Tributes have been paid to a horse who “filled her rider’s heart with love”, who had to be put down after she was involved in a collision with a car.
The horse was one of three being ridden by teenage girls on Priest Hill, Windsor, on 13 August. She suffered fatal injuries and her young rider was taken to hospital.
The teenager escaped without serious injury but her yard owner Coral Sheldrake told H&H she and the other riders at the yard are devastated.
“That pony was her life,” she said. “The pair of them needed each other. It’s been very emotional”
Ms Sheldrake said the three girls are all experienced riders and they and their horses were wearing high-vis.
“I got a phone call from one of the girls’ mums saying one of them had been hit by a car,” she said. “I said ‘I’m on my way’. That’s all I remember saying.
“By the time I got there, thank goodness, two of my liveries had stopped on their way to the yard. One was holding the horse and the other trying to care for the rider. Police were arriving, the ambulance was arriving – and the horse had to be put down.”
Ms Sheldrake said the horse and rider who were injured were in the middle of the group and that the incident occurred as the car was passing them.
“She came off and the horse rolled on top of her,” she said. “She’s holding it together, they all are.”
Ms Sheldrake said there have been numerous near-misses on the road before, but it is the only route to safe off-road riding in Windsor Great Park.
“It’s very sad that drivers could prevent girls and boys enjoying that sort of ride with friends and family,” she said. “It’s just incomprehensible to think that you have to highlight it. It’s so sad.”
Ms Sheldrake added that the horse, whom the teenager had on loan, was “bombproof”.
“She filled her heart with love,” she said. “I would even say the horse loved her as much as she loved her, and she never put a foot wrong; I could never have faulted her.”
British Horse Society (BHS) director of safety Alan Hiscox visited the yard last week to support the riders. Ms Sheldrake said the plan to is to print leaflets as part of a campaign for a lower speed limit on the road.
“We’ve just got to battle on,” she said. “I don’t want any more horses put down, or any of my girls having to experience what they had to go through last week.”
Mr Hiscox told H&H the incident was particularly upsetting as it was so close to Windsor, where the BHS and Project EDWARD’s awareness ride from Lambourn ended in May.
“It just accentuates the fact that we need to push the Dead Slow message out, and get more buy-in from drivers, on that and the Highway Code changes, which are now three and a half years old,” he said.
“We’re working with local authorities, road safety partnerships and driving instructors; I’m going to motoring events and in November I’m giving a presentation at the national roads policing conference. I’m going to stress the relationship between horses and riders, and the importance of seeing horses as subjects, not objects. We’ve got good support from MPs but it needs to be pushed much more.
“I care so much about this and am always keen to go out and speak to any riders involved in these serious incidents and give them as much support as the BHS can give them. This is something that will stay with those three riders for a long time.”
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