August Newsletter 2025

Welcome to the August newsletter everyone! Summer is marching on and although we are writing the newsletter on a day we are closed due to an Amber weather warning (yuk!) the summer has been pretty good so far!

PROJECT MARIO

Once again, a big thank you to all our members who have offered to be a driver for Befriend a Child to ensure the young people selected for Project Mario can get to the stables on a Saturday – your help has been so hugely appreciated! The project start date is 16^th August which will allow all PVG checks on drivers to be completed for the charity.

We are also hoping that some of our junior members may be keen to volunteer to help with the sessions – they run from 10.30am till 12.30pm each Saturday for 11 weeks so any members who are 12 years and over and have completed stable management or Dartmoor Dazzlers Pony stars would be really welcome to come and help out with the sessions with leading and helping the young people groom e.t.c. Let’s all work together to make sure the young people have a great time on their course!

HAYLAGE IS IN!

We have now got this year’s supply of haylage in which is great as it is always a bit of a nerve inducing time – particularly this year when the weather was so hot and dry early on in the growing season that it meant less of a yield for some fields. We had less fields to work with this year as we historically took crop from the undeveloped fields at Oldfold, but as the housing development has progressed, there are less fields available. The good news is that we have managed to control costs with the haylage to keep it around the same price as last year, so that’s one big cost managed – at least for 2025!

LEADERSHIP COURSE

As many members will have seen we are running a leadership course next week in the summer holidays – the BHS Leadership awards are aimed at 12–18 year olds and are a non-ridden course, working on various key skills and small projects which the young person achieves and gets a certificate in – the Leadership courses start with the Bronze award. We have run a successful session weekly for a couple of years now for a group of teenage members who are currently progressing through their gold award and we will be starting a new weekly session (after school mid-week) for a new intake. It’s an ideal way for 12–18 year olds to make new friends/learn key skills like teamwork/confidence/communication and the course involves the group running a small fundraiser and setting a goal to achieve (doesn’t have to be equine related). The Leadership course is coached by Sally and it’s also a great addition to young people’s CVs/Uni applications e.t.c. So, keep an eye on our Facebook page and we will update with information on the new course once the schools go back after Summer.

HOW TO PICK A RIDING CENTRE

We’ve put a pic of our staff’s qualifications and training certificates on this month’s newsletter as we wanted to provide a bit of information around legislative requirements and good practice with riding centres as we often have members either moving away to different parts of the UK or going on holiday and asking us how to pick a new centre in a new area. So, we thought it was a good opportunity to provide some info as the requirements to run riding centres are not always as customers may expect!

So firstly, there is a Riding Establishments Act which is law, and all riding centres must have a licence. They are not required to display it, so it is always worth asking to see a copy of it when picking a new centre. Licenses are issued by the local authority (so in our case, Aberdeen City Council) and it is devolved in Scotland, so requirements for a Scottish license are different from England/Wales/Ireland.

It is not as simple as a mainstream riding school requires a license – anyone who provides tuition and/or the use of a horse in exchange for a fee requires a license. So, shares/part loans/part loans with lessons run by a commercial enterprise should also have a license. To gain a license the premises and horses have to be inspected annually by a vet and animal health officer and very importantly the centre/individual needs to be able to prove they have sufficient public liability insurance for the premises and activity. So, if you are paying to use a horse in any way, then you really need to check there is a license in place – both for your own safety but also to ensure the horses you have access to have good welfare.

A fact that will surprise everyone however is that coaching qualifications/Safeguarding training and a PVG check are not currently checked for a riding school license L so it is worth bearing this in mind too.

A centre which has additional quality assurance standards (such as British Horse Society approval) will have demonstrated that they have all these things in place but do please remember that it is not checked as standard for a license – only for additional (optional) quality assurance schemes.

At ARC, our coaches are all fully qualified before they will coach sessions and are qualified with British Horse Society coach qualifications. All of our staff are also put through their “Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults” course, are put through their First Aid at Work qualification and are also members of the PVG scheme so have a basic criminal record check/approval as a condition of their employment. Whilst these things do not guarantee a great coach, for us at ARC they are absolute necessities to ensure our staff are well trained, able to manage a variety of situations and also understand the importance and responsibility of their role as coaches.

