CASTELLO RIDING SCHOOL

The Location & Surroundings

The first five years Castello spent just in the outskirts of Pori, but in the spring 1994 the riding school and its horses moved permanently to the countryside of Yyteri, where they had already been arranging summer riding camps before.
  So today you will find Castello Riding School nearby the town of Pori, in the western coast of Finland. It's located in the surroundings of Yyterin Kartano, an estate from the late 19th century. The yellow stable yard buildings were built back in the 1920's. From a few kilometres from the riding school lies the long and sandy Yyteri beach, which is quite an unique place in the whole Northern Europe. On horseback, you'll reach the dunes and the beach in about half an hour.

The Horses

We have at the moment 11-12 riding school horses. All of them are safe and properly schooled. The most have been and are competed in dressage, showjumping and / or eventing. Three of them are ponies (1 Shetland and 3 crossings), and two warmblooded riding horses. The others are purebred Finnish horses, of which one is pony-sized. (Here you can see more information of all our horses - now in English!)
  The Finnish horse is an unique all-rounder breed: they are used as well riding horses (the best ones can jump even 1.30 m classes and learn advanced dressage movements), racehorses (the Finnish horse is the fastest cold-blooded trotter in the world) as working horses in farms. They are usually chestnut in colour, around 15.0 - 15.5 hh (but there are also lots of smaller and higher ones) and fairly strongly-built, with thick mane and tail. They remind somewhat of the Austrian Haflinger ponies. As riding horses, they are extremely friendly and calm, yet willing and forward-going, with nice paces to sit and easy to handle and school. We have also some other Finnish horses that are not used in the riding lessons, of which the charming black stud stallion Pellervo has won three gold medals in a row with Minna in Finnish horses' Showjumping Championships 1999-2001!

Riding Facilities

For riding lessons we have two large outdoor arenas (the both are properly fenced and the larger one is also lighted for the dark winter nights). In addition there is a small indoor manege if the weather turns bad. There is plenty of  equipment for jumping and also some small cross-country obstacles. The surrounding forests are full of sandy trails and quiet logging driveways suitable for riding so you can have a quick warming up / cooling down in the woods before or after riding in the manege, or a longer hack.In addition to the Yyteri beach there is also another one in Mäntyluoto that is allowed to ride on. It is also possible for a beginner to have a hack on the trails nearby the stables but to ride to the beach you should have somewhat riding experience.
  Riding lessons and hacks are arranged all the year round, and specially for foreigners a snowy winter hack to the frozen, quiet sea shore could be an outstanding experience (as long as You'll have enough clothes on...). We also have several riding camps mostly in the summer, also for Your own groups according to Your wishes. Also, the hotel and camping site of Yyteri are a couple of kilometres away from the riding school. (Here can you find some more photos from the beach and forest...)

Here is the price list for visitors:
    * Riding lesson                                              13 e
     (or riding on your own in the school, but under supervision)
    * Pony riding in a lead rein for children, ½ hour     9 e
    * Guided hack in the forest, 1 hour                    19 e
    * Guided hack in the forest and beach, 1,5 hours 25 e
    * Guided hack in the forest and beach, 2 hours    34 e

Contact Information

If You have any comments or questions about this homepage or the Castello riding school, You can E-mail me to muskaat@hotmail.com. I will answer with pleasure!
Also, if You want to have any further information of Castello, You can contact me via E-mail. I will deal with any arrangements with the riding instructor and the stable!
 
 

NB! From now on, links of the month will only be shown on the main page in Finnish. Here you can find a list of  our previous links. If there is a British flag after the link, the page is available in English.