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Old 09-24-2011, 07:48 AM
 
Location: Austin
2 posts, read 6,126 times
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My 9yr old is interested in riding lessons. We don't own a horse, and don't plan to. Weekly or biweekly would be great. Is there a stable/facility that does ongoing lessons during the year?
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Old 09-24-2011, 08:00 AM
 
Location: central Austin
7,228 posts, read 16,216,129 times
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about a million of them!

Where are you located and does she want to learn English or Western or both?
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Old 09-24-2011, 08:01 AM
 
Location: Austin
2 posts, read 6,126 times
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NW Austin, she prefers Western.
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Old 09-24-2011, 08:24 AM
 
Location: Central Texas
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It's not in Northwest Austin, but Bear Creek Stables has been giving kids lessons (and having Spring Break and Summer camps) for a long, long time, now. It's where I took my "make it official" riding lessons (Western) and my daughter took her beginner lessons (English). One thing you definitely get there is not just riding lessons, but an idea of what's involved in actually taking care of a horse, and they're big on safety. But they're south.

North, there's Spicewood Farms near the Arboretum. I've never been there and don't know much about them, but they do have Western lessons and they'd be convenient.

There's a lot that only give English riding lessons , a few that give Western. Odd, but maybe they think that everybody already knows how to ride Western?
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Old 09-24-2011, 08:38 AM
 
Location: Texas Hill Country
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Leander area has a few stables if you need to come out this far.
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Old 09-24-2011, 08:45 AM
 
Location: central Austin
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Western in NW Austin is hard to come by (lots of English stables though).

You could try Hidden Ranch, they are in Cedar Park and have Western lessons.
Couldn't find a web site but they have a FB page:
Hidden Creek Ranch - Local Business - Cedar Park, TX | Facebook
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Old 09-24-2011, 09:39 AM
 
Location: Hutto, Tx
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I'm glad someone asked this. We've been interested ourselves. The only place I've found near me is on Gattis School Rd. in RR. Thanks for the other links. We don't own a horse, but could possibly in the future. The only place we have to put one would be on my dads place in Tyler, and that would be too far away to take care of one
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Old 09-24-2011, 12:35 PM
 
Location: Great State of Texas
86,052 posts, read 85,090,989 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by love roses View Post
I'm glad someone asked this. We've been interested ourselves. The only place I've found near me is on Gattis School Rd. in RR. Thanks for the other links. We don't own a horse, but could possibly in the future. The only place we have to put one would be on my dads place in Tyler, and that would be too far away to take care of one
Camp Doublecreek in RR offers riding lessons in the fall/winter when their summer camp wasn't opened. I did it with my son years ago for 2 winters and we had a blast learning to ride.

Camp Doublecreek - Riding Lessons
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Old 09-24-2011, 04:39 PM
 
Location: Philadelphia
295 posts, read 1,184,006 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady View Post
It's not in Northwest Austin, but Bear Creek Stables has been giving kids lessons (and having Spring Break and Summer camps) for a long, long time, now. It's where I took my "make it official" riding lessons (Western) and my daughter took her beginner lessons (English). One thing you definitely get there is not just riding lessons, but an idea of what's involved in actually taking care of a horse, and they're big on safety. But they're south.

This is what I am looking for for my daughter. I want her to learn not just to ride but what it takes to own a horse and all the responsibility that goes along with it!
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Old 09-24-2011, 04:54 PM
 
Location: Central Texas
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Well, I know for sure that Bear Creek does that. When I first started taking lessons as an adult, first thing we learned to do was to tack up our own horses, rather than have them led out already tacked up. This on the theory that someday we would want to ride a horse somewhere else and we'd be confronted with a naked horse and a pile of tack and it would be nice to know what to do with it. We also learned all about cleaning tack.

When I was there (and my daughter was), the campers were divided into three groups, based on riding experience. One group would ride, and the other two groups did other activities, and then they'd switch out, and then there'd be lunch. This meant that 3 students rode each horse over the course of the morning. This meant that three students groomed and tacked up the horse, and then after the last lesson, three students untacked and brushed out and cooled off and turned out or stalled their horse and put up the tack - before they could join the rest of the students for lunch. The point was that the horse, and its welfare, was your responsibility if you got to ride it - a great lesson for a lot of those kids.

Now, if you were really lucky, and got to take regular lessons, and got to hang out before or after lessons, sometimes you'd get to go help feed or, joy of joys (I kid you not), muck out stalls! (Why young horse-crazy girls think this is the most fun ever, I'm not quite sure, but it seems they do. If they don't, they're not as horse-crazy as they thought they were, and this is a relatively inexpensive way to find out.)

I'm not sure if that's how they're running things now, but it was when we were there, and Linda Dovers, the owner, is still there, so I'd be surprised if that weren't still the focus of the place.

They have a pool and also used to have swim camp in summers in the afternoon for students whose parents wanted them to be there a full day. (No working the horses in the heat of a late July-early August afternoon.)
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