May Newsletter 2025

Hi Everyone and welcome to ARC’s May newsletter! Tino is the photo star this month – we have “The Story of Tino” in addition – a lot of our members will have gotten to know Tino over the last couple of months as he has started doing some group lessons and therapy riding sessions and what a cute wee star he is! He has also had his “go faster” haircut so he is looking like a real sports cob now!

SUMMER PONY STARS!

We will be running a few Pony Stars courses during the summer holidays for our younger members and will be opening the bookings for these sessions on Monday 12^th May at 10.00a.m. As always, we will be running a full ridden course (with limited spaces) and then grooming/stable management only spaces. Ridden courses are £225 for the four days (Mon – Thurs) which includes the 4 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 4 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 10.00a.m – 2.00p.m and the stable management only option runs from 10.00a.m – 12.00p.m.

To book onto any of the courses, then please call reception on Monday 12^th May – 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.

Mon 7^th July – Thurs 10^th July inclusive – Dartmoor Dazzlers.

Mon 14^th July – Thurs 17^th July inclusive – Welshie Whizzers

Mon 21^st July – Thurs 24^th July inclusive – Dartmoor Dazzlers

Mon 4^th August – Thurs 7^th August inclusive – Welshie Whizzers.

We are also going to be running a Leadership Awards course during the Summer holidays – this course is for 11–18 year olds. We currently run a Leadership course with Sally on a Saturday at 4.30p.m 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 11^th August to Thurs 14^th August inclusive – the course works around the horses (using them for teamwork/communication skills e.t.c.) but doesn’t include riding. It is suitable for anyone 11–18 years and the cost below includes the cost of the course booklet. This course will also run from 10.00a.m – 2.00p.m for the four days and the cost of it is £160 including the cost of the leadership awards booklet if needed. Bookings for the leadership awards course will also open on Monday 12^th May at 10.00a.m and the course is suitable both for new participants to Leadership Awards and those who have already done some Bronze/Silver awards.

ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP

As our members will be aware, our annual membership year runs from 1^st June – 31^st May and we are pleased to let all our members know that we are freezing membership prices at the same price as last year and again with a discount for members who pay during May. So as per last year the membership fees will be:

Single: £130 (£120 if paid during May)

Family: £240 (£230 if paid during May). Our family membership can be used for up to 2 adults and 3 children from the same household.

As with every year, we need members to complete new forms – this is because your riding activity/health/contact details e.t.c. may have changed over the year and we also need a copy of the members code of conduct signed each year.

For those who are newer members of ARC, we are a not-for-profit members club – so in effect the club assets are owned by the members. This model works brilliantly for the club as it makes for an inclusive environment and also ensures that all income from club activity is ploughed directly back into the club – either by buying new equipment/horses/tack e.t.c. or through staff training and development to ensure you all have access to the best coaches!

Membership forms are available from reception in hard copy or electronically by email – so do please visit reception during May to request a copy as we cannot accept membership payments without a completed membership form.

PROJECT MARIO

Our members will be aware that we put out a questionnaire in late 2024 looking at the representation from different socio-economic groups within our membership. This was the first stage of a project that our staff team are organising as part of the BHS “Everyone Welcome” strategy where the charity looks to work with its approved centres to increase participation – ARC has been chosen as a pilot centre for the project, which is great recognition of the work that we have been doing to make horses accessible over the last 20 years. Our staff team were tasked with the project of identifying an underrepresented group and working out a programme that will enable them to participate and the team picked increasing participation from those from a low socio-economic group as their project aim. We named the project “Project Mario” in recognition of Mario, the rescue pony who we sadly lost to colic a couple of years ago.

We had initially hoped to partner up with the sports charity which is responsible for delivering sport in Aberdeen on behalf of the local authority, but after a couple of months of waiting to get the project started, the organisation has advised us that they won’t be allocating any funds from their budget for this equestrian project – whilst it’s disappointing it’s not altogether unexpected as to date, we have never had any support from local authority or otherwise to increase participation – hence why we work so hard to break down barriers with our own resources.

