Thank you to Matt for the news that the North Korean leadership has decided it needs some authentic Gangnam style to accompany the gulags and famine. Koryo Tours, a Beijing-based company offering trips to North Korea, sent Simon Cockerell to inspect the facilities at the Mirim Horse-Riding Centre just outside Pyongyang. The former military training …
Category Archives: Riding Clubs
Whole Heap of Little Horse Links
Beauty in the eye of the beholders: an artist creates a horse that grows more real as more people watch it (Wired) Zoos specialise in rare animals. But unicorns? Really? (Cheezburger) The Queen and the Duchess of Cornwall visited Ebony Horse Club in Brixton, South London (Sky News) For Halloween, a pair of truly twisted …
Donkeys, Books, Unicorn Boadiceas and Brixton Ponies
This is my “what I did on my busman’s holiday” post, except that there will be multiple posts because I can’t do multiple slideshows in a single post. My first stop was Dartington Hall, home of this lovely donkey statue. I was giving a talk at the Telegraph‘s Way with Words literary festival – my …
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A Woman Who Had a Vision of Ponies for Children in a City Park
Wonderful news: Rose Spearing of Ebony Horse Club in Brixton clocked up an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. I wrote about Rose’s work in If Wishes Were Horses and was back at the yard this March to see their progress. The stables were built, the ponies installed. The kids who’d taken part in …
Continue reading “A Woman Who Had a Vision of Ponies for Children in a City Park”
Whole Heap of Little Horse Links
Carol sent me a blogpost about a herd of Arizona horses who have been reclassified from “wild” to “feral” and now face a round up, which some suspect will result in their eventual slaughter. The leader of the band, Champ, was an internet hit last year when he was pictured rescuing a filly from the …
If Wishes Were Horses: Young Riders
Ponymadbooklovers have a good information page on Golden Gorse, as does Jane Badger. The only pony I ever got to Christmas was an Exmoor “adopted” from the Moorland Mousie Trust in Devon, who work to preserve what is now sadly a rare breed. They have commissioned a hardback re-issue of the novel, complete with original …
If Wishes Were Horses: Posh
Ebony Horse Club are a brilliant charity who are really making a difference in their community: the true epitomy of Big Society. Here are some images from the time I spent with them while working on the book in February 2010. They’ve since been able to build their own stable in Coldharbour Ward, Brixton, and …
The New Kings of Polo
Take eleven minutes out of your life to watch this short ESPN documentary on how a teenager from a deprived, crime-riddled West Philadelphia neighbourhood ended up being the US national schools polo champion and being asked to play for the Cornell University team. Ignore the trailer for the Hollywood film that bookends it and is …
Urban Cowboys in Queens
The Federation of Black Cowboys operates out of a stable in Howard Beach, Queens, New York, and you can read a 2006 New York Times feature about them here. At the end of last year I spent some time dipping in and out of the on-line debate about the carriage horses that operate in Manhattan, …
The Brixton Cavalcade
Delighted to see the grand opening of the Ebony Horse Club’s own stables in Brixton. The club features in If Wishes Were Horses and has been honoured by the FEI for innovation.