31/05/2026
Thursday was an exciting day at ARC with the arrival of a new equine team member - Thomas 😍😍
Sally saw an advert for Thomas pop up on social media last week and the pic of his head was enough for her to get up early on her day off the next day and drive 3 hours down to the Borders to see him 😀 Why a pic of his head? Well Sally thinks you can tell a lot about a horse from their eye and Thomas had a particularly kind eye and looked a happy chap. Plus he had ginormous ears and every horse that Sally has met with ginormous ears has been a great horse - so whilst she still needed to see Thomas in the flesh to assess whether he’d be suitable to join our team, she was pretty confident those ears and eyes would fit in!
Thomas is an 18hh (ish and still growing) 6 year old Irish draft and when Sally went down and met his lovely owner, it was obvious that Thomas was very loved and that his owner wanted to get the best home for Thomas to continue to thrive in in the future. His owner was unable to ride Thomas as much as they’d hoped and wanted Thomas to go somewhere he could continue learning and be with people who were experienced in working with horses of Thomas size. So it seemed a good match for Thomas to come to ARC and Sally agreed to buy him subject to a vet check.
Thomas arrived on Thursday last week and went down to his isolation field for a few days to chill out and be admired by everyone from a distance (he’s so tall we can see him from any point on the farm 😀). Sally has been checking his temperature each day (part of our biosecurity process) and he’s very much enjoyed getting factor 50 on his big nose and getting lots of fly spray on. He’s been getting small mash feeds to ensure he’s drinking plenty and some haylage each day alongside his grass as grass sickness is always a big concern for owners at this time of year, particularly when a horse has moved areas, so we do everything that’s advised whilst he’s settling in to reduce the risk, but as we know, it’s always a risk that’s present regardless of how well you try to manage horses.
We are going to be documenting Thomas progress as he goes through isolation and initial training and we’re also going to take the unusual step of providing rough costs for everything from purchase to transport and vet checks - the reason we’ve decided to do this is to help potential horse owners know what steps we take with a new, young horse and what’s involved, but also so people understand the costs involved in buying, producing and managing horses for a riding centre, or any business that has horses.
A huge thank you to Thomas owner for deciding ARC was a good home for Thomas and for giving him a good start to his ridden work - he is a credit to you.
More posts about Thomas to follow!
