Welcome to Cambs College RDA!

Hello and welcome to Cambridgeshire College Group of the Riding for the Disabled Association.

Cambs College RDA is a fun and friendly group which meets weekly to provide equestrian activities to young adults with disabilities in the Cambridge area. Founded in the late 1980s, the group is well-established at The College of West Anglia's Milton campus just north of Cambridge, and is run entirely by volunteers.

We need funds to provide these valuable activities to disabled people. Please consider donating to our group.

We hope you enjoy having a browse through our website and learning more about the group.

Please scroll down to find the latest news!

Christmas 2025 Raffle is GO!

This year's popular Christmas raffle fund raising has now started.

The great prizes this year include a Dining Gift experience worth £90 and 4 Amazon Gift Vouchers worth £20.

Tickets are on sale from our volunteer and riders, and collected at our riding sessions.

Thank you to The Provincial Grand Lodge of Cambridgeshire, Charity for Care and Relief

Cambs College Riding for the Disabled group is extremely grateful to The Provincial Grand Lodge of Cambridgeshire, Charity for Care and Relief for their support and generous donation. This Masonic fund donated £1750 to cover the costs of a saddle and bridle, rugs and other equipment for our new horse, Gypsy.

Horses are expensive to purchase, but there are always a lot of on-costs such as pre-purchase vetting and transport, as well as equipping the horse properly, and it is these additional costs that the donation will cover.

Gypsy started work for us in September 2025, and is becoming a valuable member of the team. But we have had to squeeze her into second-hand rugs that are not quite big enough and she has been wearing a borrowed saddle. This grant allows us to buy a saddle especially for her, as well as the other equipment she needs.

We would like to thank all our friends in Masonic Lodges in Cambridgeshire who have supported us over the last few years, and a particular thank you to the Charity for Care and Relief.  Your generosity makes it possible for us to continue to offer weekly riding lessons to our small group of riders.

Gypsy on her Summer break with one of our volunteers

National Championship 2025

Cambs college RDA was represented at the RDA National Championships, at Hartpury on 11th-13th July 2025, by four of our regular session riders with Boysie, and by Chris with his own horse Harley. 

It was a very hot weekend but the organisers did a good job of managing this – the main arenas were not used during the heat of the day, and the vets did frequent walks round the stables making sure the horses were all okay. 

Everyone did really well; Sasha and Chris both just missed first places by narrow margins, while Chrissie and Harvey were both well placed in very big classes and Peter thoroughly enjoyed the experience. 

It was also a learning experience for the volunteer team, managing without Gillian! Boysie did a grand job, and went straight off on his well-deserved holidays on our return.

Sasha and Boysie in action

 

Peter ready for his test

2025 Regional Championships

The East Region held their regional championships at the College of West Anglia in Milton on 18th May. Huge thanks to the regional team of volunteers for making it a successful day.  

There was a good turnout from our riders, and lots of rosettes were won. 

First prizes went to Lucy on Boysie, Ron on Larry, and Kodie on Boysie in their respective countryside challenge classes, and to Harvey on Boysie, Sophia on Bear (Teddy), and Sasha on Teddy in their various dressage classes. 

Everyone did really well, whatever the colour of rosette they ended up with! 

Several qualified to go to the National Championships at Hartpury College in July. Not all are able to get there but the group will be represented by four riders, Boysie, and a handful of volunteers.  

Rebecca’s Arts & Crafts entry won a rosette too.  

There were also wins for our independent riders, Gemma on Shelley and Chris on MBF Harley Rebel in their dressage classes. 

Most importantly, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, including all our volunteers who turned out on the day. It was also great to see some old friends visiting for the day.

 

We have a new horse!

Gypsy was purchased earlier in February to replace one of our super stars that needed to retire.

She is a mare!   Our first mare for a while, but she still matches the rest of the team by being a colured cob!  She is young but shows all the attributes for becoming a fantastic RDA horse and we hope she will settle in soon.  She does, however, need to build up some muscle before she starts being riden in our sessions.

Christmas fund raising has begun

It wouldn't be Christmas without our Elves (Kodie, Kate and Dave) making lots of gorgeous crafty items to sell to raise funds for a replacement horse for Larry - who needs to be retired from RDA to have some fun hacking years, before he really has to retire.

Christmas Raffle

For the second year running, we are also running a big raffle with 3 great prizes!

• John Lewis Experience Voucher worth £100
• Tea for Two at Carriages worth £72
• Christmas Hamper worth £50

200 Club Lottery

In 2025 we will be running the lottery again.  Annual tickets cost £12.  There are 6 draws in a year.  A winner and runner up in each draw receiving £50 and £30 respectively. 

If you are interested in buying anything, please get in touch.  Unfortunately we are unable to sell items online.

Welcome to a new face

At the end of last term we were all excited to welcome the newest member to the team: Ollie.

