April Newsletter 2026

Hi everyone and welcome to the April newsletter – how good is it that the clocks have sprung forward, and the evenings are getting lighter – it’s been a long winter!!!!!

HAVE FUN LIAM!

April sees Liam head off for his three months travelling so we’d all like to wish him the best of luck and hope he has a fab time! Those of you in group lessons will know by now which one of our coaches is covering your lesson while Liam is away and we are all up to speed with what each group needs to cover.

There are slight adjustments to the private lesson diary for the next three months as our remaining coaches cover Liam’s group lessons, but Ali will as always keep everyone right with what sessions are available. We are trying to encourage Liam to give us regular updates for the Facebook page so that you all get an insight into how he’s getting on with his travels!

PROJECT MARIO

We are looking forward to starting another block of “Project Mario” from mid-April on a Saturday morning. Project Mario is a programme that we designed to engage more young people from low socio economic households and after a successful lottery funding application we will be running two blocks of the programme this year with the first block running during the Easter – Summer school term – a big thank you again to those members who volunteer as drivers for Befriend a Child – your volunteering and input has such a positive impact on the young people and helps to ensure we can run this valuable project.

EDUCATIONAL EVENINGS!

Our educational evenings have been a great success to date seeing us covering a few topics around buying a horse, groundwork and handling, lunging and then the latest one focusing on rider position. We have one more planned for April which are open for bookings now in reception:

Friday 24^th April – Conformation. Sally will be presenting a session on different horse conformation and how it affects the way they move, the type of work we may do with them and how we manage them. From Trojan the super cob through to Cyrus the giant – how does different height/size and type affect how we ride them. This session is really beneficial for all members – junior and adult and riding school and livery as it will explain why we work certain horses in certain ways.

This session will run from 5.30p.m – 7.00p.m and costs £20 to attend in person.

MEMBERSHIP

We have had a few members asking about membership renewal, so as a reminder, membership renewal is due on or before 1^st June, so still a couple of months left! As normal, we will be accepting membership forms and payments from 1^st May and will offer a discount to those who pay during May – we would anticipate that membership fees will be the same or similar as previous years, but we will update prior to membership renewal being due.

RECYCLING REMINDER!

A reminder to all members that we try hard to do as much recycling as possible at ARC and that the cups from our vending machine are fully recyclable (including lids) so do please put your empty cups in the blue bins placed around the yard which are our recycling ones rather than in the black bins which are general waste. Our recycling bins can take any product which has the recyclable logo on it and all types of paper and plastic, so do please ensure you put the recyclable waste in any of the blue bins around yard.

SUMMER ACTIVITIES

We know it’s only the Easter holidays, but we are starting to think ahead towards the summer holidays J We will be running Pony Stars weeklong courses at beginner and novice level and will also be running a Leadership course for a week. The dates and prices for the Summer courses will be in the May newsletter and the booking date for the courses also in May so keep an eye on next month’s newsletter to get all the info on the Summer activities.

LEADERSHIP SESSIONS

Our leadership session with Sally on a Tuesday evening is now full and we have a great bunch of young people working through their Silver Leadership award. So we will now take names onto a waitlist for when we start a new Leadership awards session – we don’t have a day/time yet but will update with that once we have enough names on the list.

The Leadership awards are really popular with members aged 12-18yrs. They are non-ridden sessions where we work through “soft skills” with the young people – so doing exercises and teamwork projects which improve their communication, confidence and teamwork skills. We do a wide range of activities from role play scenarios where the participants think about how to communicate in certain scenarios, through to trying to get a loose horse to stand in a specific place in the indoor arena and stay there without someone holding them J The sessions are really good fun and are also great for young people’s CVs when they are looking for a part time job or applying for college/Uni courses as they show that the young person has committed to a course and achieved certificates in key skill areas. If you’d like your young person to take part, then let Ali know and we can pop their name on the waitlist and let you know when we are starting a new course.

BIOSECURITY

There is currently a yard with a case of strangles in the Grampian area, which is a good opportunity for us to remind members about good biosecurity. Strangles is a bacteria which is passed amongst horses by contact – so touching noses/shared water buckets or indirect human contact – touching one horse on one yard and then moving to another yard and touching another or sharing equipment. Most horses survive having strangles, but they are pretty ill and feel rubbish while they have it with symptoms ranging from a high temperature to nasal discharge and sometimes abscesses forming under their jaw which burst.

So, a gentle reminder to all members – whilst we have quite rigorous biosecurity in place at ARC, no biosecurity policy is 100% so we need members to act responsibly too. If you visit other yards or horses before or after visiting ARC, then you should always change clothes (including footwear) and wash your hands thoroughly. No equipment sharing either – so brushes e.t.c. used on one yard must be kept just for that yard.

Our horses mean the world to us, so everyone ensuring that they practice good biosecurity is one of the ways that we ensure they stay in the best health. Thanks!

GROUNDWORKS

A big thank you to our members for being patient with the parking and car park spaces whilst we were having some work done on site. The works are now all completed  – we were doing some improvement works to the existing drains at the back of the building to ensure it stays a bit drier so a big thank you to our landlords for continuing to support us and improving the facilities.