Aim

To help young people who are disengaged or struggling, to improve their mental health and wellbeing through the magic of horses.

Who we are

Hi, we're Happy Hooves RDA Group and our project has been inspired by Alison Noble.  Alison is from a local farming family and has had a passion for horses from an early age. She had a career as a successful eventer and has been involved with horses throughout her life.

She spent most of her career developing her previous business from just a few horses into a professional level yard, which provided a horse riding experience for local holiday park guests. It also became a training centre for young people entering the equine industry, with Alison developing qualifications with the British Horse Society (BHS) and unusually within the industry, offering all her staff  (the majority being young people) qualifications alongside their jobs.

She is highly respected as an equine expert, being active within the region, as BHS welfare officer and takes horses for rehabilitation or rehoming. In 2014 as the holiday park reduced its horse riding offer Alison moved back to her family home and livery yard at Eamont bridge.  She rented land from Eden District Council and Happy Hooves was started alongside her existing livery business of Eamont Competition Horses,  providing lessons and activities for a small number of private clients that had been using her services at Leacett, the previous yard. Happy Hooves and Eamont Competition Horses is a British Horse Society registered yard and by EDC with 5 stars.

In the journey at Leacett, many of the staff who came to work for Alison were youngsters, some troubled or challenged and she quickly became ‘Auntie Alison’ to many, even now as adults, and with their own children, they can be found sitting round the kitchen table when they need a cuppa, pep talk or some help. Alison continued as a BHS examiner visiting different riding centres throughout the U.K. and she came across a centre that operated a BHS programme called Changing Lives Through Horses (CLTH) which supports young people who are disengaged from education or training. She knew immediately that this was something she wanted to do at Happy Hooves. She set it up and funded it herself. She also sought accreditation from the RDA (Riding for the Disabled), which meant that she could offer her services to people with disabilities and both the horses and staff received training for this. 

Alison maintained her vision and a strong desire to develop the support and therapy side of what she was doing and have more youngsters on the CLTH programme but became limited by her own success (having more people wanting the services than she can provide for without funding). She needed to create income streams or find funds in order to offer the subsidised sessions that she had until then been funding herself. Equine businesses always struggle to make any profit, as the saying goes, ‘horses eat more than they can ever earn’.

Around Alison’s kitchen table, a group of individuals comprising of friends, family (‘Auntie Alison’ family) and ex colleagues decided to create a charitable group to support the future of Alison’s vision to use horses as therapy as well as fun. It was already clear the huge benefit that being with the horses was having on the young people attending and the sheer number of people in the local area that could benefit from this. 

Happy Hooves RDA as a stand-alone group was Incorporated at the end of 2019. 

There are currently 4 participants on the Changing Lives Through Horses programme who attend the Centre 3 days a week alongside school. There is a waiting list of young people who would like to join the programme (referred by parents, schools and PRU’s). 

The difference you can help us make.

As an example of the difference your donation will make, one of the previous participants of Changing Lives Through Horses Programme who last attended school in year 7 (11/12 yrs old) and had a number of mental health challenges has just completed his first term at College in September. It wasn't an easy journey for him or those trying to support him, but he did it. #superproud.

Another, is a 13 year old girl whose social anxiety, meant that her school attendance was down to 50%, she was slowly closing in on herself, had lost friends and her parents were struggling to know what to do. After just a few sessions with the horses she has life goals that include travel and doing well in her exams, she has also set herself a target of achieving an 80% attendance at school for the next term. #lifegoals

All trustees are unpaid volunteers who were once young people, share 'Auntie' Alison's vision and want to help others through the magic of horses.  We have skills in business, accountancy, planning and project management and administrative areas which we want to use to make more of a difference to more young people locally. We are also spending time looking for funding streams as well as connecting people that need the service, with what we can offer.  

This project successfully funded on 16th December 2020