Racehorse Sanctuary News

6th June 2009

May Open Day

On Sunday 17th May we staged our very first Support Group Members Open Day here at Belmoredean Stud. Throughout the morning torrential rain battered the centre which lead us to believe that the day was heading for a disastrous outcome but thank goodness at around 12 noon the rain stopped, the sun came out and the panicking ceased. Not that we needed to worry as we are lucky enough to have the super international length indoor school with fully fitted gallery so we were covered for anything the weather could have thrown at us but it is so much nicer if the sun can shine through the vents.

Members started arriving at between 1 and 1.30pm and proceeded to take a stroll around the yard and facilities before making their way into the gallery of the indoor school for refreshments, these were prepared and served with great efficiency by volunteers Val and Ronallee and very generously sponsored by members Michael Mayo and Phil Collins.

At approximately 2.30pm the majority of the horses at the centre filed in individually to parade in front of the members lead by Bakers Boy being ridden by Karen, I have to say that in my opinion Bakers Boy was by far the star of the show in that despite his greenness and sheer fear of the occasion he battled through the elements and behaved impeccably. All those horses that were paraded in hand did their best to show off to the crowd without being unruly and the last to enter the school was Anotheroccasion (Albie) who was getting progressively stronger as his display went on but behaved very well, however was quite obviously pleased when it was all over and he could get back to the security of his stable. I must thank all those handlers who did their level best to get the various horses into the school on time and the volunteers up on the yard busying away whilst everything was taking place in the indoor school, they are behind the scenes so to speak but these things would never run smoothly if it weren’t for them.

After even more food and drink an auction took place in the gallery and the raffle was drawn which between them made a very significant amount of funds for the centre, overall the day raised a magnificent £3000 which for our very first effort in new premises I feel was a great achievement.

On behalf of the horses currently here at the centre I cannot thank all who donated and helped toward the day enough, try as we may this type of event could never happen without all of our supporters and friends rallying around to help.