Horse Riding Holidays on Dartmoor: What the Moor Is Actually Like to Ride
Three hundred and sixty square miles of open access, most of it unfenced, with a native pony population that has been out on it for a thousand years. Dartmoor is the one place in England where you can ride for a day and barely meet a road, and that single fact decides almost everything else about a riding holiday here.
What is a Dartmoor riding holiday like?
Most of the common land is open to riders, which is why the moor is worth the journey. Three shapes: a point-to-point week across the high moor for riders already fit for it, a long weekend from a yard on the edge that takes complete beginners, or a western week from a ranch yard. May to September, and September is the one experienced riders pick.
It also means the moor asks more of a horse and a rider than a hack in a river valley does. The going is peat, granite and bog in roughly equal measure, the weather changes inside an hour, and the navigation is real. None of that makes it difficult. It makes it worth doing, and it is why people come back to it rather than to somewhere flatter. It sits under horse holidays, which is where the wider picture is.
The three shapes a Dartmoor holiday takes
Almost every Dartmoor ride sold is one of three things, and the difference matters more than the price does.
Five or six days, a different bed most nights, luggage moved on for you. You cross the moor rather than circling it, and by the third day you have stopped thinking about your hands.
A long weekend or a short week out of a single yard, riding out and back. Less demanding, far easier to get to, and the one that works if not everybody rides.
Dartmoor is where western riding took hold in Britain, and a week in a western saddle on the moor is a genuinely different holiday: long days at a walk and a jog, cattle work on some of them, and a deep seat that suits a rider who has never been taught to rise to the trot.
What the going is actually like
The high moor is not turf. It is a mix of close-cropped grass over granite, deep heather, clitter (loose boulder fields the horses pick through at a walk) and blanket bog, which is the part that decides where a ride can and cannot go. A guide who knows the moor is not a luxury on the high ground; the safe lines across a mire are learned, not read off a map.
Where the going opens out, on the drier ridges and the old peat passes, you get the canters that people come for. They are earned rather than constant: a good Dartmoor day is a lot of walking with two or three long stretches where you can let a horse go. Anyone selling you a week of galloping across Dartmoor has not ridden it in February.
Off the high ground the moor drops into hedged lanes and river valleys, and the character changes completely: sunken tracks, beech banks, water crossings. Most itineraries use both, because a week entirely on the tops is harder work than it sounds.
The ponies you will see, and the horses you will ride
The ponies loose on the moor are not wild and they are not strays. Every one is owned by a commoner with grazing rights, rounded up each autumn at the drifts, and they are the reason the moor looks the way it does. They are also, sensibly, not the horses you will be given: a native pony that lives out is a different proposition from a horse in work.
What you ride is usually a hardy cob or a native cross with the feet for stony ground. If you are used to a schooled horse on good going, the first hour feels like riding something with opinions. That passes. Sure-footedness on Dartmoor is worth more than a nice outline, and the horses that do this work have it.
When Dartmoor rides, and when it does not
May to September is the season, and the two ends of it are quite different holidays. Late spring gives you long light and firm going before the bracken is up. High summer is busier on the honeypot tors and softer underfoot after rain. September is the one most experienced riders pick: the ground is still good, the light is low and long, and the moor empties out.
Winter riding happens, but as day rides from a yard rather than as a holiday. Between November and March the high moor is wet enough that the good lines close, the light goes by four, and the point of the place is largely lost.
What it costs you beyond the price of the ride
- Riding insurance. Your travel policy will very likely exclude riding, and almost certainly excludes it off-road. A rider policy is roughly £30 to £60 for a week.
- A hat that fits you. Loan hats exist and rarely fit well. If you ride at home, take your own.
- Boots with a heel, and waterproofs that actually are. Dartmoor rain is horizontal often enough that a shower jacket is not the same thing.
- Getting there. Public transport onto the moor is thin; almost everybody drives, and parking at a yard for a week needs asking about in advance.
- A tip for the guide, which is customary and is not built into the price.
Figures are indicative UK prices as at September 2026 and are the rider’s own costs, not ours.
