October Newsletter 2025

Hi everyone and welcome to the October newsletter! Hercules is the star of the newsletter this week – a new addition to the ARC team – more about him and Madge later!

SAD GOODBYES

We said a sad goodbye to Dixie and Harris last week when we had them put to sleep. Dixie was nothing short of a legend – she was the last of the “original gang” that we bought when we started up at Oldfold and had reached the grand old age of her mid-thirties. Dixie had been retired for a year or so and had lived her best life over the summer eating grass and snoozing in the sun. It was always the plan to put Dixie to sleep before the Winter as she would have struggled to eat her winter haylage enough with her missing/old molar teeth and we always try to put an older one to sleep in a planned way, on a nice day at the end of Summer – whilst it is sad, we are always grateful that we are able to make the decision for our older retired horses and ensure we do the last thing we can for them in the best way possible – Dixie will be really sadly missed both by our members and staff team as she was such a wonderfully patient mare who taught so very many people to enjoy horses.

Harris was not so well known to our members as he never worked in the riding school. We were asked a favour by a local vet around 3 years ago to take Harris to ARC for his retirement – Harris was in the sad position that his owner had passed away and he had quite a lot of management requirements as he was laminitic. The owner of the livery yard that he lived at was very keen that he find somewhere for his retirement where he would be well looked after and have his laminitis managed. So, Harris came to us with a kind donation to club funds from the livery yard owner and we agreed we would look after him to the end of his days. We made quite a lot of management changes to Harris when he arrived – mainly shoeing and medication for Cushings (a metabolic condition) which meant that he could enjoy living out in a herd on grass as he’d been kept individually in a pen on restricted rations prior to coming to us. It was lovely to see Harris enjoying his retirement, cantering about the field playing with his friends (Mr T’s field) but he had been getting stiffer this summer and not so keen to play anymore, so we knew the time was right to let him go and we’re just happy that we were able to help out to give him a great retirement.

OCTOBER ACTIVITIES

We still have some space on the Leadership Awards course (13^th–16^th Oct inclusive) and the Welshie Wizzers (20^th–23^rd inclusive). The Welshie Wizzers is our second level of stable management course and is suitable for young members who can walk/trot/canter independently and have completed the first level of Dartmoor Dazzlers.

The Leadership awards is a great course for 12–18 year olds which is not a ridden course, but a key skills course, working on confidence, teamwork and communication skills in the young people by doing team tasks and communication training at the yard – the Leadership courses we have run so far have been really popular with the participants and it’s a great way for them to make new friends so if you are interested in either course, then do just get in touch with Ali in reception who can provide more detail/take a booking for you.

PROJECT MARIO

What a brilliant success Project Mario has been so far – we are so delighted with the impact it has had on both the participants and our members who were so kind to step forward and volunteer for the project as drivers for Befriend a Child.

Project Mario is a project that our staff team designed to increase participation by an underrepresented group in equestrian. Our staff chose individuals from a low socio-economic group as we recognise that cost is often a barrier to participation for many people and that horses can often give young people from this group a great set of life skills.

The project had a challenging start – we initially met a few times with the charity that delivers physical activity and sport services on behalf of Aberdeen City Council and hoped that they would support the project – ARC had already committed to part funding the course and hoped the charity would see the benefits of it and support the other half. Sadly, after a few meetings and planning, the charity detailed they would not be willing to fund an equestrian project. Luckily, around the same time, a private member detailed that they wanted to donate some funds to the club, so we used that donation to fund the project.

In an ideal world, the local authority and charity would be more supportive of what ARC tries to achieve – as we already do quite a bit of subsidising sessions and trying wherever possible to make horses more accessible for the local community, but we find that we are nearly always overlooked by the local authority – we totally understand that horses are a minority activity, but it gets quite frustrating when we know just how much horses benefit people and how many more people in the community could benefit.

Despite this, the project has been absolutely amazing and we have been blown away by the impact it has had on the young people – we partnered up with Befriend a Child, a brilliant local charity who were delighted to refer five young people onto the project and they did all the logistics of organising transport (with club volunteers) which was a great help.

Having seen the benefit this project brought the young people, we are even more determined to run another project for another group of young people and despite a lack of support from the local authority, we are determined! However we cannot afford to fund it fully through the club, having already funded the first course – so if any members have any ideas around funding that we may be able to apply for, or any members have businesses or organisations that might want to work with us to “sponsor” another project then do please just get in touch with Sally or Ali on the yard. We have already looked at Children in Need funding (the participants/project doesn’t meet the areas that 2025 funding favours) but are open to any suggestions of other support sources! The project works by delivering 11 sessions of (2 hours per session) to a group of young people who are referred by the charity having identified them as individuals who would not normally be able to access horses and the sessions cover a wide range of things from horse care to confidence and communication skills in the young people – the funding is used to provide the sessions so they are free of charge for the young attendees.

Welcome Madge and Hercules

We had two exciting new arrivals over the last three weeks at ARC – Hercules and Madge! So, we thought it would be nice to introduce them on their own page in the newsletter and give some background as to where/how we find these horses and ponies and the costs involved with sourcing and purchasing them.

We have been looking for school horses for a while now and not had much joy finding the right type in Ireland or by checking out adverts on social media e.t.c, so when Sally was down South last month, she arranged to go and view some privately owned horses and visit a dealer’s yard.

Hercules was the first pony Sally viewed in a private home beside Edinburgh. He is a 10 year old gelding who is around 13h.h. and Sally went and met him in his stable and then watched him being ridden and thought he had a brilliant personality. The plan for Hercules would be that he would do beginner/novice level sessions and also RDA and Hippotherapy.

Sally then travelled on down to England and then visited a dealer yard on the way back up the road through Scotland where she met Madge. Madge is a 15.2h.h. 5 year old cob mare – she is quite green but seemed to have a solid temperament, so Sally agreed to buy her.

Both Madge and Hercules were bought subject to a clean vet inspection of their eyes and heart (cataracts or heart murmurs are an issue in the riding school license inspection).

They have both now had tack fitted and Sally is working with Madge and Hercules will start his ridden work soon with a small adult. We would imagine Hercules will start lessons fairly quickly as he is a bit more experienced, whilst Madge will start with some private lessons with our more experienced riders once she has done a bit more training with Sally.

Madge finishes her isolation this week but has been down being ridden in all arenas in the quieter parts of the day and Hercules finishes his isolation in 12 days, so until that point they will remain in their individual areas before joining their new friends in the school horses’ fields.

We are still on the look out for one more big horse and keeping our eyes peeled on both local adverts and dealer’s yards, but horse buying is a risky business and we have to be as frugal as possible with members funds, so we are fussy!