Luckily, around the same time we were given a generous donation to the club by a long-term member with the member advising we could do what we felt was best with the donation – so we are going to use it for Project Mario. We have now teamed up with the brilliant Befriend a Child charity, who will refer children onto the project – this is a key part of it to ensure the correct young people are identified. The project will be an 11-week course of a short riding lesson, stable management session and Leadership awards session for the young people, all funded by ARC. The project aims to give the young people an introduction to riding and horse care that they wouldn’t normally be able to access due to cost being a barrier to participation and will hopefully provide them with great learning, a safe environment with great role models (our staff team) and a way to make new friends. We all know how amazing spending time with horses is and we are hoping that by giving these young people a helping hand to get involved with horses that some of them discover a lifelong love of them and the opportunity to volunteer/get work experience and just have a fun, outdoor space that they can use in the future once they have done their basic learning. Whilst the project will initially work with 5 – 6 young people and just run for 11 weeks (this is all we can fund ourselves without any support) we currently have a funding application in with another organisation and if the project is a success we will look to do a bit more fundraising to run a couple more. We are hoping once we have a bit more info on start dates e.t.c. to get quite a few of our members (both junior and adult) involved in volunteering with the project – it’s a really rewarding way to spend a couple of hours helping and we won’t need a weekly commitment to volunteer – just whenever fits into busy lives. We will provide more info in a week or so around volunteering opportunities with the project.

The Story of Tino

So, as we have covered most of the other horses background stories, we thought it would be nice to let our members know a bit more about Tino and what he had done previously before coming to ARC.

Tino is a 14 year old, 13.3h.h. piebald gelding who has been at ARC for around 3 ½ months now. As with all new arrivals to the yard, Tino had a guttural pouch wash and did 3 weeks isolation to ensure he was healthy and safe to join our herd. Prior to us purchasing Tino, he had a vet check where he had his eyes and heart checked to ensure he was in good health and would enjoy the routine and exercise that he would do at ARC.

He also had his teeth done fairly soon on arrival at ARC as we knew from his previous owner that he had had a molar tooth extracted a couple of years earlier, so we wanted him checked early on to ensure he didn’t have any issues with the opposing molar tooth (when horses have a molar tooth removed they often need more regular dental attention as the molar tooth above or below the removed one doesn’t grind down at the same speed as the others as it’s “partner” molar has been removed).

Tino was all good on all his health checks and tests, which we expected as he had come from a home where he was well loved and cared for. To give members an idea, it costs around £1500 to do all the isolation/health checks and isolation to get a new pony ready to do lessons – whilst it isn’t cheap to do things so thoroughly, it is absolutely best for the horses/ponies as we pick up early on if there are any things that we will need to manage carefully with them going forwards.

Tino then did a few sessions with Sophie (who is our only staff team member small enough to ride a pony!) and we changed his saddle as it wasn’t ideal for Tino and the different riders he would be carrying. He then did a couple of lessons with a riding school young member who is an experienced rider and rode him in a couple of group lessons and at the same time he did some training/work for Hippotherapy and RDA sessions.

Since day one, Tino has been an absolute joy to work with – he is a happy wee guy, who seems to thrive in our environment and is rapidly becoming a favourite with our staff and riders alike. Sally first met him when we advertised for horses/ponies as we were looking for some for the school and Tinos owner got in touch to say that they had a family pony who they had had for years and were looking for a great home for him – they knew that ARC provide their horses and ponies with a home for life so they hoped that Tino might be suitable so that he could keep doing some exercise and bring fun to new riders. Tino had been their family pony then when his young rider outgrew him, he was loaned out to another young person who had then also outgrown him, hence why his owners were looking for a long-term home for him. His owners and loaners still come and visit to see Tino, and it is lovely when owners can keep in touch in that way.

Tino does novice level children and small adult session and is very gentle with a seriously comfortable trot and canter! He is also proving to be an incredible member of the therapy team – working with Hippotherapy and RDA riders, where he is incredibly gentle and clearly really enjoys his role.

Eagle eyed members may also notice that Tino doesn’t wear front shoes – unlike most of our school ponies – the reason for this is quite simple – Tino didn’t wear shoes prior to coming to ours and he has tough little feet that have always been great without shoes, so we tend to keep management the same when we take on a new pony – if it works, then who are we to change it!

Tino lives out in the “odd group” – which are the school geldings who for one reason or another don’t like being in the main schoolboys groups – so his field pals are Mr T, Squirrel, Harris, Scrufty, Trojan and Ricky and he settled in nicely with them from day one – it was like he had always been there. We recently clipped Tino out as he gets itchy legs in Summer and was quite warm with his thick winter coat and he appears to absolutely love his new haircut – when he first got it, he went trotting around his field showing it off and calling to the mares to show them his new haircut J He is super cute and we are all big Tino fans already! He also very much likes carrots/treats so do feel free to go and meet him if you’ve not met him yet and give him a treat – he’ll be your best pal for a treat!