Trail Riding Connemara
Summer Horse Riding Holidays in Connemara - 

Horseback Holidays in the Winter - Hunting in County Galway

A timeless land of wild beauty. Famous for its spectacular scenery. This is a region of contrasting landscapes. Dramatic mountains, silent lakes, rust coloured bogs. The countless colours of the landscape change constantly beneath the shifting sky. It is a wilderness of extraordinary beauty, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. The Connemara and Coast Trails bring riders right into the hidden heart of this landscape.
Your adventure through Connemara will be guided by Willie Leahy, quintessential Irish horsemen. Willie Leahy was the first man to lead a vacation trail ride, anywhere in the world. Willie is the largest breeder of Connemara ponies in the world and is also the Field Master of the famous Galway Blazers Hunt. For over 30 years the Leahy family have enjoyed introducing visitors to this very special part of Ireland. Their friendly care ensures that every rider goes home with special memories of a wonderful holiday

The Horses:
Experienced or novice riders alike can enjoy this holiday. Riders spend four to six hours a day on well-mannered, surefooted Irish hunters and Connemara ponies. Your mount for the week is selected with a caring and experienced eye to ensure that equine and rider are well matched.

Connemara Trail:
Riding is available from May to October.
Riders are in the saddle for four to six hours per day.
Experienced or novice riders alike can enjoy this guided Trail Ride.

Connemara Coast Trail:
The trail rides through the most wild and beautiful scenery that Ireland has to offer.

"Connemara has always been a wild place, too barren and bog-ridden for agriculture but good for ponies, sheep, fishermen and ghosts. Men earn their living by fishing and gathering seaweed and by breeding horses. The annual Connemara Horse Show in Clifden is world famous. You'll hear Gaelic, the native Irish language, spoken here more than anywhere else in Ireland.
The people of this rugged coast have an aura of toughness about them." (by Viginia Westbury)

Ireland's climate is ideally suited for cross country riding.
The Aille Cross Cross-Country Ride provides cross country jumping and trail riding at a pace that can be varied to suit riders of different abilities.
The ride will take you cross country from one farm to another , and at each farm, if you wish, there will be opportunities to jump a variety of very varied cross-country courses.

Ireland is known the world over for its hunting. Aille Cross is in the Galway Blazers country. This is ideal hunting country, open, level going divided by the stone walls for which the hunt is so famous.
The Irish hunting horse is as unique as the country itself.
We pride ourselves on being able to match your ability to one of our horses to ensure that your hunting holiday is the experience of a lifetime.
Aille Cross offers riders, experienced or novice, the opportunity to hunt in the Galway countryside. 

Riders should be secure at all paces and over fences. However, unlike many other hunting holidays, riders have a chance to get to know their hunters and the country beforehand. The package includes six days of riding with one to three days hunting.

Connemara Trail - Itinerary by Day

The riders assemble in the Great Southern Hotel, in the heart of Galway. Here you are introduced to your guide and backup team who are on hand to move luggage, bring the picnic lunch and help with the horses.
There is a short drive, out of the city, to Cloonabinia, where after a picnic lunch, riders are matched with their mount. The horses have been at pasture at the starting point. Your first sight of the animal, which is to become your companion for the week is grazing peacefully in the sheltered pasture, surrounded by woodland and lakes.

After lunch the horses are saddled and riders mount for the first stage of this very special ride, which will finish tonight at Oughterard, the gateway to Connemara. Riders cross the peaceful landscape, which borders Connemara, past lakes, forests and traditional thatched cottages. There are also fields that are entirely limestone rock, similar to those found in the famous Burren area of County Clare. A harsh and wild landscape, but with a strange and fascinating beauty of its own.
There is a welcome break for tea in the grounds of Aughnanure Castle, which dates back to the 13th century. The horses graze while the riders explore this historic castle.
After tea there is a short ride to the pasture where the horses will spend the night while the riders are taken to their accommodation.

Tuesday

The ride leaves the overnight pasture and heads straight into the mountains, for a long ride that will finish at Maam Cross, the famous site of the Connemara pony fair. Below the trail, stretched into the horizon is the massive Lough Corrib, the largest lake in Southern Ireland. We pass homesteads abandoned since the famine of the 1840's, which decimated this part of Ireland.
After lunch the ride continues through the mountains, traversing the bogs and rocky mountain streams. Way below the trail is the 'Quiet Man Bridge' where the famous movie was filmed. The day finishes with the first of many gallops along the abandoned Galway to Clifden railway line. In-experienced riders follow at a more sedate pace with a different guide to ensure that all riders enjoy their trip safely.  At the end of the day the horses are turned loose into a lakeside pasture.The riders then travel back to their accommodation.

Wednesday.

Having spent the night at the lakeside pasture the horses are refreshed and ready to continue with the ride from Maam Cross to Ballynafad. The first stage of the day goes through the Connemara Natural Park, where the woodland conceals an age old lime kiln. Here long forgotten inhabitants made lime from the rocks. The ride follows the edge of Lough Sindile, where the rocks have a beauty of their own. Some of the trees are ancient, yet tiny, bent against the harsh Connemara winter winds.Lunch is eaten on a small village green while the horses graze in pasture beside a picturesque mountain stream.

Then it is back into the saddle for the final stage of the days ride, through silent woodlands and mountains. There is a stop for tea at a lakeside cottage, before riders remount for the final gallop of the day, along the old railway line to the pasture. Riders travel onto Clifden, the capital of Connemara, where they will stay for the remainder of the trip.

Thursday
The ride begins in the mountains and ends at the sea. This morning the horses wade through mountain streams before entering woodland. We canter along woodland tracks before emerging in the landscaped splendour of Ballynahinch Castle hotel, the ancestral home of the Martin family. Richard Martin was the founder of the Society for the Protection of Animals. Ballynahinch was also once home to an Indian Prince. There is a long gallop before lunch along the old railway line.

Friday

This is a full day spent on the fabulous Mannin Bay beach. There is mile after mile of golden sand where riders can gallop and jump over the small stone walls and sandy banks. This is an unforgettable day. Riders are welcome to swim their mount in the clean water of the Atlantic Ocean. It is a unique and very special experience as the horse begins to swim under you. The horses dry off and rest in a beach side pasture while the riders eat a picnic lunch on the rocks overlooking the ocean.
Then it is back into the saddle for another ride along the beach, to discover more about the hidden wonders of this coastline.

Saturday
The ride begins at the sea and ends at Toombeola, inland over the mountains. The morning ride follows the coastline, passing small farmsteads, where generations of small farmers and fishermen have lived. The coastline is beautiful, the water often the colour of a tropical sea. The trail continues into the mountains along an old grassy track before our lunch stop.
The final lunch is eaten in the mountains, overlooking the pasture where the horses graze. Then they are saddled for one last time for a ride that takes us high into the mountains above the village of Roundstone. Below is the stunning scenery of Dogs Bay, curving out into the Atlantic ocean.
All too quickly the riders join a grassy track, which leads off the mountain. The ride is almost over. The ride finishes with the mountains we have crossed, over the last few days in the distance. Then all too soon the horses reach the pasture where they will spend the weekend.

The riders then leave the horses and travel back into Galway for a farewell drink with the guides.