Unmissable sunrise beach horse riding in Muscat, Oman

I had the opportunity to travel to Oman in December 2019 thanks to one of the doctors with whom I worked with in the trauma and orthopaedics department. I created a poster which was accepted at an international orthopaedic conference which was being held in Muscat. He was kind enough to let me be the presenting author which meant that I was allowed to travel to Oman for the trip. I have written a post on other activities that I enjoyed in Muscat if you need help planning a trip.

Finding somewhere to horse ride in Muscat, Oman

When it comes to finding a place to ride, I tend to start off by googling and also reading trip advisor reviews. To be honest, Trip Advisor does not have the best selection when it comes to horse riding in Oman, however Google maps does provide quite a selection to choose from. Some of them are written in Arabic so it can be hard if you cannot read it to work out what exactly each thing is.

Riding at Al-Fares Equestrian, Al Hail, Muscat

The place that I did this sunrise beach ride is called Al Fares Equestrian. It was a bit of a rogue find as I had called another one of these equestrian centres from Google and one of them had told me to contact this other guy, and gave me his number to ring. The place has no website but the owner (Ahmed) does have an instagram page, alfares_equestrian1.

I rang Ahmed on his mobile and booked in for a sunrise beach ride, he told me to come up in the morning for the 7th December. I am always a big fan of the casual Arabic culture of just ringing and turning up, people were so accommodating in Oman and I was so happy that I was going to have a chance to ride.

So, I woke up extremely early and got ready in the dark, with my mum asleep in the same room. I tiptoed around getting ready and trying not to wake her up, sneaked out of the hotel room and went outside to catch a taxi, using the app ‘OTaxi’ which is what they were mainly using in Oman at the time when I was there. As usual my heart was pounding because of the coffee as well as the feeling that I always get when I am going somewhere new and about to ride. I was dropped off at the back of some gates and somehow made my way into the stables.

I was greeted by this semi-dark, beautiful scene. It was an absolutely gorgeous morning with classic clear Omani skies and the horses were already pretty much tacked up and ready.

This is the schooling arena, we had to do a little bit of a warmup in here before we set off, which I always think is a sign of a good and safe riding centre. There is a bathroom as well at the stables and the facilities were in reasonable condition.

I asked Ahmed whether I could ride one of the greys, as they just looked so romantic and he kindly obliged, choosing one of them for me.

So we set off, after a short briefing in the school. There was a lady on our trip who preferred to stay in a walk and trot, so Ahmed split us into separate groups and we went off for a canter. I went in front with another girl, and we had such a fun time cantering down the beach together. I appreciated this as it can be so frustrating to have a beautiful open expanse to ride on and be stuck in a walk or trot, but you always have to respect everyone in the group and feel safe and comfortable enough to go faster, so it’s something that does happen from time to time.

They had a car which drove next to us and captured some videos. I think that this was quite a nice touch actually, as you hardly ever get video memories from rides and I haven’t tried wearing a GoPro again since the incident which happened on my ride in Thailand.

We rode a bit longer and then stopped up by the side on the beach to take some photos of us holding all of the horses. It was a nice little break and the others who hadn't cantered caught up to us.

After that we headed into some sand dunes for another little up and down canter and a look at some camels that were just out there chilling.

On the way back to the stables we had the chance to splash around a little bit, walking through the water, which was really nice and very relaxing. Luckily the beach was quite quiet and there wasn’t much trouble with bumping into people.

It was such a gorgeous day, I don’t think anything could have changed the euphoric mood I was in after starting on such a high, cantering on the beach in the atmospheric light of sunrise.

The horse that I rode had a bit of a ‘square’ sort of canter, as he was an endurance horse, and so Ahmed swapped horses with me after a break to give me a bit of a different experience. I really liked that as I got to ride two horses and enjoy a smoother canter on the way back, as you can see in the video below I ride the grey in some shot and a gorgeous bay in others.

The sun rose as we returned, and the day began to warm up. Ahmed agreed to give my mum a riding lesson in the arena and so she arrived and had a little ride around the school, which she really enjoyed. It is just far too hot in the daytime to ride (for both horses and humans) so it seems that most places go at sunrise or have rides available in arenas in the evenings.

Even if you are not riding, I would definitely recommend at least having a look around as it is just so relaxing and peaceful there with the horses and a really soothing environment.

I hope that you get a chance to visit this beautiful place on your travels. Horse riding in Oman is a must given the extensive equestrian history and beautiful location. Don’t forget to have a look at my post on other activities that you can do in Muscat as well as have a ride!

Thank you to Ahmed from Al Fares Equestrian, Muscat, Oman - don’t forget to check out his instagram page at alfares_equestrian1.