After lots of hard work planning and adapting what we do, some of our riders have been able to return, and benefit from therapeutic riding once again. As we move into our Winter Term, we are delighted to be able to continue offering therapy riding in line with Scottish Government and RDA National Office guidelines. We’ve also got lots of fun activities planned to give us all a bit of festive cheer – read on to find out.
A small number of riders are back, on our Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday evening, Thursday morning, Friday afternoon and Saturday morning sessions. We are very pleased to announce that our partnership session with NHS Lothian on Tuesday afternoons, The Children’s Therapeutic Riding Service, has also returned!
Celebrating 10 years of pioneering partnership with NHS Lothian – The Children’s Therapeutic Riding Service
Due to COVID-19, access to our therapy ponies has been restricted, but our Children’s Therapeutic Riding Service is starting up again on Tuesday afternoons, with the physios using our mechanical horse, Oreo! Completion of the long awaited, planned renovations to our Physio Room have allowed us to ‘re-stable’ Oreo in a much larger space.
The Children’s Therapeutic Riding Service is the first, and to this day the largest service of its kind in Scotland. It offers Hippotherapy, a very effective form of physiotherapy on horseback. We’re so proud of the team, once again showing their pioneering spirit, ensuring we can get riding. Keep an eye on our social media as we’ll be sharing lots of information about this special partnership and our anniversary.
There are lots of ways you can stay in touch, have some fun and also and help us to fund the upkeep of the Centre and the care of our specially trained therapy ponies.
Not Our Usual Christmas Coffee Morning
Although things are a little different this year, we hope to bring you all a bit of festive cheer, 10am – 12 noon on Saturday 5thDecember at The Mallard Hotel, Gullane. Traditions including our legendary Christmas Cakes, delicious festive baking and Christmas crafts and gifts for sale. Treat yourself to a takeaway hot drink, mince pie and bacon roll too!
WIN! Festive Treats Hamper Raffle
Win our big hamper full of fantastic festive treats, including Beatitude goodies. Pics to follow on our social media! To enter our raffle all you need to do is donate £5 per entry (enter as many times as you like!) via our donation button , please add ‘Raffle’ in the PayPal donation notes to ensure we allocate your entry! The Winning entry will be drawn at our ‘Not Our Usual Christmas Coffee Morning on Saturday 5th December! GOOD LUCK
Sponsor a Pony – Christmas Appeal 2020
Our Christmas Appeal offers our friends an opportunity to help keep Muirfield Riding Therapy’s service secure. Our wonderful therapy ponies are specially chosen and trained so we are able to offer our riders the best therapeutic benefit. Meet our ponies – virtually! – and choose your favourite pony to sponsor or give someone a thoughtful Christmas gift.
Our own little Online Shop is now open!
Our wee online shop has launched! There are just three specially curated Muirfield Riding Therapy products to purchase for now, but we’re sure you’ll like them – our NEW 2021 Calendar, our limited edition eco-friendly reusable cup and some Little Tins of Pony Poo…!
Do your Christmas shopping online – raise funds for free
Sign up to Give As You Live This is a fantastic way to help raise funds for us, for free! With over 4,200 shops part of Give as you Live Online, including John Lewis & Partners, Expedia and Marks & Spencer. They’ll turn a percentage of your spend into free funds for us. Simply sign up, search for the retailer and start your Christmas shopping. It’s that simple!
Sign up to Amazon Smile here Shopping at Amazon? Raise free funds at the same time! Sign up, choose us as your beneficiary charity, then do your usual Amazon shopping but via their Amazon Smile login, and they donate 0.5% of the net purchase price to us!
Get in touch
Join in the chat!
We have Facebook chat groups for our Riders & their Families and our Volunteers
Get in touch – send us an email and we will respond as soon as we can;
Chair, Michelle Sutton
Services, Susan Law
Administration, Shirely Duff
Fundraising, Debs McLaughlin
We are so looking forward to when we can see you all again and want to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone for your continued support!
Our Christmas Appeal 2020
Our Christmas Appeal offers our friends an opportunity to help keep Muirfield Riding Therapy’s service secure. Our wonderful therapy ponies are specially chosen and trained so we are able to offer our riders the best therapeutic benefit. Meet our ponies – virtually! – and choose your favourite pony to sponsor or give someone a thoughtful Christmas gift
Our Sponsor a Pony Christmas Appeal offers our friends an opportunity to help keep Muirfield Riding Therapy’s service secure. Contributing to funding the care of our specially trained therapy ponies will help guarantee our life-changing therapeutic riding sessions in the months and years ahead. Caring for our ponies costs around £3000 for each pony, every year.
Meet our Therapy Ponies – virtually!
In the lead up to Christmas, we are introducing our herd by sharing a video of each of our current therapy ponies on our social media. Find out what makes each pony special, follow us on Facebook , Instagram and Twitter
A thoughtful Christmas gift
Choose your favourite pony to sponsor or give someone a thoughtful Christmas gift of pony sponsorship. All sponsor packages are for 12 months, and our wonderful sponsors receive some exclusive Muirfield Riding Therapy goodies including – new for Christmas 2020 – a golden rosette of their chosen pony.
Corporate Friends
We’d love to speak to you about your organisation sponsoring our ponies. Back in 2017, MacGregor Healthcare Ltd generously helped us launch our Sponsor a Pony campaign. The MacGregor Healthcare staff team came to meet their namesake, our therapy pony MacGregor, and sponsored him for the final years of his life with us. The company kindly continues to support us as the main sponsor of our annual fundraiser, Summer Show for Horses & Ponies. MacGregor Healthcare Ltd’s Lucy Barclay-Carr said at the time,
We are very excited and delighted to support MacGregor at Muirfield Riding Therapy, the work that is carried out there, and MacGregor himself dove tails beautifully with our own company mission and vision to enable people to live a more fulfilled life.
Wishing you all a peaceful Christmas 2020, and a healthy 2021.
Not Our Usual Christmas Coffee Morning
Although things are a little different this year, we hope to bring the community a bit of festive cheer at our ‘Not Our Usual…Christmas Coffee Morning’ on Saturday 5th December. Traditions including our legendary Christmas Cakes made by Agnes and festive baking will be here.
Traditional Christmas Cakes
Delicious Festive Baking Stall
Beautiful Christmas crafts & gifts
TAKEAWAY Tea/Coffee/Hot chocolate & mince pies, plus hot BACON ROLLS!WIN Festive Treats Hamper Raffle WIN
Win our big hamper full of fantastic festive treats, including Beatitude goodies. Pics to follow on our social media! To enter, all you need to do is donate £5 per entry (enter as many times as you like!) via our donation button on our website, please add ‘Raffle’ in the notesThe winning entry will be drawn on the day of our event – good luck
Keeping you COVID safe – social distancing measures will be in place plus a one-way system, and track & trace at the door.
We are celebrating 10 years of our pioneering partnership with NHS Lothian, delivering the Children’s Therapeutic Riding Service. This Service which launched in 2010 was the first, and is still the largest service of its kind in Scotland. It provides Hippotherapy, a specialist and highly effective form of physiotherapy, on horseback.
Thank you
We wish to thank our wonderful community who have kept us going, and we are delighted to have been slowly bringing riders back into sessions following both ScotGov and RDA National office.
