Hello everybody,
There will always be a love story on
Aphrodite'Island Cyprus. A love story between a French woman and a
Dutch man living in Paphos, raising horses together, living their life here, finding here happiness, teaching children horse riding.
Amargeti Equestrian Club, it is a club
made with passion, love and dedication. Marlene's passion for horses
succeed building in Cyprus one of the most professional establishments
where kids and adults can learn, enjoy, have fun, experience their love: horse riding.
Marlene will be my guide today on their
piece of paradise in Cyprus, Amargeti Equestrian Club:
Izzy: Bonjour Marlene, I am very
happy to meet you. You were surrounded by horses starting very early
in your life. Do you believe that this opportunity changed the way
you are, your entire perspective in life, it opened new gates for
you?
Marlene:
Definitely,
Amargeti Equestrian Club was a unique
opportunity for us, it enabled to us to establish a riding club where
the horse riding blends into a beautiful natural environment. When
you step into the club grounds your mind goes place, you become
relaxed, stress free and ready to take on life in of all its aspects.
Izzy: Armageti Equestrian Club
is a place that offers high quality establishments and services
comparable with countries with a vast tradition in horse riding like
France, Germany, UK. What did you succeed bringing in Cyprus?
Marlene: In the dressage arena we use washed construction sand
mixed with geotextile flakes, we are the only horse riding club in
Cyprus which uses geotextile for its footing. In the jumping arena we
use a very special type of sand which hardly makes any dust and it is
topped up with chipped recycled rubber, it provides the horse with
excellent grip and it absorbs the shocks in the horse’s legs while
it is doing its jumps over the obstacles in order to avoid leg
injury.
Again, we are the only riding club in Cyprus which has this
professional type of rubber footing which is used in the top riding
schools elsewhere in Europe.
Around all our arenas we have flood lights so we are able to provide training after the sunset when the weather condition are cooler for horse riding in the summer time.
The main club facilities are: 25 stables, clubhouse, outside paddocks, one arena 40 M x 25 M, sand & geotextile and one arena 40 x 80 M, sand & rubber flakes, lunging arena, well secured tack room, shower areas, etc.
Izzy: Kids love animals and especially horses. What is the best age to start coming to your club and beneficiate of your horse ridding lessons? What are the benefits for kids practicing horse riding? They can participate in any tournaments ?
Marlene: Horse
riding is not bound to any age, small children can come to our club
from the age of 4/5 years. It is important that children gradually
get familiar with the horses as they are big animals in the eyes of
small children, we therefor go very slowly with them and ensure that
every experience is a good one, one bad experience could make the
child afraid of horses for the rest of its lives and we wish to
avoid that at all cost. Being around horses is extremely therapeutic;
they make you forget the world and make you feel very relaxed and it
is a bonding experience. Riders which have been training sufficiently
can participate in competitions which are held all over the island
during the winter months.
Marlene: Actually not a lot, the only thing we ask new riders is to wear tight pants, tight underwear and flat shoes. We will provide the helmet, the body protector, the horse, the saddle and the headgear and the whip.
Izzy: Competition for kids involves passion, desire to grow, to be the best. This improves children self esteem and helps them compare their efforts with others. Do you organize competitions?
Marlene: Yes, last year we had our first successful event and had around 120 entries from all over Cyprus in the club and we received a lot of positive feedback. It was a competition for both dressage and show jumping. Our aim is to organize at least 1 or 2 similar events per year and compete on the highest level in Cyprus with our club riders.
Izzy: A family day out at Armageti Equestiran Club can be a very good choice? Everybody is searching for the perfect location also to enjoy a nice birthday. Is it your club a possibility?
Marlene: Absolutely, we are perfectly located, our club house can be rented either for full or partial catering and we have a WC and a shower. We have a playground and in the winter months riders and their families can pick their own fruit from the orchard fruit trees. While the children do the riding the adults can enjoy the clubhouse which has great view over the facilities.
