We are delighted to announce that we have received a grant from the Dora Fedoruk Memorial Fund, facilitated by the Community Foundation for Surrey, to pay for one of our sessions for St Stephen’s School, South Godstone for the whole of 2025. This generous grant of £2,800 will ensure that one of the school’s group of six children will be able to continue riding for the coming year. The children are some of our best riders, and compete each year at the Regional and National Championships, with great success.
Huge thanks to the trustees of the Dora Fedoruk Memorial Fund and to the Community Foundation for Surrey from all at East Park RDA and the riders, parents and staff from St Stephen’s School.
We have a vacancy for a riding session for a group of six children or young people with learning or physical disabilities from a local school. There is a small charge for each session. Please contact us through our contact page in the first instance and we will get back to you to discuss further.
Kevin Escott, Captain of Lingfield Park Golf Club has kindly decided to choose East Park RDA as his chosen Captain’s Charity. This will be until the end of Season 2025. All fines (i.e. going into certain bunkers and not getting over the ditch on the first) will be donated, plus on July 26th 2025 there is the Captain’s Charity Day and all monies from this will also be donated to East Park RDA. Thank you Kevin.
The Hill Brush Company, who are Royal Warrant Holders, have kindly donated some brooms, brushes and a shovel to us to help us keep our yard spick and span for our riders. Hillbrush have a fantastic range of cleaning equipment from traditional brooms to more eco-friendly alternatives, and they supply these worldwide. We are very grateful to them for the donation which will certainly be put to good use.
Over the years we have had a lot of support from Royal Warrant Holders, both through their association and also individually. We are lucky to have connections – Katie Giddings, one of our instructors for many years, is married to Kevin, whose company, Milborrow Chimney Sweeps are also Royal Warrant Holders.
For some time we have been searching for a new, larger, pony or horse to carry our older riders, whilst fundraising for the money to buy one. Our ponies need to have a very special temperament and good RDA ponies are very hard to find. Three organisations were kind enough to make grants totalling £10,100 to purchase a pony: The Royal Warrant Holders Association; the East Grinstead Common Good Trust and the Gatwick Airport Community Trust. They have all been very patient while we have been tracking down the right one.
We are delighted to announce that we have finally found our pony. He is a 12 year old 14.2 hand Welsh cross piebald gelding, with lovely manners, known as Alfie. His full name is Pentregwyn Ashley and he came from Luke Tomlinson in Rochdale. We have had him on trial for a week and he has settled in well, ready for the new term which starts in September. We are enormously grateful to all three sponsors who enabled us to purchase him.
