Quinta do Rol – Holiday, dressage and wine

Quinta do Rol offers you a quality holiday experience where you can improve your riding skills, swim, surf, play tennis, relax enjoy good food and wines in a beautiful traditional peaceful environment. It’s close enough to the beach, Lisbon and other great historical places for days out.

Photos by Lena Saugen

Close to the wonderful coastline of Peniche in Portugal you will find the fabulous equestrian holiday destination, Quinta do Rol, a manor and estate that has been in the family of Carlos Melo Ribeiro since 1950 and was originally dedicated to agricultural production. The farm was run with traditional methods up until 1995 when Carlos Melo Ribeiro inherited the company.

Over the last twenty years, Carlos, with his wife Rita have sensitively restored the elegant manor house and adapted the farm buildings into cottage accommodation, leisure and sport activities, planted a vine yard for their own wine production, fruit growing, a shop, horse stabling, arenas and paddocks. Everything is tastefully done and immaculately cared for.

The property stands out for many reasons. Not the least in their attention to detail, which is excellent. You cannot help but notice this in everything from the yard to the artist sculptures placed around the property. The owners have a firm eye on customer comfort and ease of access to everything you need during your stay. The cottages are spacious, cozy and well appointed with most ‘mod cons’, furnished in a modern country style. You also find plenty of places to relax and enjoy reading, socializing or just being alone for a while. Each cottage has a garden or a patio area with seating, hammocks and table for dining.

Equestrianism
Rita’s passion for Lusitanos has meant they have developed the equestrian aspect to the business. The fabulous facility has a quality, well appointed, 60 by 20 meter indoor arena with a super surface, as well as large very comfortable viewing gallery and bar. They also offer an outdoor arena for dressage and working equitation and extensive hacking through the estate – not forgetting the opportunity for heavenly beach rides.

Your riding lessons will be on well-trained schoolmaster Lusitanos. At Quinta do Rol they place a great deal of importance in the quality of the horses and their well-being. As a result they have invested in purebred trained horses that offer high school movements such as tempi changes, piaffe, passage.

The instructors are more than qualified to give you super lessons from amateur up to advanced in classical dressage and working equitation. Pedro Teixeira Farto, the resident trainer and instructor, teaches both dressage and working equitation. Pedro maintains the horses and ensures they stay in good Antonio Brito Paes has his training in classical dressage, bull fighting and working equitation. He, in fact trains with an Olympic dressage rider in Portugal and knows a great deal about the importance of the seat. Nuno Cavaco has been 25 years in the Portuguese School of Equestrian Art, and has extensive knowledge in classical dressage and high school movements both ridden and in hand. He also teaches dressage clinics Internationally. Riders at most levels will enjoy lessons although maybe not suitable for complete beginners.

The Wines!
If you like good wines, or are interested in wine production this is the place. In their pursuit of excellence, Carlos Melo has studied extensively wine and aguardente production and has combined traditional methods and modern technology to produce their ranges of wines. The aguardente in particular is gaining worldwide acclaim and the controlled production method is one of the only three in the World with this distinction. And for their wines, they are using famous national and international grapes to produce sparkling whites, rose. Champagnes and smooth pinot noir reds.

To find out more contact: teresa@lusitanohorsefinder.com