OCTOBER ACTIVITIES
Unfortunately, the City and Shire have again gone with different dates in the October holidays, meaning there is just one week when both areas are on holiday! This creates a bit of a
headache for us dates wise for activities, so we are trying to put on a flexible week (when City are off but not Shire) and then a more fixed week (when both areas are off).
So, the first week of the (City) schools’ holidays we are going to run some “Pony Stars” days. These days will run from 10a.m – 1p.m on Mon 11th, Weds 13th and Thurs 14th October. These sessions are suitable for those who are already taking part in Pony Stars weekly, or new Pony Stars. Suitable for any member 12 years and under, the days will not include a formal riding lesson, but lots of hands-on practice and activities and guarantee tired children at the end J These sessions cost £35 per day, and you can book onto all of them, or just one or two. For those who are not taking part in Pony Stars already, you will need to buy the Pony Stars “Dartmoor Dazzlers” pack (£25), which we have available in reception – these include a great activities book (including things to do at home), stickers, tasks e.t.c. and then a bag to carry it all in.
The second week of the (City) holidays, we are running Beginner and Novice stable management. This is the more traditional type of stable management and runs from 10a.m – 1p.m each day, including a group riding lesson. For these sessions, members need to attend each of the 4 days – it runs from Mon 18th – Thurs 21st October inclusive and costs £190 including the riding lessons.
We are going to keep the sessions from 10a.m – 1p.m at the moment – we know that a lot of you would prefer we go back to the 9a.m-2p.m times which include an hours lunch break, but with Covid numbers increasing in the area we think caution is the way forward for group gatherings and lunchtime/breaktime is a challenge to ensure our staff can social distance.
Bookings for all these courses open on Monday 6th September at 10.00a.m and a £10 per day deposit for Pony Stars and a £50 deposit for Stable Management is payable on booking.
WINTER TRAINING We know! Nobody wants to think about winter yet including us! J But we have to really! We will be offering more online training again this Winter as it has proven very popular through lockdowns and also afterwards as its easy for people to fit in around their busy lives and we can also now offer recordings of each session.
So, we will be starting in October with some ridden/hands on horse sessions – look out for info appearing on our Facebook page in next couple of weeks.
PHYSIO DEMO
We’re really excited to be hosting a rider physio session with the guys from Perform Physio on Monday 13th September from 5.00p.m – 7.00p.m. This session is available to attend either in person or via StarLeaf video call and costs just £5 with all the proceeds going to a charity nominated by the Perform team. The session is designed for “grass roots” riders which is you lot! It will involve 2 riders working in the arena, the physios discussing various strengths/weaknesses that the rider has physically and how it affects their position and then a session with a coach (Sally) to show how working with a physio can benefit all levels of rider. So, anyone who struggles to get their legs in the right place, sit well to the canter, sit softly without stirrups – the list is endless – get yourselves booked in to come along and watch it will be really beneficial!
WAIT LIST
We were really sad to hear that a local riding school which provided great lessons closed the riding school part of their business last week. This has led to a lot of new enquiries from new riders to ARC this last week. We are working hard to try and create some availability in our diary to accommodate at least some of the riders who have had to stop lessons because of the closure, but we were already near to full capacity prior to this. Our priority, as always is to existing ARC members but we also want to make horses accessible, so we are going to try to create a couple of new lesson slots going forwards after assessments.
For anyone who has friends on the waiting list, we know it’s frustrating – but there is a limit to the hours our horses and staff can work, and we just aren’t willing to compromise on that so do please bear with us!