Hesteyri Horses

Hesteyri Horses We are a family owned horse training yard dedicated to helping all horses and ponies! Everything we do is For the love of the horse.

We specialise in working with horses of all levels with understanding and compassion. We don't believe in dangerous horses but in the fact that all horses deserve a chance. Our full list of prices for Backing, Schooling, Training, Groundwork, Rehabilitation and Sales livery along with Teaching are on our website www.hesteyrihorses.co.uk. We have had many adventures over the years with our four leg

geds, but the biggest one has to be our ride from John O'Groats to Land's End in 2018 which was an incredible test of endurance for our horses. They were just amazing, every question we asked of them they gave their all in, and each evening as we camped in whatever field the horses were in, meaning we could kiss them goodnight and cuddle them whenever we needed to. We came home with an even more unbreakable bond with our veteran ponies, Flicker and Phoenix, who many of you will meet if you come onto the yard, rocking their retirement. We like to do a bit of everything, we will always let the horse pick their job and we don't try to fit a square peg in a round hole, but at the same time, we're not going to discount a horse just because they don't want to event or show jump and those are our favourite disciplines. Nellie loves her dressage and enjoys working on lateral moves, Rose loves to show jump, she can be a little spooky, especially on grass, but with the right riding, she's as careful as a cat and will win British Novice all day long. Kerry, our eventer who went to Novice level, sadly retired in 2020 so Rose is going to step into his shoes to do a little bit of low level eventing. We have over fifteen retired horses to our two ridden horses, most of them being rescues, because we always say the buck stops with us. Some of our horses were only with us for a coupe of weeks because we were asked to step in and help, before we had to make the decision to let them live out their days in the field because of soundness problems or pain related injuries causing problematic behaviour. Whether the horses have been with us weeks or years, whether they have won rosettes or haven't been ridable, they owe us nothing and we owe them everything.

29/06/25Absolutely mental day at area eventing with Hereford and District at Howick Horse Trials.We had three horses and...
29/06/2025

29/06/25
Absolutely mental day at area eventing with Hereford and District at Howick Horse Trials.

We had three horses and came home with a team 1st and 2nd, and 3rd, 4th and 5th individually so we absolutely can’t be disappointed with that!

Henry started with only his third outing ever, thanks to a broken lorry and, well, a broken leg. He was rather excited but we were actually quite pleased with a 37 in his dressage. He had a few poles show jumping but considering it was his first time jumping a course and he was spooky at our fillers up until the last week, we were over the moon at him jumping everything first time! Then had a really unfortunate glance off an angled brush cross country, but so proud of him for understanding the question the second time and flying around the rest of the course for 4th individually and 1st team!

Rose had a 35 dressage as usual, but unusually had two down in the show jumping due to a misread distance. Then she did the most brilliant clear cross country for 5th individually and 2nd as part of the team.

And then it was a case of The Lion Strikes again. He went a bit babyish in the dressage and had the most insane double clear for 3rd place individually. His show jumping it was like it didn’t matter what the stride was, he wasn’t touching it. Then he absolutely skipped around the cross country. He ate up a tricky course and didn’t even look like it took any effort. So proud of him.

Today wouldn’t have been possible without a little help from our friends! Firstly, we had to borrow Claire’s lorry, which she dropped off for us last night so we didn’t have to get it! After her second day of volunteering. And she managed to find time in between dressage writing to help us!

We still needed an extra space so Lisa came all the way out to pick up Lion! And had to take Rio home in the day and came back out to take Henry home!

Emily is a keystone to Hesteyri life and today was no different with her being an absolute star with pictures, changeovers and running around like crazy.

We were also joined by Alina, Meag, little Meg and Lisa who were just incredible with everything from holding horses, to videoing and helping with the epic clean up!

Henry being an absolute dude for his first time cross country schooling at Oxstalls. Span around the 80 course as easy a...
28/06/2025

Henry being an absolute dude for his first time cross country schooling at Oxstalls. Span around the 80 course as easy as breathing.

If you don’t have the money, just wait!This applies to a lot of things in the horse world. Instant gratification just is...
26/06/2025

If you don’t have the money, just wait!

This applies to a lot of things in the horse world. Instant gratification just isn’t really a thing here, it takes years to produce a good horse, it takes years for a young horse to be ready to sit on.

