July Newsletter 2026

Hi everyone and welcome to the July newsletter! Obviously, we had to use Thomas as our picture for this month – we thought it would be funny to mock up the same pick with Laura one of our liveries as the one we did previously when she rode Hercules – quite a different size wise!

NEW HORSE PROGRESS

Madge has now started to do some advanced member private lessons as she progresses in her education and is ready to start to meet a few more of our members – Madge seems to be very much enjoying her role so she will continue to do private lessons for a while yet and continues to work with Sally 2 or 3 times a week to keep her skills developing.

Thomas has settled in really well – he has completed his isolation period and is now in his field with his new herd. He has been working with Sally and is concentrating on doing some hacking as he builds his muscles up a bit in preparation for starting to work in the arena. He is a big guy at 18.2h.h. so it is important that he slowly fittens up and gets stronger as he is also still growing and filling out. He has very much enjoyed coming into the stables and being patted and admired by everyone so do feel free to go and say hello to him if you see him in the stables!

We will be planning on doing an educational session for members involving Thomas, so keep an eye out on the members Facebook page to come along and learn a bit more about the training that is involved with new horses before you see them in lessons.

LESSON PRICES

We carry out a price review every June, which involves quite a bit of work looking at costs (both where we can cut them and how they may increase over next 12 months) and what the club needs to invest in over the next 12 months or so – this can include anything from saddles, or horses like Thomas through to staff training and assessments.

Our aim is always to both keep horses accessible, but also to ensure that the club remains financially healthy and can continue to provide lessons, stable management and all other training for everyone in the area. We are always very aware that the cost of living seems to be constantly increasing for everyone – it is for businesses like ours too and we also need to ensure we are always in a  position that we can fund best welfare and care for our horses.

The result of our price review is that group lessons will be increased by £2 per lesson as of 1^st August 2026 and private lessons will increase by £3 per lesson – also from 1^st August. For members who currently pay weekly (one week in advance) for group lessons, do please remember that there are various discount schemes in place – our block booking cards and standing order payment schemes are a great way to reduce the cost of your riding if you are riding fairly regularly in a weekly group. We are not increasing the prices of walkies or sim lessons in this price review as the main increases in cost we are seeing are across group and private lesson provision – bedding, horse care costs (veterinary, shoeing e.t.c) and our payroll.

As we have done previously, we will extend the expiry date on block booking cards up to 3 months (5 and 10 lesson cards) and 6 months (20 lesson cards) for anyone who wishes to purchase additional block booking cards at the current price before the price increase.

NEW LEADERSHIP GROUP INTAKE

Our leadership awards courses have proven very popular over the last three years – we have run one group through bronze, silver and gold and another group are currently doing their Silver level – so what are Leadership Awards?

They are in effect a youth club – aimed at 12 – 18 year olds, we run a weekly session for one hour for each group- so the new course starts at Bronze level. There is a booklet that goes with the course, with four activity areas which are signed off with an “explorer award” for each area for them to receive their bronze certificate. The activity areas are:

“Future Leader” – this section covers role models, communication skills- the explorer award for this section requires the young people help with a walkies or a grooming session with younger participants and use their communication skills.

“Goal Setter” – the young people discuss and create a goal which they work towards over the time of the bronze course – it can be horsey or not – previous examples have been school exam results, football training results and a goal in their riding lesson.

“Team Player” – the young people look at how to work best as a team and different roles and behaviours within a team. The Explorer challenge for this section is to plan a team activity at ARC – previous groups have organised a group lesson for themselves and a grooming event for younger participants.

“Innovator” – The section gets the young people thinking creatively and coming up with ideas as a group with the Explorer challenge being for them to run a small fundraiser – some of you may remember the Xmas Hobby horse jumping which was the fundraiser for one of the other groups.

The best part about the Leadership awards is that the young people make really good, lasting friendships through attending the course which can be really great for them to make friends outwith their school environment. We can take up to 7 participants on the Leadership awards course – it will start on Saturday 22^nd August and runs from 4p.m – 5p.m weekly. The Leadership bookings and payments work the same as lessons – you book for which weeks you can manage and pay for them – Leadership sessions are £25 and the book for the Bronze award is £14 which lasts for the 6 months of Bronze delivery. If you have a young participant that you think would benefit from coming along, then please just book in/give names to Ali in reception. No horse skills are needed as whilst we use the horses for quite a bit of the team work/innovator sections, it’s a non-ridden course.

SUMMER STABLE MANAGEMENT

We still have limited riding spaces on the Welshie Whizzers course on 13^th – 16^th July (inclusive) – the Welshie Whizzers are for children who have already achieved Dartmoor Dazzlers, so it is a novice level course and riders should also be able to walk/trot/canter to attend it. The course costs £235 for the four full days including the four group hour riding lessons.

Leadership Course – covering some of the Bronze Leadership requirements – running from 3^rd August – 6^th August inclusive – this is a great course for 12 – 18 year olds and is non-ridden (although we do use the horses quite a bit!) The Leadership course costs £160 for the four full days.