Arrow Riding Centre for the Disabled

20/08/2024

What a fantastic day we have had for our Combined Challenge competition! All riders done a fab job and we are all very proud of you! A huge huge huuuggggggeeeeee thank you to our army of volunteers who all pulled together to make it run so smoothly - Pat, Marilyn, Diane.S, Val, Diane.J, Sue.C, Gwen, Mandy, Donna and Anne - including those that aren't technically volunteers but still gave up their time to help - Lol, Nicci, Meighan, Hannah, Linda, Geraldine, Zara and Rebecca. Our staff were amazing - Maxine and Starr on the yard, Lydia, Nat and Gracie for helping on her day off. Massive thank you to Heather Jones Dressage for judging the dressage for us and to Diane.J for judging the Countryside Challenge - you both were fab! And of course, the biggest thank you must go to our superstar ponies who looked after our riders and are just brilliant 🌟💙🌟

Results....
Class 1 Led Dressage + CC
🥇Bethany & Rosa
🥈Lydia & Wilma
🥉Jess & Bertie
4th Emma & Champ

Class 2 Walk Dressage + CC
🥇Kelly & Blue
🥈Meighan & Champ
🥉Jane & Mia
4th Tristan & Rosa
5th Connor & Truffles
6th Olivia & Blue
7th Sinead & Baline

Class 3 Trot/Canter Dressage + CC
🥇Jess & Mia
🥈Hannah & Blue
🥉Dougie & Wilma
4th Jane & Champ

Congratulations to you all! Same time next year?!

19/08/2024

Pony Day number 2! Great time had by Jess, Lydia, Willow, Melissa and Senna - grooming, riding and making photo frames with pictures of the ponies they rode inside. Well done! Big thank you to our volunteers as usual! See you all tomorrow for the Combined Challenge competition!

13/08/2024

Congratulations to our 7 riders who took their proficiency test grade 1 horse care and riding test today. They all passed and are ready to start their grade 2 training! Thank you to Diane Jeffries for your examiner skills and well done everyone!! 👏🏻🏆

12/08/2024

This time last month we were at the RDA National Championships and Govind and Natalie had the opportunity to meet Princess Anne! You might even be able to spot Val in crowd! Have a watch of this fab ITV news report 👍🏼

On Friday 12th July 2024, RDA President, HRH, The Princess Royal visited the RDA National Championships at Hartpury College in Gloucester.Here, she presented...

08/08/2024

It was lovely to welcome members of the Mark Benevolent Fund to Arrow this morning! They have sponsored Rosa and finally were able to meet her today. A big thank you to all from Arrow!

03/08/2024

🚨DATE CHANGE - Combined Challenge🚨

The combined challenge competition will now be on the TUESDAY 20th August.

01/08/2024

We've had a great first day of our summer holiday activities! Grayson, Tegan, George and Aiden groomed their ponies, rode through the woods, made colourful toilet roll ponies and learnt the different items in the grooming kit. Well done everyone! Thank you to our volunteers for making these events possible! See you next week for our proficiency test training afternoon!

26/07/2024

Our final summer holidays event is our competition day! This is only open to Arrow and RDA riders and it's intended to be a fun, have a go day. We encourage all of our riders to take part so please speak with your coach 🤗

For any Arrow riders that have missed what's on over the summer holidays...

⭐️ 1st August Pony Day
⭐️ 6th August Grade 1 Proficiency Test Training
⭐️ 13th August Grade 1 Proficiency Test
⭐️ 19th August Pony Day
⭐️ 20th August Grade 2 Proficiency Test Training
⭐️ 22nd August Competition Day

25/07/2024

Honey is one of our liveries and today she became a real life unicorn 🦄. Doesn't she look great!

23/07/2024

Our 1st August Pony Club afternoon is practically full but we still have a few spaces left on our 19th August morning! Initially this is only open to Arrow riders but non-riders are able to go onto a waiting list. Please either email [email protected] or phone 01322 294390 to book or book in when you are here for your lesson.

21/07/2024

Natalie and Lydia took Rosa to her first show (since she has been at Arrow) today! We went to White Horse Farm in Meopham and Lydia and Rosa took part in the in-hand Best Mare and in -hand Mountain and Moorland (which is a breed specific class).
🥇Best Mare
🥇Mountain and Moorland
Rosa also took the in-hand champion and Supreme Champion of the whole day 👏🏻🏆.
This pony has been a superstar all day and will be very exciting for the future! Well done Rosa, we are very proud of you!

18/07/2024

We hosted the Bluewater Forum this evening and our riders did a fab job showing off their riding skills in front of lots of people! Well done to Grayson, Lilly, Ella and Aisha and our ponies Champ, Truffles, Mia and Baline 👍🏼. A big thank you to our volunteers for all their help this evening and setting up yesterday and to our staff. We hope everyone from the Bluewater Forum enjoyed watching our riders! Sorry, forgot to take any pictures!
Thank you Joanne for the pics 😊

15/07/2024

Our Arrow mascot, Koya the dog has made it onto H&C TV! Wearing his specially made National Championships bandana 😎

14/07/2024

Day 3 of the Nationals and we started off with Ella taking part in her first Nationals and entering Mia into the condition and turnout class. Mia and Ella looked very smart! Ella also competed in the grade 6 walk class - unfortunately we don't know the results yet as we all wanted to get going on the long drive home but Ella done a fantastic job! Ella was sponsored by Ecomec for the Nationals so a big thank you to them.

A massive thank you to our volunteers and staff for all their support and hard work this weekend, to Susan Dow for lending us her horse box again, to Nicci for her help and driving, to the staff at home for keeping everything running and to the RDA for giving us lots of opportunities this weekend. Our riders have achieved so much this weekend, we are so proud of all of you for trying your absolute best, coping and dealing with some difficult times and achieving so much more than you did last year. I think the biggest thank you needs to go to our amazing ponies Mia and Baline - they have worked so hard, stayed away from home for 3 nights without any downtime in the field and have just been fantastic - we are very lucky to have them!

