If I was asked what my Dream Centre would be, my description would be
A purpose built equestrian venue that would cater for the rehabilitation of disabled children modelled on the book and
movie Palomino
by Danielle Steel, in combination with a movie called Dark Horse
by Volker Boehm. It would need to be isolated to a point but still accessible so as to maximise on the therapy that can
be derived out of the beauty of the horse.
This would need to be in conjunction with a purpose built training centre that can teach candidate instructors, these
being accommodated out of holiday season to help cover costs.
The training centre should comprise of a really well designed equestrian centre that could have a program where retired
horses are stabled and used in the training of candidate instructors in stable management. My Late Father was an
architect and he drew a really good set of plans that I would like to work from with one of the stable blocks.
With holiday cottages/chalets on the property where families of the disabled child can have a break while the children
are having intense "Equine Facilitated Movement Therapy" or the past owners of these horses can bring their current horse with
them on holiday and be able to spend part of their time with the old horse, while still keeping up the riding program of
their current horse, in a new and unfamiliar arena adding to schooling and show readiness of their competitive horse.
An organic vegetable farming centre can also be established that will use the manure produced by the horses as its
growing media, to further add sustainability.
There is but no way that we could afford to achieve this goal unless we
could use the principles of 'Time Share or Fractional Ownership' in some way.
If you have any suggestions or would be interested in helping me to "plant my goals and harvest this dream that we can
all enjoy" please give me a call or drop me a mail.
The current property from which we are working has its good points, but one of the most important failures is, it is far
too small to accommodate my horses in the way that they should be living. The main problem is the grazing area is far too
small, there is going to be no home grown food for the horses in winter and that really worries me, I will need to buy in.
The ground here is made up of a lot of loose surface stones and these are also proving to be a problem we picked most of
them up but as the rains came the top soil has washed away to reveal a fresh layer of stones. The presence of this stone
is preventing us from really being able to make proper arenas and riding areas, David and I are working on it and will do
our best but its going to be far from ideal. The added problem here is nobody that we approach for funding assistance
with the property is prepared to help us because we don�t own the property.
So we will do what we need to here, to survive in the short term, but our ideal would be to work towards our own farm
that can offer what we really need to fulfil our potential in the long term. If you had to ask me where would I choose
this to be - my only answer would be, I have no idea at this point except to say "its not my choice, it will be where I
am sent".