So, our advice is always – pick a centre which is ideally BHS approved (or look at other quality assurance criteria if the centre has other approvals), ask to see a license if you are paying for the use of a horse or having lessons on a horse provided for you and ask what qualifications the coaches have. Our coach team qualifications are as follows:

Laura Cargill – BHS Stage 4 Ride (dressage), Care and Lunging, Stage 3 Complete Coach, First Aid at Work, Safeguarding cert, BHS Coaching4All and PVG scheme member. 

Martin Dargie – BHS Stage 4 Senior Coach (event), First Aid at Work, Safeguarding cert, BHS Coaching4All and PVG scheme member.

Liam Skea – BHS Stage 4 Ride (event), BHS Stage 3 Complete Coach, First Aid at Work, Safeguarding cert, BHS Coaching4All, RDA Group Coach and PVG scheme member.

Sophie Turnbull – BHS Stage 2 Complete Coach, First Aid at Work, Safeguarding cert, BHS Coaching4All and PVG scheme member.

Sally McCarthy – BHS Stage 5 Performance Centre Manager, Stage 4 Senior Coach (event), First Aid at Work, Safeguarding cert, BHS Coaching4All , RDA group coach and PVG scheme membership.

We invest over £15,000 per annum in our staff training, development and assessments and whilst it is a substantial cost, our staff team (alongside our horses) our greatest asset and we are constantly looking at ways that we can develop our team further and increase their skills and knowledge.

ASSESSMENTS

We ended up having to miss doing our internal assessments last Autumn as between staff having annual leave and other training days we were running; we just couldn’t find a slot in the diary that worked and wasn’t in school holidays (when too many of our members would have been away). We are aiming to do the assessments in September this year, in the same format as normal with one of our coaches assessing whilst the others coach the lessons – we will put the dates of assessment on the club Facebook page as soon as we have them but remember – the assessments are not a test! It is our way of making sure that you are in the correct lesson for your stage of learning and that your coach is covering the correct criteria at the correct stage with you – the lessons will run exactly the same as normal lessons – there will just be someone (likely Sally or Martin) watching and taking some notes. We always produce a full assessment report for each rider, which is available from reception the week after your lesson so it’s a great way to get feedback on your riding!

OCTOBER HOLIDAY ACTIVITIES

We will be running the Pony Stars courses during the October holidays for our younger members and will be opening the bookings for these sessions on Wednesday 20th August at 10.00am.

As always, we will be running a full ridden course (with limited spaces) and then grooming/stable management only spaces. Ridden courses are £235 for the four days (Monday–Thursday) which includes the four group riding lessons (one each day), and grooming/stable management only spaces are £35 per day.

For the ridden courses you have to commit to all four days, but with the grooming/stable management sessions you can pick and choose which days you’d like to attend.

All ridden courses run from 10.00am–2.00pm and the stable management only option runs from 10.00am–12.00pm.

To book onto the courses below, then please call or email reception on Wednesday 20th August at 10.00am – a £50 non-refundable deposit will be taken on booking and then the remaining cost can be paid at any point up to the start date of the course.

Monday 13^th-Thursday 16^th October – Dartmoor Dazzlers

Monday 20^th-Thursday 23^rd October – Welshie Wizzers

We are also going to be running another Leadership Awards course during the October holidays. This course is suitable for 12–18 year olds. We currently run a Leadership course with Sally on a Saturday at 4.30pm and that group have progressed through their bronze and silver awards.
The Leadership awards are designed to build some key skills in young people that are beneficial to them as they get older – so we look at communication, teamwork, setting goals and working through projects. The leadership course has proven to be a brilliant way for our members to meet more friends and is a great thing to be able to add to their CV if applying for a small job whilst still at school and is equally beneficial to Uni/college applications e.t.c when the time comes.

We will be running this course from Monday 13^th-Thursday 16^th October inclusive from 10.00am-2.00pm. The course works around the horses (using them for teamwork, communication skills etc.) but doesn’t include riding. It is suitable for anyone 11–18 years old and the cost is £160 including the cost of the leadership awards booklet.
Bookings for the leadership awards course will also open on Wednesday 20th August at 10.00am and the course is suitable both for new participants to Leadership Awards and those who have already done some Bronze/Silver awards.