"Oliver", known as Ollie, joined our group in the summer and has been getting along well.  He is only 5 years old but has a wonderful temperament and is very gentle.  At 16.1hh he is on the big side for some of our smaller riders, but as long as we can get the riders on, they enjoy riding him!  Ollie arrived from Ireland earlier this year, and then spent some time on a yard in Pembrokeshire before we bought him.  He's lovely to hack out as well as being a good boy in the arena for our RDA lessons.

 

 

An Introducttion from our new Chairman - Pipper Corney

I joined the Cambs College RDA group just after the Covid lockdown. I had borrowed one of the RDA horses, Larry, during lockdown to teach my husband to ride. After that I became a volunteer. When Tomoko had to leave the group and return home to Japan, I took on the horse welfare a job that Tomoko previously held within the group. When Gillian announced she would like to step down I agreed to become the vice chairman to try and learn the job. I am now the chair but luckily for me we have a very good team of volunteers I can rely on and Gillian is on hand for advice whenever I need it. I have loved being a volunteer and it has taught me so much about disability and how well that works with horses. For me the horse bit was quite easy as I have had horses all my life. I am now about to take my final assessment to becoming a coach too. 

I look forward to the future with such a great team of people to work with and helping our riders enjoy their sessions on our fabulous horses.

Regional and National Championships 2024

Regional Championship

This was held at COWA in Milton again this year.  7 of our riders qualified for the National Championships in July.  It was a lovely day with lots of other groups from around the region competing.  There was a very popular cake stand and of lots of crafts to buy made by our talented Lawrences!

National Championship, Hartpury

In the end only 4 or our riders were able to get to Hartpury, plus 3 of our independent riders that are attached to our group, and our independent vaulter.  

Lily was the only vaulter from England competing with all the others from Scotland - so we were pleased that we enabled her to complete.

Boysie and 5 volunteers made up the team with the riders along with the horses and helpers for the independent riders.  

All 4 riders were placed in their classes.  Lucy and Carley were 2nd and 3rd in the Countryside Challenge while Sasha was 4th and Ciara 6th in their respective Dressage classes.

Our independent riders also did well.   Gemma was 4th in her class and she was very happy to improve her dressage score considerably from last time.   Dylan and Chris were both 2nd in their Dressage classes and first in their Freestyle Dressage classes.   Dylan also kept the trophy for best turned out junior - especially impressing with a white pony to turn out!

                          

More Competitions

Chris went straight from Hartpury to Sparsholt for the Virtus Dressage Championships where the GB team won gold and Chris got individual silver.  

Our Chairman Gillian Steps Down

25th June 2024 

After 9 years as our amazing Chairman, Gillian Newsum, has stood down and handed over to Pippa Corney, who was vice-chair last year. Fortunately Gillian will still be with us as a coach. 

Success for RDA participant at the Special Olympics World Games!

We’ve had some great news out of the Special Olympics World Games in Berlin – four RDA Participants who took part came home with an amazing 11 medals! Our own rider Christopher Bradley won gold in 3 A level events, Dressage, English Equitation and Working Trials, scoring a brilliant 77% in the dressage canter test- a fantastic achievement! 

Regional Qualifiers 2023

Sunday 21st May saw the RDA East Region Regional Championships take place at CWA Milton. Our group and others from around the East Region came together to compete for places at the National Championships in July – or just to have fun.

Cambs College RDA was represented by 12 of our regular riders, 5 independent riders and 14 volunteers. In addition the burger and cake stalls were manned by our people – many thanks to Seppe, and to Carly and her mum Michele, and to their helpers and all the cake-makers.

At the course walk Teddy made clear that the Countryside Challenge course was not for him, meaning that all our plans for who was riding which horse had to be quickly rearranged, while differing delays to the schedules of the two arenas meant that the order of riders and events sometimes had to be switched. Our chairman Gillian did some skilful juggling of horses and riders and everyone ended up in the right class, if not quite with the timing and horse that they had originally expected.

Our riders did brilliantly, with 7 of our regular riders and 3 of our independent riders qualifying to go to the National Championships at Hartpury, and some great performances that just missed qualifying against stiff competition.

Well done everyone and a big thank you to all the volunteers, local and regional, without whom none of this could happen.

Coaching News

Pippa will soon be coaching sessions, as a trainee coach. We are excited to welcome her to the coaching team. Our coaches are highly trained and have to complete several modules, both practical and theoretical, before they become a trainee coach. They are then assessed by the RDA County Coach before becoming fully qualified. This is reviewed every 3 years. They are a dedicated lot and we couldn’t operate without them. 

During February we have had visiting coaches and trainee coaches from two other groups. Woodgreen RDA is the only other RDA group in Cambridgeshire that have adult riders so it will be good to develop a relationship with them. Every RDA group is different and coaches in training are encouraged to visit other RDA groups to see how they work. Two trainees and a coach from Elysian group in Ely came to visit us, and In due course Pippa will visit them in exchange.