We're back blogging

Apologies for the delay! Things have been very busy at ARC, so there is a lot to catch up with! So here goes with all the latest:
Sadly, we had Peggy put down at the end of April - she came in slightly lame from the field and deteriorated rapidly over the next few days till we felt her best and only option was to put her to sleep peacefully on the Saturday night. It was very sad as Peggy had been part of our team for a long time, but at least she had a peaceful dignified end.
We have also taken charge of 2 new ponies:
Caley is a 14.2h.h connemara cross, who has been purchased by the RDA to hopefully work with them. As the RDA only ride three days a week, Caley will also work with us in lessons, which also helps to keep her well schooled for the RDA. Caley arrived on 31st May and she is on one months trial as whilst she is a sweet pony, it takes a very certain type of pony to be good at RDA, so she will be ridden by our staff initially and then used by an able bodied rider in the RDA sessions to see how she behaves. Watch this space for a future report.
The club has also now taken ownership of Boyo, who has been a privately owned pony at Oldfold for over 8 years. Boyo was initially up for sale from his owner Valerie, when Julia finished loaning him, however he came down with a bout of laminitis again (a grass related issue in his case) which made him more difficult to sell. Although we weren't looking for another school pony, we offered to take over ownership of Boyo to make sure he could stay at the farm. So we signed him over on Wednesday and our vets will now continue his laminitis care before he does any work.
So hopefully the new ones will work out well.
We have also been doing a bit of work with Aria, the club 3 year old. She has now worn a roller (used prior to putting a saddle on), has been lunged and has worn her first bridle and had someone lie over her back in her stable. She seemed to take to it all very well so fingers crossed she will continue to be so easy!