Our November diary is now open and we have some availability for non member bookings for Murphy our brilliant Grand Prix dressage simulator. Sessions for non members range from £33 to £39 for a half hour session with one of our coaches (price varies depending on day/time and level of coach).
So if you want to work on your position/aids/contact as an experienced rider or if you’re a beginner, Murphy has something to offer everyone! To book please email [email protected]
Murphy looks forward to meeting lots more folks through November after he met more folks than we anticipated in October!
As promised we are going to show some of Murphy’s skills this week!
In the video, Murphy is cantering with one of our coaches and the software is in instruction mode. The screen displays real time readings for rider seat and weight distraction, leg aids, rein aids and bend. In the video, Murphy is cantering on a straight line so no turning aids are being applied- the red dot is riders weight in saddle so shows straightness of the seat or whether it leans right/left.
This programme will be brilliant for coaching sessions - allowing the rider and coach to see instantly how they are sitting and where/how they are applying leg aids. The coach can also help immediately with positional corrections so the rider can then see the difference.
Murphy is a sensitive chap - if you apply your leg in the wrong place or are a bit heavy handed on the reins you may get an unexpected response 😀
Murphy didn’t take as long to settle in as our new horses normally do - he didn’t need to relax and chill in field, he didn’t need 2 weeks isolation and he didn’t need a guttural flush from Ardene House Equine Vets. He literally hit the ground running!
This project has been in the pipeline for a while now, but wouldn’t have been possible without some very kind people and organisations. A local family kindly made a substantial donation to the purchase and our landlords - The Seven Incorporated Trades of Aberdeen were incredibly supportive both financially and with advice throughout our plans for it. A huge thanks also to our members who’s lesson fees and membership fees contributed to this - everyone who uses ARC just “gets” our drive to make horses accessible.
Murphy is a Grand Prix dressage simulator - meaning he does all the movements (if you apply the correct aids) and he also has full RDA software which will be so beneficial to our therapy riders and ARC Hippotherapy : SCIO a member group of RDA. We also installed a roof hoist to ensure Murphy was available to everyone who wants to participate, regardless of mobility.
The potential Murphy has for increasing accessibility is endless - he will work with all standards of riders, but also has endless potential for rehab, therapy and general accessibility.
We will be releasing info over the next few days on how Murphy will be used and whilst the “first shots” will be reserved for our members, we will be looking and implementing lots of ways that we can ensure everyone benefits from Murphy in the area. We believe Murphy is the “most Northerly” Racewood simulator - a huge thank you to Racewood Limited for such excellent service delivering and installing Murphy and designing such brilliant simulators!
Welcome to the team Murphy!
When you’re living your best life mutually grooming your best mate! Holly and Gemima have to be very careful with their weight so instead of living out with the main herd they have their turnout in the “diet” field. They’re a great example of why horses should be turned out as much as possible.
As promised for this week we are going to do some posts on different things our horses learn at ARC. First up is Hagrid - with Liam and Ellis helping. Our horses and ponies who work with therapy riders and the Hippotherapy group all undergo training in different mounting procedures and the hydraulic mounting platform could be quite scary for a horse who hadn’t learned correctly about it so here is Hagrid demonstrating some work with it. What amazing animals horses are #horsehumanbond
If you’d like to attend our educational event titled “how horses learn” it’s on Sunday 10th Dec at 4.30pm and you can attend either in person or virtually by video call so just drop us an email to book!
Harris and Ricky
We are running an educational event on Sunday (10th December) titled “how horses learn” - the event is open to anyone to attend in person or remotely - you just book on by emailing us.
Horse behaviour/learning is a fascinating subject and there are many far cleverer, more qualified people (than us) out there who specialise in this subject so we don’t claim to be experts at it, but we are experts at training people and horses at grass roots level. To us, grass roots is up to Elem dressage level and jumping 1.10 - once you are working above that level, we’d always recommend a Performance or Elite level coach who specialises in that area.
So what are we going to cover? The kind of thing that people struggle with regularly or their horses struggle with - examples are standing at the mounting block, hacking out alone, helping your horse to understand that jumping fillers is fun, how to ride to ensure your horse understands you want nice forward work in a good rhythm etc.
Horse behaviour/learning can also result in heated discussion amongst equestrian folks! So a few disclaimers from us:
We don’t use one specific method when working with our horses - we use what that horse needs and a fair bit of common sense on our part.
We don’t mind what equipment a horse wears (or the rider wears) as long as it’s comfy and safe for both. So bit or no bit, shoes or no shoes, a turquoise saddle cloth and ear warmers or a numnah from Lidl, gel seat European breeches or skinny jeans from Tesco - anything goes as far as we’re concerned!
