Avoca Park Equestrian is the only place like it in Australia. We provide all your equine needs in one place. We provide riding lessons and clinics for all types of riders. We have a wonderful team of school horses that we provide lessons on, but we do offer lessons to our clients that are horse owners as well.
Avoca Park also offers agistment, facility hire, pony parties, AI breeding services, Pony Club Australia accredited courses, Equestrian Australia Courses, holiday accommodation and of course our dressage equine holidays!
We take so much pride in the work we do, and we love horses so much. We can’t wait to share your equine journey with you. We hope you enjoy exploring our site.
Mandy joined us at the beginning of 2020. After over a decade working with racehorses, she wanted to get into an administrative role to create a better work-home life balance for her and her young family.
Mandy works both as the Office Manager and as a personal assistant to Leanne. She does everything needed in the office including taking and organizing bookings, contacting clients, payroll for staff, giving occasional lessons, and so much more. With her equine experience she can often understand the needs and wants of our clients when they contact us for the various aspects our business offers.
If Mandy had a motto, it would be “Always try your best and be honest, you can never go wrong."
Mandy has her EA Introductory Coaching qualifications and is often helping the team teaching lessons and holiday clinics during busy periods. She loves that feeling horses can give you, that make everything feel just right !
Danya started with Avoca Park as a junior stable hand in May 2019. She is now an EA Introductory Coach, helps in the office leading our marketing , and helps run out school holidays clinics and pony parties. An incredibly smart girl with a quiet and gentle approach. Danya attends university full time and is a huge part of our team.
We asked Danya what she has learnt during her time working at Avoca Park and her response shows the maturity and wisdom she has: “that working faster isn’t always best, you could miss something or forget to do something, so it’s better to work harder- as a simple mistake could lead to something fatal”.
Danya describes Avoca Park “as a well-organized work environment where we are all a happy family. We cherish what each other does and can rely on one another for support. No one’s there to bring you down, instead help you to improve and build you up”.
Our Maintenance team play a huge role in creating and maintaining our wonderful facilities. Their hard work and dedication is visible and very noticeable each and every day they are at work. We are blessed to have them in our very hard-working team.
Johns’ role in Avoca Park’s maintenance began shortly after purchasing the block, with excavating driveways, the shed site and of course the site for the indoor arena. As time progressed John has been involved in all the designing, building, repairing, and remodelling on the property.
John is integral in making sure everything is working as it should and his favourite part of the job is seeing progress in the way horses develop in their training.
His favourite horse is Spencer (Avoca Park’s Resident Stallion, aka “Avoca Flaunt It”) because he is a gentleman.
John’s fondest moments at Avoca Park are "when I come home and look at how much Leanne and I have achieved.”
James has been working in maintenance and gardening for us at Avoca Park since December 2019. He has loved seeing the changes in the grounds/gardens and paddocks since he started.
James has become an integral member of our team and he keeps the property looking amazing.
James’ favourite part of the job is “working outdoors in the quiet countryside among trees, when the weather is fine” and he likes the donkey Johnny Simpson, because he can be overlooked sometimes with all the horses running around. “Plus I like the sound he makes when he sees breakfast coming up the hill”.
Tina become a student of Leanne's in late 2023. Wanting to find a coach conducive with her beliefs in classical dressage and with hopes to improve her skills.
Tina fell in love with Leanne's teaching approach and began weekly lessons. In March 2024, after some good ol' Avoca Park family love, she's jumped back into the equine industry after a little time away due to previous unpleasant experiences.
Tina has thrived in our stable block, she is efficient, intuitive, kind and happy. She has been an amazing addition to our small team.
Amelia joined us as a client in 2020, becoming a horse owner in 2021- Amelia has been involved with Avoca Park for a few years. After completing her Equestrian Australia course, Amelia joined our junior staff team and now regularly works every Thursday.
Leanne
Qualified EA level 3 Dressage Coach.
Qualified level 2 Jumping Equitation Judge.
Licensed level 1 teacher in Philippe Karl’s School of Légèreté.
Teaches high level dressage on our FEI Trained Mare.
Leanne is currently continuing the development of her riding with the School of Légèreté and studies many aspects in maintaining and improving the horse and rider’s wellbeing.
Vicky
Vicky has been a part of the Avoca Park family several years as a client riding with Leanne as her coach.
She has been a qualified Introductory EA Coach since December 2021 and is now studying for her Level 1 Coaching. Vicky challenges our riders to push themselves and she has a huge following.
Vicky is often competing and continues lessons with Leanne to always work on herself and her skills to become bigger and better all the time.
Amy
Amy has been a fully qualified Introductory EA Coach since 2022 but has over 9 years’ experience coaching young riders and groups.
She loves coaching and guiding riders with a passion for horses.
Danya
Danya became a qualified EA Introductory coaching in December 2023.
Danya has riding lessons each week with Leanne, persistantly working towards improving her skills and knowledge. Danya currently works with school horse Perry and his ongoing training.
Mandy
Primarily the ‘Office Lady’ Mandy is also a qualified Introductory EA Coach and worked for a riding school in England for over 5 years before moving to Australia. She completed an Advanced Diploma in Horse Management and went on to ride trackwork and work senior roles in racing at Caulfield Racecourse for 10 years. Mandy enjoys teaching both children and adults throughout the week, occasionally you will see her covering other coaches on a Saturday.
