NEW HORSES
We’ve been busy purchasing some horses and ponies over the last 2 months! So first up is Mr T the cover star of the newsletter – he’s a 17h.h. 12 year old gelding who will be used for adult lessons and BHS assessments – he’s a giant of a horse but he’s very cool and well educated.
We also purchased Ozzy (2) from a local family – we knew Ozzy well as he had been a first pony for a livery with us who then moved him home once she’d learned how to care for him. When he came up for sale, we asked to buy him as we thought he’d be a great school pony, so he joined us just over a month ago and has settled in well.
We have also now purchased Bali after we had her for a few months trial. Bali has proved very popular with our adult and teenager members so far, so we were happy to sign her up to the team!
STARLEAF SESSIONS
We are currently offering Starleaf remote training on a Saturday from 4p.m – 5p.m with Sally. We did a “how to buy a horse” session last Saturday which proved really popular so this Saturday coming (5th September) we are going to do “horse behaviour and how to understand it and build a relationship”. We will be using quite a few school horses as examples of how to work with certain types of horse – this will be ideal for anyone who rides in the riding school or is looking for tips on how to manage their horse in a better way so that they can get the most from their horse time.
CONGRATULATIONS!
A massive congratulations to our brilliant staff who have been busy taking assessments that we booked them in for when lockdown hit so they had something to work towards during their furlough time. First up is Laura, who passed her Stage 3 Coach assessment making her a fully-fledged BHS Stage 3 Complete Coach.
Laura had to give a dressage lesson and an arena eventing lesson in her assessment and got really good feedback.
Rhona has also done really well, passing her Stage 2 Care, Stage 2 Lunging and Stage 2 Riding in the last couple of months – great reward for all her hard work studying and practising!
Liam sat his Stage 2 Coach last month and did really well, passing the group lesson, lunge lesson and stable management session and he resat the lead rein lesson last week, so we are waiting with our fingers crossed for his results for that section! Liam has done well as he was short of 3 months practice as we couldn’t deliver his coach training during lockdown as we didn’t have any lessons for him to watch as we weren’t coaching. Well done to all our staff!
LICENCE INSPECTION
We had our licence inspection a couple of weeks ago – all riding schools have an annual inspection to issue their licence, which (should) involve a vet and animal health officer from the council looking at every horse used in the riding school to check soundness/health/eye sight e.t.c. and checking all the facilities to make sure they are demonstrating high welfare and a safe environment for customers. We had great feedback from the inspection, including all our Covid protocols so all good! For interest for our members, any coach or centre that provides a horse for tuition on should by law have a riding school licence that is displayed in a public place – public liability insurance for a riding school is dependent on the centre having a valid licence so if you are ever riding when away on holiday in the UK, or visiting another centre for a lesson you should check they have a licence displayed in reception/welcome area.
Hope to see lots of you at our Ride Out training/Starleaf session and stable management!