Category: Recommendations

Recommendations Volunteering Wildlife

Seedlings and saplings for natural protection

Hedges make a great natural shelter for horses (and other animals!). It’s a good idea to plant new hedges along bare fence lines and add saplings into old ‘gappy’ hedges. Our Committee member, Belinda, has a few spare seedlings and small saplings of native hedge species (Hawthorn, Field Maple etc). Please call her (telephone number on the newsletter) or email info@southsomersetbridlewaysassociation.co.uk if you would like to collect some from her home near South Petherton.

Recommendations Volunteering

Vote for Our Access Champions Phil Wadey & Sarah Bucks

The Horse & Hound Podcast Volunteer of the Year 2022

Phil and Sarah have worked tirelessly for many years to try and restore our lost bridleways and restricted byways.

If you enjoy riding out and off road, please show your support by clicking on the link above and voting for our amazing access champions, Phil Wadey and Sarah Bucks.

VOTING CLOSES THIS THURSDAY 27TH OCTOBER AT 11.59PM

Recommendations

Looking for a new horse?

Sophie Spiteri has been offering a retraining service to racing yards and owners across the UK and Ireland for over 10 years. One of our members was so impressed with their visit that they requested we share Sophie’s details with you.

Sophies Biography:

“I have been lucky enough to work alongside former racehorses for the last 15 years. I have retrained many horses over the years for a number of national and international yards. I pride myself on forming long term relationships with trainers and new owners alike. Acting as a ‘middleman’ between horses exiting the racing industry and the private home and competition scene, all horses undergo assessment and some degree of retraining before they are matched up with suitable long term homes.“

“All horses are individually assessed and worked according to their individual needs and requirements. Horses will generally undergo an assessment period of 3-6 weeks according to their ridden capabilities, before finding private, long term homes. There is no rehoming fee, and all transport and shipping costs are met by ourselves. Should owners wish to stay in touch, an update service is offered for this purpose. All horses are rehomed on long term homing agreements, with references and background checks undertaken as standard.“

You can find out more via the website https://sophiespiteri1.wixsite.com/spiteriretraining

New Routes Recommendations Route maintenance Volunteering

What defines a good path for you?

Natural England has commissioned the Oxfordshire County Council, Systeme D and the University of Oxford to undertake a project to understand the most important qualities that define a good path (e.g. footpaths, bridleways, byways) for different types of uses. As part of this project, they are conducting a survey to collect feedback from user groups across England to identify the top quality metrics for different use types. The results will be openly available and published on greenspacehack.com/.

The survey comprises of 7 questions and should take less than 10 minutes to complete:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScpJhkuHDmioChQq0Acsx7N82RFkDcxQ2phIzHWzgLF2mR6Kw/viewform?fbclid=IwAR03Z1IXFDc-jHd1_fti8N-sWp21hqT_04AeV3xNPWZ4VUDIlEt1mVLVRco