Horse Riding on Gran Canaria: Trails, a Paddock, and No Beach Ride

Search for horse riding on Gran Canaria and dozens of listings come up, most of them the same handful of stables sold under different titles. Our own catalogue for the island runs to 247 activities at a median price of €69; one riding tour sits inside it, and several more stables operate independently, off the platform. This piece sorts out where you actually ride here – trail, paddock, or arena – and answers the question we’re asked most: is there a ride along the beach. Short answer: not the way the brochures promise it.

The flagship: a volcanic trail out of El Salobre

The tour in our own catalogue, “Volcanic Trail Horse Riding & Transfer Options”, starts from €38 for one to two hours, run in small groups on horses described as calm, with an optional hotel transfer. It carries 4.6 stars across 2,433 reviews, by far the largest review count of any riding tour on the island.

The operator is El Salobre Horse Riding, based in El Salobre, in the municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, around ten minutes from Maspalomas and the dunes. According to the stable’s own website, children can join the one- and two-hour rides from age 3; the sunset ride has a higher minimum of 6. Below those ages, nobody rides, whatever a resold ticket’s booking page might imply.

Check current dates and availability.

Weight, kit, and what “safety” actually refers to

El Salobre states a limit of 110 kg, explained on its own site as being “for the safety of the horses”. Two resellers add detail the stable itself doesn’t publish: on its listing page okgrancanaria repeats the 110 kg limit for a rider alone, but lowers it to 80 kg if a child under 6 shares the saddle, and says children under 6 ride free in a parent’s saddle; CANCO lists a minimum age of 5 alongside the same 110 kg ceiling. Both figures come from resellers, not the stable, and we’re marking them as such rather than presenting them as the operator’s own rule.

Helmets are provided, with safety vests for children. The dress code rules out bikinis, skirts, shorts and sandals. At the stable itself, prices run from €38.02 for one hour, €59.14 for two, €73.93 for the sunset walk, and €75 for a private two-hour ride; hotel pickup is an option on the one- and two-hour tours but not the sunset ride. The two-hour tour leaves at 10 am and 4 pm. Reseller tickets cost more: €46 for one hour, €66 for two.

A riding school, not a trail: Bandama

Not every stable on the island is about riding out into the countryside. The Sección Hípica of the Real Club de Golf de Las Palmas, in Bandama near Santa Brígida – inland, roughly in the centre-north of the island – runs 50 boxes, five arenas and classical dressage instruction. This is a paddock-and-lesson operation, closer to a riding school than a scenic ride, and it’s nowhere near the coast.

Longer rides out of Telde – and a price that doesn’t add up

Horse Riding Canaria, based in Telde, under half an hour from both Las Palmas and Maspalomas, runs the longest ride in our catalogue: a three-hour “Horse Riding Tour to the Coast”, listed at €230. The booking page restricts it explicitly to experienced riders and children over 12, and states it isn’t suitable for anyone over 100 kg – the tightest weight limit of any tour covered here.

The operator’s own website gives different numbers entirely: one hour for children from 6, two hours from 10, the three-hour ride “only for experienced riders”, priced at €30, €70 and €120 – a wide gap from the €230 on the booking platform, stated there to cover a group of up to two people. We can’t reconcile the two, so we’re flagging the contradiction rather than picking whichever looks better. The stable is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10 am–2 pm and 4–8 pm; long trousers and closed shoes are required, sandals and shorts turned away, airport pickup is free.

The other short rides

Two more tours sit in the catalogue with smaller review counts. A “1-hour relaxing horse riding tour” runs €35 for what its own listing gives as 1.5 hours, pitched at beginners and children from age 5, minimum two people per booking; 149 reviews. A “2-Hour Green Mountains Horse Riding Tour”, out of Ojos de Garza, costs €85 for two hours; 29 reviews.

Named but not verified

We also came across mentions of Rancho Park near Playa del Inglés, Happy Horse close to Maspalomas, Centro Hípico La Gloria in El Tablero, Hipisur and Centro Hípico San Mateo. None has a working website we could check, so we’re giving no prices or age limits for any of them – leads to verify yourself, not bookable facts. The Saddle Club Gran Canaria, in the mountains around 15 minutes from Maspalomas, does run a documented trail-riding and equine rescue operation, though we found no pricing worth quoting.

The beach question

This is what most people searching for horse riding here actually want answered, so here’s what we could and couldn’t confirm. For the dune reserve at Maspalomas, the Plan Director of the Reserva Natural Especial, published in the Boletín Oficial de Canarias no. 51 of 26 April 1999, lists prohibited uses within the Zona de Uso Restringido, and “training of horses and dogs” is named explicitly; public access to that zone is on foot only.

For the beaches of San Agustín, Playa del Inglés and Maspalomas, a regulation from 2000 bans walking and bathing animals of any kind – but it doesn’t name horses specifically. The current municipal beach bylaw, from 2013, exists only as a scanned document we couldn’t fully verify, so we’re not quoting its wording. Mogán opened five beaches to dogs in February 2026; horses aren’t mentioned there either. The island council’s own guidance on public land use states horses get access “in no case” – but that line refers to inland recreation areas, not the coast.

Put together: we found no rule that bans horse riding on a Gran Canaria beach in so many words. What is documented is the ban on horse training inside the protected dune zone. More telling than any regulation: no operator on the island actually advertises a ride across the sand. Even the tour sold elsewhere as beach riding, Horse Riding Canaria’s three-hour trip, follows the cliffs of Tufia, Telde and El Goro to the harbour at Salineta, by its own description. If you’re picturing hooves in the surf, you won’t book it here.

Morning or late afternoon, not midday

Every stable we found starts its rides in the morning or late afternoon – El Salobre’s two-hour tour at 10 am and 4 pm, Horse Riding Canaria open 10 am–2 pm and 4–8 pm. Nobody states heat as the reason, so we’re not claiming it as one; September afternoons at Gran Canaria airport average 27.2°C at their high (AEMET, 1981–2010 average), August a touch hotter at 27.5°C, January at 20.8°C. Draw your own conclusion – we just can’t attribute the timing to the stables’ own words.

Who it isn’t for

Over the weight limits – 110 kg at El Salobre, 100 kg on the coastal ride out of Telde – you won’t be accepted, and the limits exist for the horses, not as a formality. Very young children depend entirely on the stable: On its own site El Salobre takes them from 3, and the coastal ride’s booking page wants them over 12. And if you’re after a beach ride, save the search – nobody here sells one. For a broader look at what else fills a day in the south, see The south of Gran Canaria and Gran Canaria with kids; for four wheels rather than four legs, the buggy and quad tours cover that ground instead. One Tripadvisor review of a different stable complained about riders being paired with horses too small for their weight – a single visitor’s account, not a finding.