Our fabulous renovated outdoor arena has been officially opened in tribute to the late Olympic showjumper Tim Stockdale.
Tim’s widow Laura performed the ceremony at a student run show last weekend which raised funds for the Tim Stockdale Foundation.
Tim died last November just one month after being diagnosed with cancer. He was passionate about equestrianism and many other sports, from grass roots level to Olympic standard, and wanted all talented young people to have the chance to reach their potential. His Foundation supports many charities which were close to his heart.
The Stockdales have long connections with Reaseheath’s Equestrian Centre, in particular offering some of our students the opportunity for work experience on their competition yard in Northamptonshire.
Dedicating the 60m x 20m arena, which has a new £60K Andrews Bowen surface, Laura Stockdale said that the facility would help the next generation of equestrians to learn their skills and was a perfect tribute to his Foundation. She later watched her 11 year old niece Ellie Stockdale compete in a showjumping class.
The arena, which is one of three at our Equestrian Centre, provides a superb warm up facility which will be of particular benefit to the increasing number of competitors at our British Dressage events. It will also be used by students and livery clients and may be booked by the public outside college hours. Our regular competitions will still be held in our high standard indoor arena.
The show, which raised over £1,000, was run by second year Level 3 Diploma and Extended Diploma in Horse Management students studying a module in equine event management. The student team organised six showjumping classes which attracted competitors from a wide area.
They also ran a raffle and a charity auction to raise further funds. Auction donations included dressage lessons from Gareth and Rebecca Hughes and a tour of the Stockdale yard.
Student Georgia Farr said: “Running the show has been really good experience and has helped to put the subjects we’ve learned in class such as budget forecasting and risk assessment into practice. I’ve enjoyed meeting and helping all the competitors and I found Laura Stockdale really inspirational.”
Also in the student team were Olivia Oldknow, Holly Phelan, Heather Webb, Abbie Ladley, Cerys Taylor, Olivia Townley, Charlotte Campbell, Alice Clarke, Caitlin Dean, Annabelle Hodnett, Emily Mitchell, Olivia Cullen and Chloe Lofthouse.
