Cheltenham Demonstration

26 May 2014

Hello everyone, it's been a while since I last wrote from my blog so I thought Spirit and I should give you another update. Over the last month or so Spirit and I have done a great deal fueled by our Simple System horse feed including a very successful demo for the Cotswold RDA Centre at the Cheltenham Racecourse for 'The Complete Horse and Rider Extravaganza'.

It was quite nerve wracking as I wasn't sure whether I would be able to take Spirit at one point due to lack of transport but my friend came up trumps with her horse lorry and we managed to squeeze Spirit in. I must admit it was far from ideal without our own horse trailer because although my friend was very kind letting us use it, her horse lorry is designed for small horses and has quite a steep ramp too, so it made loading Spirit quite difficult. This is why we really need to raise the money for my own trailer, you can donate through this link: http://www.gofundme.com/CharliesTrailer

Once we got to the venue Spirit was very hyper and wanted to know what was going on but I lead her around and she soon calmed down on other days.

With a different feed system Spirit could have been a real handful but thanks to Simple System and the quality of their ingredients things are so much better for both of us.

As we entered the arena to begin our demonstration we felt so proud together - it was Charlie and Spirit for autistic people and horses everywhere! I wore my Simple System top with pride feeling very honoured that such a wonderful company is helping me and supporting me! Spirit seems to sense my feelings because I can tell you now she was very excited to be there! I told my story first of how horses have helped my autism and why it's important to respect people and horses and then my friend Nicola let Spirit go she trotted over to me and chose to be with me looking wonderful with a nice shiny coat, ears pricked with excitement! The majority of my hands-on demonstration with Spirit consisted of various obstacles like tarpaulin to play with and a Horse Agility curtain. A special thank you should be said to our friends from the Horse Agility group for letting me borrow some of their kit that day!

I played around with tarpaulins and getting Spirit to tolerate me throwing them over her or getting her walking on them and then we did some jumping at liberty! We had such fun and I love the audience who were very kind.

The food there was lovely too! Bacon and egg butties are yummy especially when you get a cup of tea with them! At the end of my blog here are some pictures.

Spirit and I both love starting out that day she met a gorgeous young stallion who she fell in love with and I saw some beautiful dressage horses which was fun too! Doing this autism awareness work is so much fun!

Charlie and Spirit