In particular the two things I was thinking of here are sending your horse away to cheaper yards to be backed/ schooled, and buying horses. Both should take a great deal of thought, both are often rushed into because of some anxiety placing time over money.

If you have a young unbacked horse, it is going to take you about £1500 to get them backed. Start saving, because this is the most important and influential part of their life!

During the backing process we put many fundamentals in place which will help your horse to navigate the rest of their ridden career:
⭐️We teach them to lead properly - You wouldn’t believe the number of older horses who are rude to lead, and how time consuming every job is if they are. Loading becomes much easier if your horse leads.
⭐️We teach them to be fearless and unafraid about their rider - We create the beginning of the horse rider bond. The horse trusting their rider from the very beginning makes every other goalpost easier to achieve.
⭐️We teach them to seek a contact right from the start.
⭐️We teach them not to rush past danger.
Not to mention a myriad of other life skills such as standing to be tacked up, picking feet out etc.

If backing goes wrong the first time, your horse might never be trainable. You will certainly end up spending more money putting it right. Your horse might learn to rear or buck, or any other bad habit, and do it for the rest of their life. Your horse’ first work with humans must be positive!

This isn’t a competitive post. We were young guns once, low prices are their way to get their foot in the door. Just make sure that anyone who is going to back your horse has gained experience with someone older who has already done it before, and has a process, with reasons for the way they do things. When we first started out professionally we’d already backed many horses with our mother.

If you don’t have the money right now, keep saving. Your horse will go through the backing process faster once a bit older, so you won’t have wasted time with them in the field!

Our prices are £250 a week and we recommend 6 weeks.

Looking for a companion home…Togo, 15.2 TB gelding, 9 years old. Togo is an absolute pleasure to have around. He’s a goo...
24/06/2025

Looking for a companion home…

Togo, 15.2 TB gelding, 9 years old.

Togo is an absolute pleasure to have around. He’s a good-doer and easy keeper. He’s the perfect companion if you have a larger horse to keep company. He’ll not get stressed when left and is a doddle to do absolutely anything with.

He’s been retired because he has KS, and was no longer v happy being ridden.

Permanent loan homes only, no one who wants to return him to us just before winter! We will require references and will be vetting homes and expect to be able to visit to check his welfare. Having said that, we are in no way going to be hellish ‘owners’, you will be able to treat him completely as your own.

Child-safe, dog safe, barefoot. Please contact with any questions except ‘Can he be ridden?’

Hard Rain (Henry to his friends) has been with us for about a year now and had his first outing last autumn and we jumpe...
23/06/2025

Hard Rain (Henry to his friends) has been with us for about a year now and had his first outing last autumn and we jumped him for the first time (pictured). Then something happened in January (can’t remember what) which meant he didn’t get to go out again until the other week! But Lauren has been working so hard behind the scenes and we decided to throw him in at the deep end and enter him for an event. We hadn’t even cross country schooled and he’s not seen a course of show jumps since October last year so it could be quite exciting.

19/06/25Hard Rain absolutely bossed his first cross country schooling! Thankfully, the fab team at Oxstalls did their us...
19/06/2025

19/06/25
Hard Rain absolutely bossed his first cross country schooling! Thankfully, the fab team at Oxstalls did their usual brilliant job of the ground, and let us go two hours early to beat the heat!

Henry warmed up absolutely beautifully, Lauren ran through her dressage test from last weekend to give him some idea of eventing.

Then he warmed up brilliantly, did ditches and steps to prep him for the course, and then headed straight to the start box to run around the BE80 course. The original plan was to do a few jumps at a time to let me, Emily and Hugo catch up, but that quickly went out the window because Henry was a total legend! So they buggered off without looking back, flying around with ease and occasionally popping a 90 fence for good measure.

What an absolute legend he was to go straight around a flagged course having never seen a cross country fence! He also went straight into the water which we hadn’t practiced beforehand because it was occupied. Dude is pretty cool and has made all the behind the scenes work worth it!

We then spent a good long while making the most of the wash area and Henry was very happy to stand and be hosed all day. He then enjoyed a very wet recovery mash and looked pretty chuffed with the whole arrangement.

Hugo deserves a special mention because he was absolutely foot perfect today. He was at the weekend too but I was so proud of him because he listens so well and will ask pretty nicely to be carried, and then he just stood by me hugging my legs while I filmed. He’s only just over a year and a half and he makes me so proud everyday.

