The sun shines on the The Greatwood Hurdle

Despite lurching from one crisis to another; we couldn't find a minibus to take the children, young people and teachers for the best turned out, Toyboy wasn't up to date with vaccinations so only two out of the three amigos could go, and then Millfields lorry broke down in Bristol - our day turned out to be excellent. It didn't matter that we just had two little ponies (instead of five) for quite alot of children to polish up for the best turned out prize. Aaron and Poncho loved all the attention and the prize was given to both sets of teams, Mick Fitzgerald was good enough to undertake the judging. The Greatwood Hurdle was a good race with Harry Derham (who took part in our Charity Race last year) winning on the Paul Nichols Brampour.
The highlight for our fundraising was the Charity Sweepstake, masterminded by the awesome Sarah Oliver of AJA - we had a full house of jockeys and they raised a remarkable sum of over 30,000! The sun shone all day and it was just a fantastic day for everyone - This day for Greatwood wouldn't happen without the extraordinary generosity of Nigel and Penny Bunter - we owe them a great debt of thanks

The Greatwood Hurdle

Tomorrow is the biggest day in our calendar, the card for the Hurdle is as strong as ever and it will be an exciting race. We would love it if Nigel won with Kumbeshwar! - we have a trade stand, ponies from Millfield & Greatwood will be dolled up to the nines by students who have completed our Greatwood Horse Power Course and we must thank Cheltenham, Amateur Jockeys Assoc for supporting us with the Charity Sweepstake - thank you to the FAB 12 Jockeys who are all riding to support us at 4.10 tomorrow

Red and Tish RIP

Red and Tish died on the 27th October, just a fortnight ago today.
Red had been suffering with painful arthritis in his knees which was manageable with painkillers but in the end his kidneys began to fail. Tish, had been poorly on and off, since our Open Day in June. He finally succumbed to a particularly aggressive bout of laminitis (he had also recently been diagnosed with Cushings Disease).
These two boys loved each other as much as I loved them and sadly, the decision had to be taken to let them go together. We had looked after Red for nearly 20 years, 10of which he had spent with Tish. Red was ours before we became a Registered Charity, he has seen us go through so much and I miss seeing him and his little mate who could be seen sometimes peeping out from under Red's belly and I miss going in to see them after a long hard day, and I even miss feeding them their breakfast each morning.
I guess it will get better and I will get used to them not being here but at the moment, it just seems the end of an era.

Melanie is Treated to a Birthday Tish Wish

It is Melanie's birthday today and we thought Tish would like to come in and wish her a very Happy Birthday!
We have had quite a busy week, Becky and Sam went to The Donkey Sanctuary to undergo a course prior to a couple of donkeys joining us later on in the year. They dropped off a whole load of rugs and tack to go into Exeter sales and we raised a staggering £590! wonderful news. Newie has been rehomed and we have also taken in a new horse called Tipping Tim. He is taking a little time to settle in and is really quite unsound but we will try and do our best for him.
The horses are still electing to come in before they are supposed to - Aldo has quite a nasty little puncture wound on his fetlock (dangerously near his tendon) Scotty's has achieved a really nasty gash to his front upper leg, Sam remains on box rest as does Randy with his fractured pedal bone - but at least Mally and Whisky are now repaired and back in the field.
The beds are now almost all made up in preparation for the horses coming in for the long winter months but it is over 20 degrees today so winter seems quite a long time off.

Especially For Jane

Jane the very kind lady who rescued Poppy earlier on in the year is anxious to see a picture of her now....and here she is!

Horses Take the Choice about the Weather!

The weather is horrid and because we are right on top of the hill outside Marlborough the weather seems to hit us with more ferocity than outlying areas. Of course, I can't help wondering why we had taken the decision to move to a farm called 'Rainscombe Hill' but there we are.
The horses are hating this sudden spell of bitterly cold weather, we've even had hailstones almost the size of golf balls - anyway, the horses will have to stick it out a bit longer because after all it is only September.
BUT It is becoming rather eventful on the injury front at Greatwood and I can only think that the horses are so eager to get out of the rain that injuries are more preferable to getting wet. It began with Sam who came in because he had been hoolying about the field with his best pal Forgery and he had tweaked an old problem in his tendon. He has been in for a couple of weeks, we think that he appears to be quite smug as he gazes out at the rain coming down in stair rods. Whiskey came in on Sunday with a leg the size of a tree trunk (the result of a rather small wound above his knee) and Tritonville Lodge had to come in today with a suspected abcess in his foot. I wonder how many more will come in over the next few days if the weather doesn't cheer up?

Jilly Cooper comes to Greatwood

Congratulations to the NOCN students from Downlands, Pewsey Vale, Rowdeford, Hardenhuish, Abbeyfields and Springfields school.
We had a really exciting day when Jilly Cooper very kindly agreed to come along to present some of our students with certificates following their successful completion of our OCN course. We had a really lovely day with Jilly spending lots and lots of time signing autographs and copies of her recent book.