Kyrewood, A Great Place To Ride  

If you were to drive down Oroua road, near Palmerston North and Feilding, you would eventually find Kyrewood Equestrian Centre. At Kyrewood any ages and any level riders can ride horses or ponies, to either learn or just ride for fun.

There are riding lessons at Kyrewood. The riding lessons are basically where you pay to be taken for a lesson, and you can either choose to have a private lesson or a group lesson, which is a group of people who are about the same level riding together.

During the holidays you can participate in three day holiday programmes. For these you also have to pay and can be any level. What happens is that on a first day you are given (temporally, for the day) a horse or pony depending on your height. (you would of filled out a form with all your details). You then catch your horse, groom it, tack up and ride until lunch. At lunch we eat and then start riding until about 3:30 and then it is time for chores. The next day about the same thing happens, but the funnest parts are games, dress up and ribbons on the last day. Sometimes we even go to the river on hot afternoons and move sheep on horseback. I definitely recommend doing this!

Kyrewood Equestrian Centre

The one day events are also great.  What happens varies but the latest one was a show-jumping event. People who have their own horse can participate or in the past people have used Kyrewood horses.

My favourite thing at Kyrewood is the Pony Club. The Pony Club is for people who don’t have a horse/pony or can’t transport their pony. At Pony Club you can earn pony club badges and learn about having your own horse/pony. At rallys you catch your pony, groom it and tack up before riding. Sometimes, well most of the time, you do jumping and have heaps of fun riding as well as some learning. (About riding e.g position when jumping) On rainy days you do learning and activities about or to do with horses and ponies. You also can earn your riding certificates. If you become a Pony Club member you can also go camping overnight with other pony club members.

Personally, I think Kyrewood is a great place to learn how to ride because the people are really kind and you'll make life long friends. Kyrewood is also great because the horses and ponies are all unique in their own special way.