“Every week we give riding and therapy lessons to up to 200 children and adults, all with disabilities or special needs, who love to come and ride us. 

“Each year our owners have to find about £300,000 to cover the cost of providing our special service.  That includes all our hay, stabling, equipment and the wages of the lovely humans who look after us.

“This is what we do: we aim to ensure that each rider is given the chance to derive a direct therapeutic benefit and the opportunity to achieve their full potential, whether that’s sitting with support on one of us and riding down one side of the arena or competing at Para dressage level.  We didn’t know that having fun with our riders did them so much good!

“Our humans are planning to build winter corrals with portable shelters for us.  This means that in the winter after work we can go outside into dry, sheltered conditions for a bit of a leg stretch and some fresh air.

“Our grass paddocks don’t cope well with winter grazing, quickly turning to mud, although we do love to roll in mud to make our humans very cross! But the mud doesn’t help the grass to grow well, and we love eating grass too!

“So to keep the grass in good condition and ensure tasty summer grazing for us, winter corrals are the best answer.  These will consist of fenced areas with a comfortable surface, and portable shelters where we can shelter and feed.”

Supporting the ponies’ appeal is Centre Manager Claire Pitt, who said, “Could we lasso you into a donation towards the cost of constructing these corrals for us?  They will cost £15,000 and we really need to do it quickly before the winter gets really bad.  You can send in a donation to the Centre or do it online on our special BTMyDonate page at https://mydonate.bt.com/events/corrals

Thank you from all the Unicorn Centre ponies.

PS We’re always especially happy when people visit and leave us a sack of carrots!

December 2016