13/07/2024

Day 2 of the Nationals and we have had a fantastic day! Jess and Mia rode a lovely Grade 7 canter test for a very respectable score of 65% - it was so good to see Mia enjoying herself in a canter test! There was a huge delay with the countryside challenge so poor Mia became a little switched off but Jess still rode positively and done her absolute best! Aisha and Baline took part in their first ever nationals and won their led dressage class! Huge congratulations!! Aisha also took part in the Horse Care and Knowledge scoring 98% and gaining a Distinction. Now time to take the ponies for a walk to find some grass that they are desperate for, have a rest and get ready for the party this evening!

12/07/2024

Great first full day at the nationals! This morning we had a meet and greet with the RDA CEO and special guests, followed by Natalie and Govind being invited to meet Princess Anne which was amazing! And finally this afternoon, Govind rode his Grade 1 test with Baline as a senior for the first year and gained a brilliant 4th place. Looking forward to tomorrow with Aisha and Jess with Baline and Mia

11/07/2024

After a busy morning of lessons, we are finally on the road to the National Championships at Hartpury College with Baline and Mia! Huge good luck to Aisha, Ella, Govind and Jess - you have all worked incredibly hard so have a fantastic time ans enjoy yourselves!!

10/07/2024

📣📣📣Saturday riders...📣📣📣
Please don't forget that there isn't any lessons this Saturday 13th July as we are away at the National Championships. See you all next week!

04/07/2024

North Kent College student Aisha Ahmed is celebrating after progressing to the Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA) National Championships next month 🏇 Read more about Aisha's story here - https://buff.ly/3xA0ua7

25/06/2024

It's a riding in the woods kinda day today! Happy cool ponies, riders, coaches and volunteers 👌🏼.
We don't want this weather to end, so nice to finally have summer 😎

21/06/2024

Last day to nominate Arrow for a chance to win £5000!! We really do appreciate all of your help and support. One last push, come on everyone!

https://youth.movementforgood.com/index.php?cn=291623&ct=disability&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3SS4dxyKq-SFXrGkUlyA993L_yJb2jJ4mLsHmubfqpgCpDKqDpkrp9THk_aem_ZmFrZWR1bW15MTZieXRlcw

Nominate a charity for a Movement for Good award now.

18/06/2024

Just 3 days left to nominate...nominations close Friday 21st June. Come on everyone we can do it!!!

Nominate a charity for a Movement for Good award now.

18/06/2024

We are getting our Summer Holiday schedule ready and to start it off we are pleased to announce dates for Grade 1 Proficiency training and test! 🤩

This is open to Arrow participants who have not yet passed their Grade 1 Horse Care exam.

Please get booked in as soon as possible! 🎉

17/06/2024

Can you help us win £5000 in the Benefact Children & Young People Special Draw? Times are tough at the moment for Arrow and everyone else so this money would help us out so much! All it takes is a quick nomination from all of our followers and then by you sharing it and asking your friends to nominate us, we could be in with a real chance! As usual a huge great big thank you to all you of you 🤞🏼😊

Nominate a charity for a Movement for Good award now.

06/06/2024

🌟🌟🌟Celebrating Success🌟🌟🌟
Four of our riders qualified for the Dressage Anywhere online dressage championship which was held in May. Huge congratulations to Govind, Luke, Jane and Dougie! 🎉🥳👏🏻💪🏼
Thank you to Ruth at Dressage Anywhere for putting on these fantastic championships and enabling our riders to practise for their regional and National competitions as well as allowing our riders to take part in competition when they wouldn't usually get the chance.

04/06/2024

It's volunteers week!

At Arrow we are reliant on our volunteers to enable us to provide lessons and physio for our riders as well as all the hard work they help us do on the yard.

So we thank each and everyone of our volunteers for helping create the magic! On behalf of all of Arrow and our riders, we THANK YOU!!! 🎉👏🏻🙌🏻🎉

If you would like to help make a difference, volunteer forms can be found on our website

30/05/2024

🌟Regionals 2024🌟
What a day!! Have the staff recovered...No 😂.

After weeks of preparation, getting the centre ready to host the regionals with LOTS of strimming, digging out the indoor arena surface,
Landscaping the back of the indoor school, mowing grass arenas, weeding etc, the centre looked fantastic ready to host 6 other RDA groups for a fantastic day of competition and achievements.

Our riders and ponies were absolutely superb and we are so proud of you all!! It was Champ's and Wilma's regional debut and they both done a fantastic job in a very big atmosphere which they aren't used to. Baline and Mia were superstars as usual!

We also had 5 riders taking part in their first competition and each one of them gained fantastic results.

Luke - 1st place - Grade 1
Govind - 2nd place - Grade 1
Ella - 2nd place - Grade 6 walk
Jane - 4th place - Grade 6 walk
Gail - 4th place - Grade 6 trot
JJ - 4th place - Grade 7 trot
Jess - 2nd place - Grade 7 canter
Aisha - 1st place - Led dressage
Tegan - 4th place - Led dressage
Lydia - 6th place - Led dressage
Jess - 1st place - Countryside Challenge

We have 5 riders qualified for the National Championships at Hartpury in Gloucestershire in July!! Huge congratulations to all of our riders and everyone else that competed here yesterday 👏🏻

Massive thank you to our staff, volunteers and Network Rail for all of your hard work leading up and during the regionals. You have been fabulous!! And to our lovely ponies for being amazing as always.

Sorry didn't take any photos so here are some that were sent to me - if the riders have anymore, please send them over