We will be doing a few posts with examples of horse behaviour/learning over the next few days in the lead up to the event and in the meantime - here is the most common way we ensure horses are learning desirable behaviours - we turn them out with their pals. Nothing is quite as good at helping a horse to understand what’s acceptable behaviour than another horse. So here is Ricky (bit over confident and boisterous) learning from Harris
Holly and Gemima are having a lovely day out in the sun - an unexpected day off for them as we have cancelled group lessons today - it’s forecast to be 26 degrees and it’s even warmer than that in the building. Our beloved horses and ponies are getting their winter coats now after the cold snap 10 days ago and we don’t clip till Oct time, so it’s just too hot for them to be trotting/cantering in this heat.
We will do some private lessons today (and walkies - we can keep them slow/tailored to horse) and we are running some Pony Stars and Leadership awards.
Our riders are always great and understanding when we make the decision to cancel - they understand it’s always for our horse and ponies best interests. To us it’s also important that we don’t just coach people to ride - we teach them all aspects but particularly how to care for horses and ponies and when it’s just too warm to ride.
And our second post from another leadership participant:
“ARC has started an exciting new Leadership Awards programme, created by The British Horse Society. Participants learn and practice all types of skills including leadership, communication, resilience, patience and presenting. In my case I am learning some riding too! It’s a perfect course for teenagers regardless of whether they have equine experience - we have also covered horse psychology, learning to interpret their body language and how it links to human body language.
As a 14 year old boy, I was unsure of doing the course initially as I was a bit nervous of horses, but the staff eased me into it and assured me riding was optional. Here I am having my second lesson on Dixie while my coach took a video”
Last story for today and we’re bringing out the boys to tell their stories (more tomorrow!) Here is Lees:
Having lost my dad at a young age, I showed little to no interest in anything, as such and one of my uncles tried various hobbies to engage my interests. One of these was horse riding. I instantly took to it and ended up spending most of my time after school and at the weekends at my local riding centre.
When I moved into secondary school, it became frowned upon for a young male to be within a female dominant sport. So i gave up my beloved horses and began playing team sports, but just wasn’t the same as being out with the horses all day.
Roll into 2010, i had been employed within the Emergency Services for sometime and again, found myself needing something else, although this time to take my focus away from my job, as at times it can be a little overbearing. For those that know me, I can’t sit still for long and I need to keep busy, so I again turned to horses and found ARC.
I’ve ridden with ARC ever since, where i started in private lessons and then moved into a mixture of group lesson’s. About 5 years ago, Sally asked me if i fancied riding Bertha for her, to start getting her ready for group lessons. Thankfully for me, Bertha has never really made it into group lessons due to her little quirks and stayed with me.
The ARC family have become a big part of my life, where I seem to have become the unofficial “barn jannie” where me and big Bertha will often be seen pottering about. About 3 years ago, I was asked to join the board of Directors at ARC as a non-exec, which i was delighted to accept.
Being around the horses, has been instrumental in giving me a focus outwith my work.
The video is Lee in his regular lesson, riding Achil, one of our beloved schoolmasters
#KeepBritainRiding
#horsehumanbond
Scrufty is one of our lovely school ponies who has been giving us all a bit of a fright with his health this week!
Scrufty came in from the field on Saturday (he lives out 24/7) and didn’t seem himself - nothing you could put your finger on, but just a bit down in the dumps. His pulse and temperature were normal (36 beats per minute and 37.6 degrees) which is the first thing we always measure to assess them.
We kept him in on Saturday night so we could keep an eye on him overnight on the CCTV. He’d a comfy, normal night but on Sunday he wasn’t eating - didn’t want his hard feed, so we called the vet. His pulse and temp were still normal, but when vet came out his pulse had gone up tp 90 beats per minute (temp still normal)- now some horses don’t like the vet but Scrufty doesn’t mind them and that’s a heart rate that is cause for real concern in a resting horse, so he was given pain relief, had a rectal exam (normal), teeth checked (normal) and treated as a colic.
He was fine again overnight, but we’d decided with vet that next stage was to put a camera up his nose to check his mouth/pharynx and oesophagus - there were lots of things on the list of what might be wrong with Scrufty, including chronic grass sickness, peritonitis, foreign object in his throat or colic.
When the vet came to scope him on Monday at lunchtime his temperature had gone up to 39 degrees - it had been normal 3 hours earlier, so as we would with any high temp and because he was being scoped anyway, strangles joined the list of potential causes, so a sample was taken from his guttural pouch and sent off for testing. He didn’t have any other symptoms (cough/nasal discharge etc)
We then immediately kicked off our biosecurity plan - Scrufty was isolated in a field pen, and the 2 horses who had been in the stables next to him were placed on the “Amber” list and isolated too as a precaution. Our liveries were advised immediately and told not to leave the yard (for training/c
Happiness is………… having a good groom with your pal! Chester and Cyrus are two of our schoolmasters who like to live in at nights in winter. They have individual turnout in Winter as Cyrus sometimes forgets he had a bit of his anatomy removed when he was much younger and sometimes acts a bit like a stallion, so it’s safer for him to be in his own strip. Lovely to see the horses getting the sun on their back and enjoying their down time!
