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We
both had horses earlier in our life. Ciara owned a grey
Connemara gelding when she was a
horsemad teenager, and
Christophe bought a bay thoroughbred mare when he started turning into a gentleman
farmer in his late thirties. So when we moved to the island full time
in 2003, we
decided to reduce the number of sheep grazing the land and keep
horses.
We bought two Connemara brood mares, Daisy (the Dun) and Bella (the
Bay),
and shortly afterward started looking for a riding horse
(although
both of the brood mares were actually broken).
We found
two, Simbad, a beautiful thoroughbred cross bay gelding, and Misty, a
white Irish Draft mare, and as we couldn't make up our mind
which
one to get, bought the two of them!
Seven years and quite a few foals
later, Daisy has left and is now teaching horse riding to young
children, but we still have the tree others, as well as two of their
sons (5 years old Ariel and 2 year old Jazz), and
one of Daisy's
grand daughter (Meade). Bella is taking a break from
breeding, and is turning into a wonderful work horse. And the
children now have their very own riding horse, a sweet little pieball
mare called Suzy.
Christophe has a keen interest in training horses, and
this had led him to look into natural horsemanship
and training methods
sympathetic to the horses. He has studied horsemanship with Kelly Marks
(a student of Monty Roberts) and has learned the basics of the Parrelli method of horsemahship with Sean Fitzgibbon,
one of Ireland's leading horsetrainer. He is currently studying with Vanessa
Bee.
Horses on the farm are kept as naturally as possible. They are never
stabled, as we
believe that this is detrimental to their physical and emotional well
being, and since we discovered barefoot riding
and the work of Jaime
jackson, they are ridden and worked barefoot. We are slowly
working towards having
all our horses
metal free, and most of them are trained for bitless riding
(and, in Bella's case, bitless driving).
We offer horse trecking exclusively for our guests. Short ride (30 mn)
20 euros. Longer treck (1.5 hours, for experienced rider, lots or
cantering) 45 euros.
We have a 16 m round pen (which doubles up as a small sand arena) for
training and riding.
We are members of the West Mayo Equine group,
a group of horse owners in the area.
Christophe is the webmaster of the new Workinghorses.ie
site, which hopes to promote the use of working horses in Ireland.
This year, we are running a number of training
courses.
We currently
have a few nice Connemara
ponies for sale.
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