lyons Pony Club Halloween Show. This group of riders really excelled on the day and did Dunbyrne Proud! Zara, Caoimhe, Sive, Sinead and Ella gave it socks in the jump off against the clock earning well deserved rosettes. it was Caoimhe’s first ever pony club show and her pony Judy was on flying form. Zara and Ella were on new mounts and are on the way to growing successful partnerships with them. Laura and Bobby took on the fences in the biggest class with great confidence. Thank you to Newcastle Lyons for a great show.

Riding Club Autumn league success

Our riding club members have been knocking it out of the park in terms of results lately and have turned into a real group of show jumpers and dressage divas. We were delighted to see how well our club was represented in the final results of both the Dressage and Showjumping West Leinster Autumn leagues.

• Michelle Davitt, second place in the primary showjumping league

• Cailey bergin sixth place in the primary showjumping league

• Tori Cummins Kennedy sixth place in the advanced primary league

• Susanne Walsh second place in the primary dressage league

• Deirdre Doyle sixth in the primary dressage league

• Mary Wade winner of the intermediate dressage league

• Miia Pekkala fifth place advanced intermediate dressage league

• Lorna O’Hare winner open dressage league.

Well done everyone! Great to see the hard work paying off. Well done also to Emma Downey second in the open league, Emma trains with Ross O’Hare and has put huge efforts into her training this year.

We look forward to seeing their riders collect their prizes at the Regional awards night later on in the month. We have sponsored a lesson with Ross and lesson with Lorna at Dunbyrne as prizes for the raffle on the night and Lorna (Equestrian Reality) will present an prize sponsored by Clippers Ireland to the best dressed human on the night

Dressage Ireland success

Orla Harrington and her four year old Othello set out to compete this Autumn with the goal of qualifying for the Dressage Ireland Winter Finals at Cavan in April. In just two shows, one of which was in some pretty horrific weather conditions this pair nailed it and have achieved their qualifying scores to earn them a place in the preliminary finals. They will work now towards Novice over the winter training with Ross - what a brilliant start to Othellos dressage career.

Grid Work Sessions

Ross our BHSI has started running grid work sessions at 2pm on a Saturday. These sessions use grids to help riders to gain confidence in their show jumping and progress over height. Starting at 80cm and working upwards during the hour these grid work sessions are open to our liveries, our riding club members and also to anyone who wishes to travel to us to take part. Just contact us at dunbyrnestud@gmail.com to get involved!

Pony Club Championships Success

The Irish Pony Club championships took place last week at Barndown and we had a number of excited DBS Tail Blazers heading down to compete in the event for the first time. Sive Murphy and Molly Dunne travelled down on Thursday to compete in the combined training. Sive and her pony Cooper had an amazing dressage score followed by a clear round show jumping to take fourth place in the Under ten combined training! 

Laura Kavanagh competed on the Newcastle Lyons pure dressage team with her pony The Alders Bobby Dazzler. The team took sixth place in a hotly contested competition. Laura and Bobby also competed in the open novice combined training where they placed fourth over all and also received a special award for getting the highest score awarded in the dressage phase. This was a fantastic achievement for Laura who was also recently awarded camper of the year at the pony club summer pony camp. 

On Friday Niamh Davitt, Sinead Davitt, Molly Dunne and Sive Murphy formed part of a team of fourteen riders who competed in the musical ride. They rode their world cup display to music by Lorna and movements Choreographed by Anne O'Connor. The team only started practicing last month and were delighted to take fifth place in the competition. With the coaches, parents and children all feeling enthralled and inspired by the various routines in the competition its safe to say this will be on the radar again next year!