Paddock agistment
Your horse lives out in a small, settled group towards Meadows, with a shelter, a trough and a gate that shuts properly. You do feeds and rugs; we check water and fences every day and tell you if anything looks wrong.
Twenty-metre circle at C, when you’re ready.
Dressage lessons, training and agistment for adult riders at Renvers, near Meadows in the Adelaide Hills.
A ten-metre circle at C, trotted and left for the harrow. Your turn: twenty metres, when you’re ready.
Starting again, starting late, or starting a young horse.
Enter at A in working trot. Down the centre line. Halt at X and salute.
Plenty of riders here are coming back to it. Some rode when they were young and stopped for thirty years, some sat on a horse for the first time at forty-five, and some have a four-year-old in the paddock and want to do right by it. We start where you are, on the day you’re having.
Renvers is a dressage centre for adults near Meadows, in the Adelaide Hills. We teach from walk-trot to the upper levels, train young horses with their owners, keep horses on full or paddock agistment, and ride in two sand arenas and a covered one. Nobody will hurry you up the centre line. We will ask you to halt square at X.
A circle tells the truth.
Twenty-metre circle at E. Look where you’re going, not at his ears.
Most lessons happen on a circle, because a circle tells the truth. If it’s flat on one side, he’s falling out. If it gets smaller, you’re pulling. We’ll ride it with you until it’s round.
A twenty-metre circle is 62.8 m round: about 24 strides of working trot.
The four kinds round it are illustrative: every rider’s week is different, and we set yours at the first ride.
Private
One rider, one coach, your horse or one of ours.
Shared
Two riders at a similar stage. You learn from watching, too.
On the lunge
We have the horse, you have your position, and nobody has to steer.
Training rides
One of us rides your young horse while you watch, then you ride and we watch.
Who teaches you.
Three of us, each fussy about something different.
Half-pass left, D to E. Bend first, then go sideways.
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Ros
![Ros on foot in the sand arena, holding the lunge line and watching the horse go round her.]()
First rides and nerves
Fussy about breathing out before you ask him for anything.
Ros takes most first rides, and walks beside you on the lunge for as many weeks as it takes. She came back to riding herself at forty-eight.
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Dom
![Dom at a rider’s stirrup, his hand showing where her lower leg should hang.]()
Position
Fussy about where your weight sits, and why your left leg creeps forward.
Dom works on seats: what your hands are doing, where you look, how little you need to ask. He teaches most of it at walk.
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Pip
![Pip riding a young chestnut at walk on a long rein, looking down at his ears.]()
Young horses
Fussy about going at the horse’s pace, not the calendar’s.
Pip rides the young ones first, then hands them back to you a little at a time. She keeps a notebook on every horse she starts.
What you’ll learn to ride.
It starts with a walk on a long rein and a circle that comes back to where it began. It goes as far as you want.
Renvers
The quarters stay on the track, the forehand comes in off it, and he’s bent the way he’s travelling: travers turned inside out. It’s where most riders stop thinking about legs and start riding the shape, which is why we took its name.
Where your horse lives.
Three-loop serpentine. Straight across the centre line. New bend, new loop.
Full agistment
We do all of it: hard feed twice a day, rugs on and off with the weather, feet picked out. You come and ride.
A Hills winter
It rains here from May to October. Paddocks are rested in turn, there are sand yards for the wettest weeks, and the hay shed is full before anyone needs it.
Change the rein across the long diagonal.
Two sand arenas and a covered one, and the going in all three.
The big outdoor arena is twenty by sixty, the full size. The small one is twenty by forty, for lessons and the lunge.
The covered arena is for wet weeks and hot afternoons. Its long side is open to the paddocks, so the light comes in low.
The going is washed sand over a fibre mix, harrowed and watered every morning. Every print you drew at the top of this page is one our harrow takes out.
Arena sizes and footing are illustrative.
Questions riders ask us.
Free walk on a long rein, down the long side from K. Let him stretch.
Do I need my own horse?
No. You can start on one of ours: calm, older horses who have seen every kind of first lesson. If you have a horse, bring him, and we’ll start with the two of you.
I haven’t ridden in twenty years. What happens first?
A first ride at walk, on the lunge, in the covered arena. We look after the horse; you get your seat back. Then we talk over a cup of tea about what you’d like, and how often.
What should I wear?
A helmet that fits you, boots with a heel, and gloves. Long trousers you can move in. We can lend you a helmet for the first ride.
Can you help bring on my young horse?
Yes. One of us rides him while you watch, then you ride and we watch, and we go at his pace rather than the calendar’s.
Can I ride in the arenas on my own?
If your horse is agisted here, yes, outside lesson times. Everyone else rides with one of us.
What happens in a heatwave?
We ride early or not at all. On hot days the horses come first: shade, water and a hose-down, and lessons move to the cool of the morning.
Halt at G, and salute.
Tell us where you are with it, and we’ll suggest a first ride. Down the centre line from A, a letter at a time.
Leave the arena at A on a long rein.