since 1972
Adult's Ride - Abbotts Ann and Frenches Farm
Ride Leader: Penny Wilkins
Coaches: Sarah Oldham/ Maureen Wood/ Barry Curd
Riders from a variety of settings
Mondays during term time 1 – 2pm at Monxton from April - October and Frenches Farm from October - March
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The adult group started the autumn term, 2022, at Five Acres in Monxton, then moved inside to Frenches Farm, Little London, at the end of October. However, we did have some very nice weather and held some sessions outside.
After the sad death of RDA horse Danny on November 2nd 2022 from sycamore poisoning we had to stop our heaviest rider from coming. Our RDA horse Timmy was also ill and lame for a while which added to our horse shortage problem.
Another hitch we encountered was transport. One week, when the lorry broke down and an RDA trailer was off the road with brake problems, we had to cancel because we would only have had two horses for six riders.
However, despite these problems we had 21 sessions in the autumn/winter and 10 in the summer before having a break in July and August. As there was no Fun Day this year, we held a Handy Pony competition and a very thrilled Simona Parish, pictured, was the trophy winner.
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Penny Wilkins
Christmas Fun - December 2023
The Adult Ride had lots of fun at their Special Christmas seeing in December
The Rachel Plumbe Cup
John-James (J-J) from the Adult group was awarded the RDA Rachel Plumbe cup.
Rachel Plumbe was an RDA volunteer for over 30 years and the cup is awarded annually in her memory. The Award recognizes outstanding progress or improvement in difficult circumstances. Groups from across the South were invited to nominate a rider whom they thought would be worthy of this Award.
Andover RDA nominated J-J who, despite being blind, only riding once a fortnight and being coached in a group situation, has made huge progress due to his positive outlook and ‘can do’ approach to everything. His answer to anything he is asked to do is ‘I’ll give it a go’ or ‘I’ll try’.
He is indeed a worthy winner – congratulations!
Boots
And, GREAT NEWS, after a long search to find Danny's replacement we finally found Boots, or to give him his posh name, Best of Both. He was certainly thrown in at the deep end as his first session, just six days after arriving from West Sussex, was a Handy Pony competition, won by a very thrilled Simona Parish, which we ran to replace this year's cancelled Fun Day. He behaved impeccably and didn't put a hoof wrong!!!
