Recently, I flew to Dalaman from Ankara directly to join a riding camp at Desperado Ranch. This experience was on my checklist since it is one of the unique riding camps at the seaside in Türkiye. Originally, it is designed for the people who have no or little experience with horses. However, this one was with a people from beginner to expert. Yusuf, owner of the ranch and a great instructor, took care of each of us to improve our riding skills. Maybe, the most important thing that I realized in our conversation was that horses are “prey”. This word touched somewhere inside me and exponentially raised my awareness and empathy with the horses.
His ranch is located in Yanıklar village in Fethiye and it is 30-45 minutes from Dalaman Airport. Yusuf also has another ranch 5 minutes away from the airport. I hope I will visit it at the end of this summer as well.
I arrived at the ranch in the evening and we had dinner together with all the participants. Then, we moved our bungalows to sleep. It was a nice, safe, quite and clean place, if you want to stay in Yanıklar, Fethiye, I recommend: https://vegavillalari.com/bungalov-villalar/
The next day started by preparing horses for riding after a sweet breakfast at the ranch. We have learned the basics of brushing, grooming, saddling, hoof cleaning, and adjusting stirrups. Then, we started riding and riding with different horses until the weather got hotter and hotter. Around midday, we gave the horses a bath. It was so funny. Yusuf tried to give a bath to us as well, Natalie was the victim and she did not like it at all. (Natalie has a blog, you may follow: https://www.natalienascenzi.com/) Then, we went to beach to relax and cool down.
Fortunately, the sun was tiring, and decided to travel west for a break. Now, it was our time to ride again with cooler weather. Hot weather is also not good for the horses, they are sensitive babies although it seems they are not. We rode until dinner.
Next day, before the breakfast, we jumped into our horses and went to beach. It was one of my dream to gallop in the beach and it is done! We took some photos and turned back to the ranch for breakfast over a river that we drank tea yesterday. After the breakfast, we practised again until the weather gots hot. Then, it was time for a rest until the weather gots cooler. Our bungalows had a swimming pool as well. We decided to spend time in the pool rather than the beach this time. Lots of water jokes like pushing someone to the pool etc. happened. I have never liked this type of joke, I don’t find it funny at all. Then, we went back to the ranch to continue riding and improve our skills. We were getting tired.
Normally, riding clubs at the city centers have riding sessions of 30 minutes per rider. However, we were riding 5 hours or so per day and our muscles were not trained for this. People who rides every day or at least 2-3 times per week have typically no problem since they activate related muscles regularly. If you are not riding frequently, it starts to pain. But wait for it, the actual pain starts after you completed your riding holiday. It tooks 4-5 days to recover completely. Remember your first gym experiences, same thing with different muscles in your legs and hip.
Overall, it was an enjoyable weekend with an excellent group of people. I like the experiences that everyone leaves happy and this one was one of those. Thank you, Yusuf and Ömer for being such nice people!
Follow Desperado Ranch on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/desperado_ranch/?hl=en
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