Where you stay, and what that decides
A point-to-point week puts you in pubs and farmhouses along the route, which is the better half of the holiday for a lot of people and the reason to do it that way. It also means your kit is out of reach between breakfast and the evening, so what you carry matters.
A centre-based week is usually a farmhouse or a cottage attached to the yard, and it suits a mixed party: somebody who rides all day, somebody who walks, and an evening everybody shares. If you are bringing a non-rider, this is the version to book.
Rider Notes
Do you need to be an experienced rider to ride on Dartmoor?
For a centre-based week or a day ride, no. Yards on and around the moor take complete beginners and keep to lanes and the lower going. For a point-to-point week across the high moor you want to be riding regularly, comfortable at canter in open country and fit enough for five or six hours in the saddle on consecutive days. The limit is usually stamina rather than skill.
How long should a first Dartmoor riding holiday be?
Two or three days from one base. It is long enough to get past the first-day stiffness and find out whether you want the longer version, and short enough that bad weather does not cost you the whole holiday.
What is the best time of year for riding on Dartmoor?
May and September. May gives firm going and long light before the bracken is up; September has the light and the empty moor with the ground still good. July and August ride well but are busier, and the high moor is largely out between November and March.
Can you ride anywhere on Dartmoor?
Most of the common land is open to riders, which is unusual in England and is the reason the moor is worth the journey. It is not universal: enclosed farmland, some plantations and the military ranges when firing is scheduled are all closed to you, and the ranges publish their firing times in advance. This is why a guided ride is the normal way to see the moor rather than the cautious one.
Are the Dartmoor ponies wild?
No. Every pony on the moor is owned by a commoner with grazing rights and is gathered each autumn at the drifts. They live out year-round and are perfectly capable of looking after themselves, which is exactly why you should not feed them or ride up to them.
Do you need your own equipment?
A hat that fits you is the one thing worth taking. Boots with a heel and proper waterproofs matter more here than in most places. Everything else comes with the ride: horse, tack, and a hard hat if you have none.
Can you take your own horse to Dartmoor?
You can, and some people do, but it is a different holiday: you need stabling or safe turnout, and a horse that is not shod and conditioned for stony ground will struggle in a way that is unfair to it. If that is what you are after, our page on taking your horse on holiday covers the practicalities.
Is riding insurance necessary on Dartmoor?
It is not a legal requirement and it is close to essential. Most travel policies exclude horse riding outright, and those that include it often exclude off-road riding, which is the entire holiday here. Check the wording rather than the summary.
Where we fit
We keep horses in west Cornwall, a couple of hours west of the moor, and we let one cottage with stabling. Dartmoor is not ours. What we have is the same moorland riding at a smaller scale and a long familiarity with what these holidays are actually like. Tell us what you have ridden, how many days you want and whether the whole party rides, and we will point you at the people who run the version that fits.
Our own field at Noonvares, west Cornwall, on a frosted morning. Not Dartmoor, but the same kind of going and the same kind of weather.
Elizabeth’s view. The mistake I see most often is people booking the crossing first. Dartmoor rewards a rider who is already fit for it and punishes one who is not, and there is no shame in a long weekend from a yard on the edge of the moor to find out which you are. The moor will still be there next year, and it is a great deal more enjoyable when you are not counting the hours to the end of day two.
More on horses, from this farm
The four kinds are set side by side on horse riding holidays, and horse riding holidays in Spain is the one people weigh against Dartmoor most often, a holiday the horse decides rather than the place. Horse holidays in the UK is the wider picture, taking your own horse on holiday is the version where the horse is yours, and horse riding in Cornwall is the riding we can show you ourselves.
Sources. Access and common-land rights read from the Dartmoor National Park Authority and the Dartmoor Commoners’ Council, September 2026; firing times from the Ministry of Defence range notices. Season, going and the shape of the itineraries are our own judgement from riding moorland in the south west. Prices are indicative UK figures at September 2026. Photographs: Dartmoor ponies by Danielcaola (CC BY-SA 4.0), Haytor by Nilfanion (CC BY-SA 3.0) and the lane to Widecombe by Derek Harper (CC BY-SA 2.0), all via Wikimedia Commons. Reviewed 9 September 2026.