Karioi Sport Horses operates on a 42 acre property situated on the west coast of the lush Waikato region.  The property itself is north-facing and well fenced with several dams and a river that marks the boundary on two sides.  There is plenty of access to good trail rides and Ohautira Road provides a safe environment to teach horses about traffic, bridges and the like.

Stabled horses are housed in an American barn style complex with six roomy loose boxes that open both into the barn itself and also to the outside world.  The boxes are therefore designed with maximum ventilation and stress free horses in mind.  The floors are rubber lined and shavings are used for bedding.

There is a 60m x 20m dressage arena which has a rubber chip and sand mix surface.  This surface has been found to be one of the best possible surfaces on which to train horses.  It has a little give in it but doesn’t give a “false” feel to the horse’s movement.  It has superior grip and doesn’t shift under the horse’s feet so it is also excellent to lunge and jump on.  

A high fenced round pen with a sand surface is used for some of the initial starting work with young horses, and also for retraining horses showing conflict behavior.

There is a fantastic cross-country course a mere 5 minutes away which has a good variety of fences ranging from pre-training height right up to novice horse trials fences at around 1.10m.  There is also a full showjumping course which can be utilised.

The beautiful beaches of Raglan are an easy 10 minute drive away.  The horses are brought down to the beach regularly for fitness work, relaxation, and also to experience this important aspect of life as a riding horse in a coastal country such as New Zealand.

On the breeding side of the operation there is a phantom or “dummy” mare for collecting semen, safe teasing facilities and a crush for the mares to be inseminated and scanned in.  Our stud uses Hamilton Veterinary Services – one of the Waikato’s leading equine practices - and the vets enjoy their weekly visits out to what is one of New Zealand’s busiest performance horse stud farms.  For the broodmares there are safe foaling down paddocks and 24 hour care.