Welcome to the Stables at Manor Minor

Manor Minor is the culmination of a dream that began in an unlikely way. Living in a desolate warehouse section of Brooklyn, we had the bright idea one day of getting away to ride horses on the beach off the Belt Parkway, inviting another Brooklyn friend along. The scenery was beautiful, but as we trudged along nose to tail, entirely at the mercy of our bored, tough-minded mounts, the thought struck: Wouldn't it be more fun truly to know how to ride the horse?
     That idea was fatal. Obsession took hold, and after years of struggle, exploration, and trial and error, we find ourselves on our own farm. (The friend who went with us is now in vet school, hoping for an equine practice one day, but that's another story.) Along the way we've negotiated a tangled maze of approaches to training, with dead ends and frustrations as well as glimpses of the light down the tunnel. We've been lucky in a few trainers, and in many horses. Our first horses—a cranky ex-jumper with an enormous spook and a powerful panic button and an explosive, supersensitive ex-racehorse mare—were probably not the most appropriate mounts on which to learn, but our trainer stubbornly held us, not the horses, to account. We learned the hard way that the rider, not the horse, must be responsible for change; that there is no substitute for determination, for openness to ideas and criticism, for constant work on position, and for compassionate attention to the horse's physical and mental comfort.
     Still, the difficulty of moving forward in these rough-and-ready conditions chafed. The breakthrough came with another lighthearted decision; we would go to Portugal to ride Lusitano stallions with Francisco de Braganca. The impact these generous schoolmasters had on our riding and thinking could hardly be exaggerated. Concepts that had been mere eloquent words to us in our obsessive poring over classical texts suddenly came alive; we learned how a profound two-way conversation with a truly educated horse could feel.
     That was years ago. Since then we have returned to Portugal, traveled to Ireland for cross-country training, and continued here at home to study, ride, watch, and keep our minds open. Whether you are looking for training for yourself or your horse, or in finding your next equine partner, we hope this website sparks some interest.