Page 84 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL SPRING 2023 SPECIAL CRUISE EDTION
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“I was horse obsessed when I was a kid,” Portuguesa de Arte Equestre), one of the
world’s “Big Four” classical riding academies.
Paige Kelly told me. “I think the first
word out of my mouth was ‘horse.’ ”
It seems that The Portuguese Equestrian
Paige and I were having an equine
conversation amidst stalls, paddocks, and tack School is relatively unknown, even to horsey
people. “I’d never heard about it until a friend
rooms. Meanwhile, a blacksmith worked on a told me,” said Paige, a graphic designer from
horse’s hoof not twenty feet from us. Boston. Her story was echoed by English
That wasn’t surprising -- talking horses while tourist Nicky Dines, who was one of a handful
surrounded by horsey stuff. But here’s what was of visitors at The Equestrian School that day.
surprising – we were standing behind bland “It was news to me,” said Nicky, “and, crikey,
walls facing a humdrum street in the Belem dis- I’ve been riding all my life.”
trict a few miles from central Lisbon. I’m pretty sure the first words out of my
A modest sign announced the place. There mouth were “ma-ma” not “horse,” and Jody, my
were no lines of tourists trying to get in. You horse-obsessed wife (who also was only dimly
could walk by it on your way to a lunch of grilled aware of the school), had to drag me to visit
sardines and not notice you were passing The the facility. But crikey!, the place turned out to
Portuguese School of Equestrian Art (Escola be a highlight of our stay in Lisbon.
84 WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE SPRING 2023
