Lessons, instruction and schooling — find a yard to learn the ropes or bring a horse on.
Reitverein Florianihof is a long-standing family-run riding club in Zeiselmauer, Lower Austria. It offers riding lessons and children's camps for young and older riders. The yard also takes in horses belonging to owners. The team emphasises the wellbeing of the animals and a friendly, family atmosphere.
Sognohof is a non-profit association in Vienna's 22nd district promoting species-appropriate animal keeping. It offers gentle riding lessons for children and adults, fear-free riding, holiday camps for children and birthday parties. It also provides psychotherapy and occupational therapy with horses, adult coaching and farm yoga. The horses live in an open stable as a herd, go barefoot and are fed organic Austrian hay.
The Schottenhof is a centre for animal-assisted pedagogy with integrative riding and vaulting on the edge of Vienna. Its offers are built around working with horses, including riding lessons, sport vaulting, therapy and team training. It serves children and adults with and without disabilities and runs projects for schools and kindergartens. The centre also offers training courses in its field.
Ursula Kasinger is a Vienna-based riding instructor teaching in the classical-baroque tradition. She is a licensed classical-baroque trainer of the Bundesverband für klassisch-barocke Reiterei. She coaches ambitious leisure riders with their own horses across many breeds, including Iberian horses, Icelandics, Arabians and Haflingers. Her lessons combine theory with feel for the horse and focus on a well-gymnasticised horse.
Gut Breitfeld is a family-run leisure facility in Erla, now in its second generation. Its riding section offers horse boarding, a riding school with lessons and jump training, and hosts riding tournaments. The site also offers tennis, squash and a restaurant.
Nußbaumergut is a family-run horse farm in St. Marien, Upper Austria, run by Brigitta and Thorsten Immler. It offers riding pedagogy and a pony club for children, as well as children's birthday parties with the horses. The farm also provides carriage rides, horse logging and herb walks accompanied by a pony. Horse training is part of its services. Visits are by appointment only.
Reitergut Weissenhof is a family-run Reiterhof on a traditional Upper Austrian four-sided farm in Micheldorf near Kirchdorf an der Krems. The farm has kept horses since 1929 and has a stable, paddock, an indoor riding hall and an outdoor arena. It offers riding lessons on ponies and warmbloods and riding holidays. The farm also runs an inn and guest rooms for visitors.
Gut Radauer is a family-run riding facility in Zell am Moos near Irrsee and Mondsee, about 27 km from Salzburg. It has several outdoor arenas and an insulated indoor hall, with trained school horses for riders from beginners to competitors. Riding lessons are given by Gerlinde Radauer, a state-certified riding instructor, and vaulting is offered for children. The farm also breeds horses and lets holiday apartments beside its paddocks.
Schaflerhof is a riding stable in Leobendorf, Austria, offering box and open-stable livery, riding lessons and trail rides. Facilities include sand and granulate arenas, a jumping field, an indoor hall and a roundpen. Western and classical riding are both taught.
Reiterhof Sandjago is a riding yard in Rapoltendorf, Lower Austria, with five training horses, a riding instructor and a horsemanship trainer. It offers individual lessons, dressage and jumping, groundwork, calmness training and circus lessons for horses. Horse-assisted individual coaching and group trainings are also available. The yard runs courses and events such as Circle Games seminars and a horse sport and games tournament.
Pony, Pferd & Du offers equine-assisted education (Reitpaedagogik) for children from age two and a half in Erlaa, Lower Austria. It is run by Nadine Gira, an early-years educator and certified riding pedagogue, together with her pony Cini Mini. Courses of five one-hour sessions teach children to handle ponies on the ground and in the saddle in groups of up to four. Further offers include horse-assisted learning sessions and holiday adventure days.
Fair zum Pferd is run by Sarah Simon, a horse trainer and riding instructor in Lower Austria. She trains horses following classical and academic riding principles with a focus on horse welfare. As a qualified Centered Riding instructor (Level 1) she teaches riders to develop a balanced seat. She also offers fascia massage and fascia training for horses to support mobility and stability.
