Aart Noordijk Coaching

18/05/2026

Why are the mainstream not talking about Ros Canter?

Why is nobody talking about Ros Canter? Super Human. Super Mum. Super Athlete. Read Eleanore Kelly piece on why main stream media is ignoring the strongest quietest athlete.

10/05/2026

Wow

10/05/2026

10/05/2026

One test that will make history.

10/05/2026

No words needed!

10/05/2026

Great slow motion pictures!

10/05/2026

Poetry in motion.

12/04/2026

Great article. Very accurate and I still ride and train if anybody asks.😁😁

‘Framing older age as the underdog is not good for our sport,’ warns Pammy Hutton after being asked if she still rode ‘at her age’. Read more below

12/04/2026

Fantastic.

16/03/2026

Food for thought.

We need loads more riding schools! What is to be done!?

There are only about 1000 left in UK, 500 have ceased since Covid.
Why does no one want to run a proper legally licenced legitimate riding school?
The demand for it is out there!
Is it the difficulty recruiting and costs of staffing, the long hours, the overheads, the red tape, the increasingly expensive horses, or is it the sometimes over-demanding clientele (most of ours are great). Is it that there are some people out there intent on slagging off riding schools and the riding of horses in general driving kids back to their computer games. The H&S, the compensation culture, the high insurance? The list is endless.

I think riding schools never get enough recognition, a pat on the back or a helping hand as other sports often do. We have been failed by our governing bodies. We need horses to remain accessible to everyone (as they are in Europe in partially funded and supported centres). Even though UK government happily funds £36million for Winter Olympians to enjoy winter sports that most of us can never access!

No riding schools - no facilities to hire, no youngsters learning at the grassroots level, no children and teens learning pony care, moving in to owning, in to the Clubs, in to the competitions, in to qualifications, in to jobs, in to Team GB, in to running new businesses. The whole system starts to falter and break down. Soon horses will then have no homes, the sanctuaries will be too full, prices will fall to rock bottom, the wrong people buy the wrong horses and may fail to correctly care for them.

As another local School decides to not renew their licence, we are losing another well managed, regulated, inspected and licenced* option for safe structured learning in an environment where you can entrust your children and teens to be looked after (* as required by law) . The home ed provision, the SEN provision, the structured progressive learning, the choice of many different ponies to love, ,ride and learn from, the friendship, the outdoorsy fresh air and physicality of it all. Going, going, gone!
What can we do?
Oh well, back to the admin that is not about to do itself.