The Riding for Disabled term will soon close for another year and whilst it has been a weird, whacky and unknown one, Orange Riding for Disabled President, Robyn Livermore ensures it hadn’t been a wasted year by any means.

“It has been a very busy year actually,” said Robyn. “Even though we haven’t had riding up until this term, we’ve been keeping the horses in good nick, for the moment the biggest thing for us has been keeping them fit!” Robyn laughed. “Because of the season we’ve had with the rain, the feed had grown unbelievably here, so we were keeping the horses fit by working as if we did have students each week in class.”

Whilst students were unable to attend RDA for quite some time due to COVID restrictions, it was said to be a popular question upon walking into the classroom each week, ‘Are we horse riding today?’

“So when we were able to open up again our students were very excited to come out and see their four-legged friends and the volunteers each week,” said Robyn.

“Since our shut down, we now have had a new feed shed put in and our maintenance team has also been incredibly busy and have painted and built new fences, whilst also keeping up with general maintenance. It has also been very pleasing for us to see most of the volunteers come back.

“Whilst we haven’t been able to do any fundraising we are managing ok, as far as money goes, though it’s through the help of these who have donated this year and previously;

“We want to acknowledge the help we’ve had from the community, we are always amazed at the generosity of them. They just never stop giving to us, and with constant upkeep of our centre, we’ve needed that money.

“At this stage, we just hope that next year will be a better year for us.”

The RDA family would like to give a huge shout and special mention out to those who have supported them throughout 2020 including these businesses;

Let’s Make Better
Cadia Valley Operations
Select A Shed
The Carcoar Show Society
Oils Plus
Mel Ashton
FINDEX
Westfund
The Rural Centre
Officeworks
Orange Scrap Recyclers
Alex Baker
Matt and Debbie Bevan
The Quota International
Betty Boesma