November newsletter 2026

Hi everyone and welcome to the November newsletter! The weather is definitely getting colder and we are going there this newsletter……………………………………………

We’re mentioning Christmas!

FINGERS CROSSED FOR SCRUFTY

Many of you will have noticed that Scrufty has been in on box rest for a month or so now – Scrufty went lame behind in the field and has had a couple of lameness work ups from the vets – initially he had an abscess in his foot on his right hind, so we were hopeful that was his only issue, but once the abscess had been cleared out, he went quite lame again a couple of days later, so the next step was for the vets to block his leg to see where the pain was and then x-ray his hock. The x-ray showed that Scrufty has arthritis in his hocks, which is fairly normal for an older pony like him, but that he has obviously wrenched it in the field, or perhaps due to moving oddly due to the abscess, he has really active bone remodelling at the front of his hock which is causing the discomfort. He has a 50/50 chance of treatment working – we had already decided that if it was time for Scrufty to retire, that was fine by us, but we need to get him more comfortable in order for him to be able to retire into the field. So, he has been treated with joint medication which will hopefully calm down the inflammation and make him comfier and our vet will reassess him in a couple of weeks to see if he has improved enough he can start to enjoy some turnout. It is unlikely Scrufty will come back into lessons due to this issue, but never say never – our main aim is to get him comfy enough he can enjoy being out in the field again, but we’ll update everyone with how he gets on!

LEADERSHIP ACTIVITY

Our Bronze and Gold Leadership groups have been busily planning some activity that they have to carry out for their certificates at each level – so our Bronze Leadership group are looking at offering personalised hat silks in time for Xmas and doing a raffle, whilst our Gold Leadership group are hoping to put on an Xmas fun games and scavenger hunt, followed by ginger bread house building for our younger members – we will update the club Facebook page with both these activities when they are ready to a) take orders for the silks and b) have a date and detail for the Xmas fun day for younger members – so keep your eyes peeled!

XMAS LESSONS/TIMETABLE

As we normally do, we’re going to be going to skeleton lessons/restricted timetable over Xmas and New Year as a lot of our members go away over the festivities and our staff team also have some well-deserved days off for some down time. So, our skeleton lesson timetable will run from Wednesday 23^rd December – Tuesday 5^th January inclusive so on those days there will still be group lessons and private lessons available, but some will be at different times/with different coaches.

We will be closed as normal on 24^th, 25^th, 26^th December and 31^st December, 1^st and 2^nd January, so if your lessons are normally on a Thursday or Saturday, then if you want to ride over the festivities you can book into one of the other lessons on the days we are open. Ali will have the group lesson timetable for skeleton lessons available from Monday 23^rd November for any members who want to plan ahead with their bookings and the private lesson diary for December opens on Monday 30^th November at 10.00am as standard.

As a pre warning, for January private lessons, the diary opening date is adjusted slightly to avoid the days we are on skeleton rota e.t.c. so if you are looking to book private lessons for January, the opening date for those is Monday 21^st December, 10.00am.

WELCOME BACK MARTIN

Martin is now back to normal coaching hours after he broke his arm in September, so it’s great to see him back. A big thank you to our other coaches who all stepped in and did lots of overtime while Martin was off to ensure that the majority of lessons still ran as normal.

ROADWORKS

As many of our members will have seen, there is currently a sign on the Anguston Road detailing that the road will be closed with access for local residents only from 18^th November – 24^th November inclusive. The reason that this newsletter is a little late is that we were trying to get a response from Aberdeen City council with regard to access as the diversion that they were suggesting is unsuitable as it is a private farm track.

We’ve now heard back from Scottish Water (who are doing the works) that full access to ARC will remain during the works – so there is no diversion. They will be updating the signage to detail that full access to ARC remains and members will be able to access as normal, but do please be patient – the works mean they will need to have single file traffic at one section of the road so you may need to wait a couple of minutes if there is a vehicle coming the other way – do please be patient and try to allow a few more minutes on your journey time that week to allow for this.

SUCCESSFUL PROJECT MARIO

We ran a second course of Project Mario in October and November – this time working with a group of young adults who were referred onto the programme by the great local charity Aberdeen Foyer. The young people came for a full day on a Tuesday for five weeks and covered horse care skills, soft skills development and goal setting (all of which they achieved!). They were a brilliant group of young people and hopefully we have helped them on their journey to future career opportunities, volunteering opportunities and generally building their confidence. As members may remember, we were awarded lottery funding to run 2x project Mario so the first one we did with young people referred through Befriend a Child and then the second one was this one with Aberdeen Foyer, so the project has had great impact locally. We are hoping to run more Project Marios in 2027 and will start to look to fundraising options for them in the New Year.

GIFT VOUCHERS

It’s getting to the time of year where lots of folks are looking for gifts and buying gift vouchers for ARC, so just a reminder for everyone we can offer gift vouchers for a set experience e.g. simulator lesson/walkies e.t.c. or we can do them for a specific monetary amount then the recipient can use them for whatever type of activity they like. Our gift vouchers can be posted out in hard copy, collected in person at reception or sent out electronically via email – so if you would like to get a voucher for someone as a gift then do please just give Ali a shout in reception.