Idylwild Farms, LLC is located in Sonoma county, in northern California, between Santa Rosa, and Sebastopol. It is owned and operated by Ray Riddle and Laura McEvoy. We opened for business on October 1, 2003. Laura has been a horse trainer in the Sonoma County area for several years, and has been an equestrian since the age of five. Ray has been an operations manager in the food industry for many years, and was a professional equestrian photographer.

Laura's training business has been successful to the point that she outgrew her previous facility. Both Laura and Ray really enjoy the barn life, and horses in general. When we took our love for horses, and the need to expand into consideration, we decided in 2003 to begin searching for a new home for Laura's training business, while remaining in Sonoma County. We were also looking for a location with room enough that we could board our clients' horses as well. No easy task! Especially when we took into account that we'd need a place which would allow for business growth for many years. To our great joy and amazement, almost immediately we were lucky to find our current facility, which had only just come up for sale.

Idylwild Farms includes over 43 acres of land. Our facility has over 110 stalls for horses in six different barns. We offer a large lighted covered arena, a large outdoor arena, two covered lungeing arenas, plus numerous smaller pastures and paddocks. Several of the pastures are irrigated during the warmer months, which mean that they're green, even during the driest parts of the year. We are firm believers that horses need as much freedom and exercise as can reasonably be provided, so those pastures are used by horses whenever the weather permits.

Idylwild Farms is located next to the Laguna Santa Rosa, a government-protected nature preserve, just east of Sebastopol. This provides our clients with wide open views of trees, water, grasses, and wildlife. The sunsets are awesome! The meadows of Idylwild Farms are frequent stopovers for many breeds of migratory birds. We are blessed with roads, trails, and galloping paths from which our clients can get right out into these natural vistas.

Our goal is to develop a first-class sport horse training facility for horse enthusiasts in the Sonoma County, SF North Bay, and northern California region. We offer training in all levels of skill, and in the disciplines of dressage, hunter-jumpers, and three-day eventing.

Our attitude is "constant improvement". We are constantly adding features to Idylwild Farms, often small improvements here and there, to make our clients' experience here more enjoyable. In addition, we have several larger projects in the works, including lansdcaping features, such as trails, ponds, and an additional outdoor areana.

We hope to serve the Sonoma County community as well. We are looking for ways which we can provide the equestrian experience to those in our area whom, for financial or health reasons, have been unable to enjoy horses so far. We are always happy to talk with schools, and community service organizations about how we can help.