Westernstall Niederschleinz is a western riding stable in Niederschleinz, Austria, run by Julia Knoll. It teaches western riding including pleasure, reining, horsemanship and trail, with single lessons for beginners and weekly group lessons by semester. Groundwork, gymnastic and muscle-building work, courses, trail rides and schooling of horses are also offered. Vaulting is taught from age six through the associated Westernreitverein Niederschleinz.
Johanna Thanheiser is a riding instructor and horse trainer in Lower Austria focused on keeping horses healthy. She offers mobile riding lessons, online riding lessons, video feedback and online courses. Her Equisensomotoric training method targets core strength, straightness, joint stability and muscle building. It draws on biomechanics research and classical, baroque and working-equitation riding traditions.
Maa! REITERer! is a riding pedagogy practice run by Maria Reiterer at Mellis Ponyhof in Hadersdorf am Kamp. Children aged 6 to 10, and teenagers individually, learn to ride and to handle, groom and care for horses safely and fairly. Sessions last 90 minutes, once a week or more, with at most four children per group. The horses include a Hanoverian and an Austrian Warmblood suited to working with children.
Sonnwendhof is a riding yard in Zogelsdorf, Austria. It offers riding lessons, booked through a dedicated riding-lesson phone line. The yard is listed as a riding school for Icelandic horses.
Islandpferde Stefanihof is an Icelandic horse yard in Stratzing, Austria. It runs a riding school for leisure riders, competition riders, beginners and children, and offers horse boarding and training rides. The yard breeds its own Icelandic horses and sells horses ranging from family horses to competition five-gaiters. It also organises youth camps and offers BEMER sessions.
S-Dressur is the dressage training business of Barbara Sutter in Lower Austria. It offers training rides for horses, individual lessons both mobile and at her own stable, and online coaching. Day and weekend courses are available on request. Her focus is on bringing young horses from starting under saddle to their first competition successes, and she also takes on correction and further training of educated horses.
Gestüt Equitamus is a family farm in Gföhl that has bred dressage horses since 1998. Young horses are raised, started under saddle and either sold or competed by the owner, a dressage rider. The farm offers riding lessons from first rides to competition starts and a pony programme for children. A riding club and a pony club association are based at the farm.
Thinking Outside The Box is a riding yard at the Erlebnis Farm in Baumgartenberg run by Magdalena Kapplmüller. It offers individual and group riding lessons and learning sessions with horses. Riders can also take a care share or a part-loan on a horse, and a horse trailer is available for rent. The founder holds diplomas in animal-assisted intervention and systemic animal training.
Pferdehof Kurzmann is a horse farm in Pirkenreith near Rappottenstein in the Waldviertel. It offers hacks, trail rides and star rides from the farm, with or without your own horse, and overnight stops for riders and horses. Riding lessons for children and adults, horsemanship and western riding courses, and hippotherapy are offered. The farm also boards horses in an open stable with paddocks, an arena and a round pen.
Julia Schmidberger is a horse trainer based in Kematen an der Krems, Austria. She trains riders with their own horses or on her experienced school horses, working ridden, in hand and on the lunge. Her methods include classical groundwork, Equikinetic, dual activation and flag work, with individual training plans. She also runs a boarding yard (Einstellbetrieb).
Melanie Reidinger runs her own riding facility north of Vienna in Unterrohrbach. She offers livery places for horses, schooling of horses and riding lessons. Lessons have been offered since 2015 in dressage, show jumping and circus work, for beginners and advanced riders. She is a state-certified dressage trainer and an international show rider.
Michael Laußegger trains riders and horses according to the principles of classical dressage. The stated aim of his work is harmony between rider and horse. He offers riding lessons as well as schooling of young horses in training, both built on classical dressage principles. He is based in Streifing, Austria.
