Up to five horses a day, six days a week, with Adam in the arena. Dressage, jumping, Working Equitation and the trail, in the same month, on horses that each teach you something different. It is the fastest honest way to become a rider, and it is month to month.
Once a week, it takes years to catch up to the twelve-year-olds. Six days a week, on five horses, it takes a month to stop feeling like a beginner. You come out able to groom, tack, lunge, walk, trot, canter and hack out, and knowing exactly what you want next.
One horse teaches you one horse. Five teach you riding. A schoolmaster to feel what correct actually feels like, a forward one for your seat, a quiet one for your leg, one that only goes well when you ride well, and the obstacles to tell you the truth. Plateaus don't survive it.
You will be handed a horse you have never met and expected to canter across open ground beside animals that are not horses. We get you safe for that: an independent seat, a quiet hand, confidence on unfamiliar horses, and the groundwork that keeps you out of trouble on the ground.
This is Los Angeles. Riding well on camera is a skill you can learn in a month if you ride every day: sit a canter without bouncing, mount and dismount cleanly, walk a horse through a crowd of people and lights without fuss. We teach it on the horses that will be most like the one on set.
A month on five horses teaches you what you actually like to ride, what you can handle, and what you should walk away from. You come out knowing how to try a horse, how to read a vet check with us, and whether the one you have your eye on is right. Cheaper than the wrong horse.
You know the names of every horse and you have never sat on one. Take the month. By the end of it you ride out with your kid on a Saturday and they discover you are not bad. We have seen what that does to a family.
Every day is built around you the night before, from what the session log says you need. This is one week; yours will be different.
Lunge line without stirrups on the schoolmaster, then two horses on the flat. Rhythm, relaxation, a real contact.
Poles to grids to a small course. Then the same horse on the flat so it all connects.
Gate, bridge, slalom, the bell. The obstacles are the lie detector for everything you did on Monday.
Out of the arena, up into the hills above Hansen Dam, on a horse you have earned the right to take out.
The one thing that has been holding you back, worked on the horse best suited to fix it, with me on the ground the whole time.
Whatever is on the calendar that month. You ride it, or you ride alongside it and learn how a show day works.
Evenings: your session log with a relaxation score for every ride, the clips we filmed, and tomorrow's plan.
Every good rider you have ever watched got that way by sitting on a lot of different horses. That is how the old schools worked, and it is still how the people who ride for a living learn. One lesson a week on one horse is a fine way to enjoy riding. It is a slow way to become a rider.
On Unlimited you ride while I train my horses. You get the schoolmasters, the horses in work, the one going to a show on Saturday. I am in the arena all day anyway. For a month, so are you.
Classical dressage is the backbone, because it is the only system that makes every other discipline easier. Jumping, Working Equitation and the trail are where you find out if it is real.
$7,999 a month
No contract. No initiation. Billed monthly, cancel any month. Everything on the horse is provided; bring boots and long pants.
"I can't believe I waited until I was forty to do this properly."
What every adult says at the end of the first week. We are writing this page so you don't have to wait until fifty.
No application, no deposit yet. Adam reads these himself and texts you back to talk through what your month would look like and when it could start.
No, but your first week looks different. More groundwork, more lunge line, fewer horses, and we add horses as you are ready for them. Late starters are exactly who this is for. If you would rather test the water first, book a $150 intro lesson and we decide together.
Up to five. Most people ride two or three and spend the rest of the day on the ground, lungeing, watching, and recovering. Riding is tiring when it is done properly. The number is a ceiling, not a quota.
Fit enough to walk a mile and get on from a block. You will be sore for a week. We build the days around that, and the groundwork days are rest days for your legs.
Yes. It is month to month on purpose. Many people do one intense month and then move to two lessons a week, a lease, or a horse of their own with a plan we wrote together.
Not yet. Unlimited works because of the volume. If a lighter version is what you need, the Competition Package is three lessons a week with a horse for show days, and you can add a lease.
Hansen Dam Horse Park, 11127 Orcas Ave, Lake View Terrace, CA 91342. Twenty minutes from Sherman Oaks, ten minutes off the 210, with trails straight out of the park.