Monte Velho - Portugal

Maddy who has been on 2 In The Saddle rides. Wonderful week | The horses are all beautifully schooled and very well behaved. Some are schooled to PSG and above. The instruction is very good indeed. It exceeded our expectations. The instructors assess you very quickly and then try and match you with a variety of horses to improve your riding through the week . Ann-Sylvie the senior instructor is amazing the way she manages it all.
We had a lovely group and bonded well all supporting each other and watching each other improve.

[Abbie from ITS replies: Many thanks for your lovely feedback. We are so pleased that you enjoyed your holiday.]

Do you have any comments about the accommodation and food?

The food is lovely. The only minor comment is that they could put cloches over it to stop flies. It’s buffet and there were a few flies landing on the food which wasn’t nice.

How could we improve the quality of pre-holiday information that we send?

Very good
See helpful hints below.

How could we improve the way we handled your booking and payment?

None

Do you have any other feedback for us?

A few helpful hints:
- The dressage lessons are really excellent, I learnt so much. I particularly benefitted from the work on deepening my seat, focusing on my position being more effective, and being able to ride advanced movements on a beautifully schooled horse. A decent level of riding fitness would help you get more out of the holiday.
- Most of the horses are in double bridles -don’t worry if you aren’t used to that you soon pick it up.
- On most of the horses they like you to wear small blunt spurs so worth taking your own if you have them. They can lend you some but they don’t have many spare pairs.
- We broke up the dressage lessons with a trail ride which was very nice. Lovely scenery, controlled canters ( if you want to) no traffic!
- Most days we had two lessons, quite intensive but worth it in terms of improvement. The instructors just want you to enjoy yourself and improve - frankly I thought they were amazing. We are booking now to go again next year!

[Abbie from ITS replies: That's a great list of hints and tips, thank you for sharing! Spurs are on our suggested packing list for all of the dressage trips.]