Brandy Manor Riding Center

Read this article from our guests about how they experienced a trail ride with us:

“If you are a white female expat living on Dominica, it is safe to say you will grow dreadlocks. Yasmin Cole has been cultivating hers for many years now. A onetime professional rider from Norwich, England, she came to the island in 1999, built a tin-roofed cottage and stable in the forest above Portsmouth, and set up an equestrian camp and riding school called Brandy Manor. The name, Yasmin admits, is a bit of a joke; chickens run loose in the yard. “But I always fancied myself to the manor born,” she laughs.

The terrain here is well-suited for riding, and the Waitukubuli Trail passes right by her property. On sturdy St. Lucian Creoles we embark on a two-hour ride, led by Yasmin’s partner, Linton, a Rasta horseman in a rainbow tam. The first segment winds through fragrant bush. We duck under mango branches, weave among coffee shrubs, and stop for the occasional napping cow. A grapefruit tree grows through the hood of a rusted-out Chevelle. Linton plucks a plump yellow fruit for us to taste. He’ll do this continually as we ride—snapping off bay leaves (for brewing tea at the summit); prying open cacao pods (for slurping up the bitter-tangy pulp within).

Soon the forest falls away and we break into a gallop, racing to the crest of the ridge. Linton ties up the horses, and we take in a glorious view: in the far distance, past acres of green jungle, we see sailboats tacking across Portsmouth Harbor.

Back at Brandy Manor, Yasmin surprises us with a ripe mangosteen—our all-time favorite fruit, rarely found outside Asia. “I planted the tree a decade ago, and it finally fruited last July,” she says. There are also freshly laid eggs from her yard hens and we leave with a carton for us….”