Izzy: Do you carry out school excursions ?
Marlene: We are in the middle of the process of designing an educational school excursion program whereby we will teach young children how the club operates and to teach them the very basics of horse care and riding. We plan to provide this service within the next 3 months.
Izzy: What other activities and events are organized at your club?
Marlene: We organize social events for our club members and their families such as social BBQ’s with live music (country western band). Furthermore, we offer free fruit picking for visitors as we have 150 mature fruit trees which provide tons of oranges, mandarins and apples and apricots or almonds. Furthermore, we welcome visitors who just want to have a drink or a snack in our wonderful clubhouse while watching other riders doing all the action as the clubhouse is centrally located in the middle of the club grounds with breathtaking views all around.
We also conduct dog scootering which is a new dog sport for Cyprus whereby a dog pulls a person on a big step scooter. It’s great exercise for both dog and owner of the dogs. We only do this is the winter months as the temperature needs to be cool.
Izzy:Thank you very much Marlene for the interview, we have tremendously enjoyed your passion for the sport and your efforts to make horse riding a pleasure for our young readers.
Marlene: Thank you very much, we have appreciated it tremendously.
Lots of sunny days from Izzy the Cypriot Lizard!
Armageti Equestrian Club
Opening hours: 9:00 - 18:00
Address: Amargeti Valley, Amargeti, Paphos, Cyprus
Phone no: 00357 99788287
Web page: www.amargetihorseriding.com
E-mail address:info@amargetihorseriding.com
Contact person: Marlene
Price per lesson for beginners: Euro 20 per
lesson or Euro 185 per 10 lessonsPrice for a ride: Euro 5 pony ride
Price for a Hack: Euro 30 for 1 hour or Euro 50 for 2 hours
Services:
- Lessons
(Dressage & Jumping): we teach dressage from beginners level to
advanced level. Mastering dressage up to a certain level is very
important as it is the basic of all other horse riding disciplines.
Furthermore, we give jumping lessons from beginners to advanced and
we have built a jumping arena for that purpose.
- Livery stables: if someone who owns a horse but does have the
space or time anymore to look after it, they can bring their horse
to our club where we will take care of the horse, we will feed it,
we clean its stable and we daily put it in a paddock so it can
freely can move around.
- Hacking: if you know how to ride a horse, you can rent a
horse from the club and take the horse out for a walk into the
nature. Amargeti valley is fantastic for hacking, we have endless
trails into the hills and the scenery is simply breath taking. The
hacks are always supervised hacks so a competent staff member will
accompany the rider on the hack to show them the nice and safe
routes.
- Carriage riding: we are now in the training process to teach
2 ponies how to pull a carriage so we can take several people onto a
carriage and enjoy the breathtaking scenery.
- Pony rides: we conduct pony rides for the very young riders.
These are short rides of a couple rounds in the arena whereby a
trainer has the horse on a lead and walks next to the horse.
- Train & exercise and break horses: we train and exercise
and break other people’s horses if they have no time to do it.
They will leave the horse in our stables after which we will take
care of it for a period time and conduct all the training, as agreed
with the owner of the horse. For young horses which have never been
ridden before, we offer a program to break the horse safely without
too much stress for the animal and we will teach the horse how to
load into a horse trailer. This period of breaking is extremely
important for the horse as it is the period where the horse will
start to learn to trust people.
- Events: we organize and participate in dressage and jumping
competitions on the island. Last year we had our first successful
event and had around 40 horses on the club grounds.
- We try to operate as green as possible as such we have
installed our own solar installations and we recycle our own horse
manure into compost. The horse manure which is excellent garden
fertilizer, can be collected for free by visitors.
10
Ways Horses Build Character in Children
- Learn responsibility
- Learn Trust
- Learn to be Open minded
- Build Confidence
- Learn patience
- Self Discipline
- Teaches Sensitivity
- How to learn from our mistakes
- Learn Respect
- To have Fun