Huge thanks to Claire for letting us use her car and trailer again! And to top it off, coming down to help us this evening! Absolute legend!

Thank you to our Emlin for the awesome pictures and being the best auntie today!

As always, thank you to Sarah for the opportunity to produce this special lad, who retired from Archie Watson Racing last year.

The Lion Strikes at his first ever event pulling out a double clear like the little legend he is!
18/06/2025

The Lion Strikes at his first ever event pulling out a double clear like the little legend he is!

18/06/2025

Video update 17/06/25

Freida has been with us since last year, but had a lot of physical issues to work through. When we noticed she was unsound in her left hind, the vet came to work her up and agreed about the lameness but also noticed some light blindness in her eyes, suspected o***y issues, and most importantly a large neuro deficit. She had her neck injected and became sound and much happier behaviourally almost overnight. So super vet strikes again. We’ve spent months building her up again and hopefully she’ll be going back to her owner soon so she can enjoy her own horse!

Louie has pretty much fully rehabbed from his colic surgery now, but is still on walk work until he has chiro treatment this week.

Swift has been schooling beautifully, but is so good we often don’t get any footage of her. She’s here with owner Chloe.

Alf is backed and riding away nicely. He just did his first solo hack, and now just needs to be more established and despooked! He’s out with Milo in the video, who’s being a superstar first pony for Hugo.

Willow is also going really nicely. She’s passed a vetting and has a home to go to once she’s reached the right stage in her training. She had her first trot on the lead rein yesterday.

Stag doesn’t have a lot of video on phones, but stay tuned for Meg’s video of their first round back at BS.

Aaddeey is a fairly new arrival. Part owned by Lisa Bennett, he is going to show little Meg the ropes in producing a former racehorse. So far he’s been a very good boy and is showing a lot of promise!

Rose is a perfect princess as normal. She’s generally quite hot to jump at home, so Em was happy to get a rare opportunity to give her a pop.

Lion also doesn’t have much phone video, but has hogged quite a lot of the social media lately!

Henry has been quietly working away and is ready to start getting out and about now. He is quite complicated but exceptionally talented, so it’s very exciting to have some outings on the horizon.

Red has been very happy, pootling away, and keeping the young ones in line in the field.

14/06/25The Lion Strikes smashing it out of the park with a double clear in his first BE at Oxstalls Cross Country!He wa...
14/06/2025

14/06/25
The Lion Strikes smashing it out of the park with a double clear in his first BE at Oxstalls Cross Country!

He was slightly less adjustable than normal in the dressage, which was also pretty harshly marked.

Onwards and upwards to the show jumping, probably his most difficult track to date but he was foot perfect and threw around without looking at a single thing.

Then the cross country was out of this world! The last time out, he was still a baby. Today, he went out of the start box like a seasoned professional. Every single jump he hit perfectly and just made it look so easy. So proud of him for absolutely cruising round and giving Lauren that perfect stride feeling at every fence. Lauren piloted him beautifully and then we babbled at eachother like over excited kids because that’s our baby!!

The hugest thank you to Claire for lending us her Land Rover and trailer, you are such a freaking legend, thank you for bailing us out while we have a poorly lorry.

Amazing ground and courses as always at Oxstalls, thank you for your hard work and to all the volunteers!

Thank you so much to Emily for being a next level super groom! Not just with the best tail plait ever but just everything you do. And thank you for capturing the little man so perfectly!

Thank you to mum, Heath, Alina, Sarah and Ren for all of your help and support throughout the day, from holding horses and water buckets, to Hugo and tack. You’ve all been so amazing and made us feel blessed to have our people there at one of our favourite venues ever. We have the best memories at Oxstalls and today will definitely make the list.

So grateful to Sarah and John O'Shea Racing for the chance to produce this little legend.

So lush to see Sister Sarah, Lucy and Amelia, even if it was way too brief and we are in serious need of proper catch ups!

Well done to everyone who competed today, especially Sara for a double clear, lovely to see you and Cath.

Address

Little Hesteyri, Coxbury Lane
Lydney
GL15

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 8pm
Tuesday 9am - 8pm
Wednesday 9am - 8pm
Thursday 9am - 8pm
Friday 9am - 8pm
Saturday 9am - 8pm
Sunday 9am - 8pm

Telephone

+447783336733

Website

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