Tina
Tina has been a client of Leanne's since mid-2023. Enjoying the dressage training.
She has already worked through her EA manuals but is due to work through her assessments to become a qualified Introductory EA Coach. We love Tina's bubbly personality and she has an amazing energy, which the horses and clients both love.
Our juniors work after school, weekends, and during their school holidays. Working hard while they learn more about their passion of horses. During their shifts they make up and feed the horses breakfast and dinner, clean out the stables, prepare the horses and ponies for their lessons and make sure the stables and yards are clean. They also help with our pony parties and school holiday clinics and camp activities.
Paityn
Alex
Amelia
Natalie
Liam
Jordyn
Tegan
Leanne and John have lots of pets at Avoca Park. They all have a unique tale of how they became part of the Avoca Park family. This page is dedicated to our furry (and feathered) co-workers and their unique stories.
The newest addition to the Avoca Park family! Arthur is a cheeky boy full of energy and can often be seen in the company of Audrey. He is full of curiosity and still learning the ropes but taking to it like a fish to water.
Audrey was born in 2018, the smallest of 9 puppies, in a litter that was surrendered at 6 weeks to a shelter. She was listed as ‘tan runt’ on her paperwork and had to be hand fed to catch up to the size of her siblings.
When she was 9 weeks old, we took over her care. Little did we know, we took on a puppy who would never understand no, as it had never been said to her.
Audrey is a delight to have around even though she still doesn’t understand that the sitting area at the arena, in fact any seat, is not for her bottom too.
We don’t actually know how old Cocky is exactly, but we know he is older than 33.
His owners were moving to Sydney, and he couldn’t go with them. He’d lived in Macclesfield and Emerald for as far back as we could find of his history, so we offered to take him.
In his earlier life, he had lived in a cage out the front of the Emerald Pet Shop, and children walking past would always stir him up. If you visit him today, you’ll notice he dances, talks and jumps around when he gets overstimulated. He also starts to mumble drunkenly when he hears raised voices, and his vocabulary does include profanity! The experiences from his earlier years certainly had an impact on him.
The plan was to release him but every time we tried, he wouldn’t get up off the ground, and it would only have been a matter of time before something tried to kill him. So, we built him a bigger aviary and now he lives a quieter life by the stables but always has some kind of company, whether it’s horses, dogs, cats or humans.
He is a wonderful part of life at Avoca Park and is always making us laugh.
Sebastian has a super important job…keep the kitchen clear from mice! And he does it very well.
To fit in at Avoca Park, he had to meet certain criteria, such as liking strangers, not fearing dogs, horses, and other cats, happy to sleep alone, unfazed by vehicles, and not likely to go wandering.
The shelter we called had two potential candidates; the first was a Tabby and he was walking up and down the aisle way, we thought “he is just going to march straight off our property”.
The next was in an enclosure, he was on the top shelf of the cat climber hanging upside down.
We looked at him and thought “He is the ONE!!”
He truly is unique, meets all of our criteria and is loved by all. He sleeps in the office, loves the heater and keeps the mice at bay.
He was perfectly picked.
Johnny came to Avoca Park as a 7-month-old on 24th April 2010, the eve of ANZAC Day. My birthday to be exact. He was named Johnny Simpson after John Simpson’s Donkey in World War 1.
I had always wanted a donkey but never had time to make my desire a reality…but my nearest and dearest friends lovingly schemed on the day of my Great Niece’s wedding to surprise me with an amazing gift.
They drove for hours, backwards and forwards, from Abbotsford to Wonthaggi, Macclesfield to Colac, to gather first a car that could tow a float, then the float, and finally the donkey himself.
They were over an hour late for dinner but at that first Brae, followed by ‘Happy Birthday!’…all was forgiven!
Cuddles is a 100% Miniature American Mediterean Jenny (NO Light Points). She joined us in September 2020. At only 31.5” high she is just adorable! She loves people and Johnny. We named Cuddles "Jenny" as that is the term for a female donkey and we think it went well with Johnny. However the name "Cuddles" has stuck as she is so adorable and cuddly. Her birthday is 17th June 2004
Olive joined us as a kitten in 2001, after recovering from a very serious illness that was touch-and-go for some time.
Nowadays, she is never far from the stable block but if she does venture, it’s usually to a sunny spot in the hayshed to sleep, or on the dummy near the undercover yards but what she loves most is when she hears us teaching on the outdoor arena; she loves to come up for a visit and a chat.
Say Hi next time you see her, she will love you for it! And she has the best purr in the world if you give her a pat.
Oliver is a medium haired boy who came to us as a kitten, just a few days after Olive. He was exactly what we were looking for, a male tabby that matched Olive for looks (just a bit more floofy). We found him at a shelter and we couldn’t resist him.
He can be a little timid with strangers but once he gets to know you, he’s incredibly happy to hang out…but only in the stables. His favourite places to chill out are the rafters, sitting on a stable door or anywhere high; he’s rarely on the ground.
When you visit the stables, look up and see if you can find him hanging around his high spots.