I know that I have previously made mention of Pennant Park Riding Centre where Julia visits. She being the one who loves horses and me being the bystander who goes along for her sake you wouldn’t expect me to wax lyrical on the subject. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t but circumstances are not normal these day are they ?
The owner of Pennant Park is Carl Crofts. He’s a nice person, a highly skilled riding instructor with a very pleasant manner and huge dreams. Pennant is a lovely property as you can see from the link http://www.pennantparkridingcentre.com/ . There are good grounds, and plenty of nice hacks in the area. For newcomers or for those who want to learn dressage there is a good arena. The problem is when the weather is bad ( and bear in mind this is the UK so more bad than good) the arena can’t be used. Because the arena is uncovered Carl is limited as to the people he can train there and of course the income goes down when the open arena is out of use.
Julia does her riding/training at an RDA ( Riding for the Disabled) stables about twenty five miles away. Carl and his wife Storm would love to be RDA approved so that he could help the disabled youngsters in the area learn to be comfortable around horses and help them, along with disabled adults to get pleasure from riding that often helps with other problems too. I’d love to see this happen since obviously it would mean not having to travel so far for Julia to ride. In order to become approved for RDA there must be a covered arena with a lift to help get the disabled onto their horses. Herein lied the problem as Carl cannot raise such funding when he loses so much income due to the vagaries of our weather. What’s needed is an influx of goodwill from businesses, maybe corporate sponsorship. After all. it can’t do any harm to have a little board ‘Sponsored By….’ somewhere around an arena to be seen by visiting parents etc.
So, if you have a business or know of a business who’d be prepared to help by putting some sort of building around the arena, or providing a small lift that takes people up to the height of a horses back…… Don’t be shy. If you’re part of a group of businesses on a trading estate perhaps you could get everyone together to bring this dream to fruition not just for Carl but for generations of disabled and able bodied children who could use these facilities. You’ll find contact details on the link.
barsetshirediaries 