Even if you’ve never set foot on this hallowed ground, many of you will know of the famous Talland School of Equitation in England’s idyllic Cotswolds. The home base of dressage legend (and sharp-witted Badminton commentator extraordinaire) Pammy Hutton, it’s served as a jumping-off point for some of the foremost riders and trainers in the UK and beyond. Talland serves several major functions: it’s the mother of all riding schools, with long- and short-term training courses covering every aspect of horsemanship; it’s a bucket-list educational destination for riders who want to learn from schoolmasters at the very topmost levels of their disciplines; it’s the setting for several popular TV shows; it’s a safe and productive place for Grand Prix and five-star horses to wind down their workload while still getting to live productive lives.
But Talland, like many stables around the world, is struggling in the face of coronavirus. Though government bailouts have allowed Pammy to safeguard her two-legged team, her four-legged denizens are in need of a bit of help. But as you might expect, Team Talland are no slouches, and they’ve come up with a brilliant fundraising model that they hope other stables will copy to ensure the safety of their beloved horses and ponies. With the help of TV presenter – and long-time Talland supporter and student – Jenny Rudall, they’ve put together a pretty spectacular raffle of utterly drool-worthy prizes. All you need to do to enter? Drop a donation over to their JustGiving fund.
“So many amazing people have asked how they can help keep our horses and ponies at Talland going during this crisis, so here is the plan – but we want to help other yards too,” says Team Talland in a post on their Facebook page. “In the hopes of staying in business and keeping our truly adored equine partners going, we are offering the chance for our lovely clients or any potential clients and followers to support our equine work colleagues in return for some fab raffle prizes. We are running a virtual raffle/fundraiser. We want to give back to those that help us once we are through this.”
For every £10 you donate, your name will be entered into the raffle, so the more you donate, the bigger your chance of collecting a fantastic prize – and every entrant, no matter how much they donate, will receive a 10% discount off their next lesson at Talland when the stable is once again open for business. Always wanted to learn to ride Grand Prix dressage movements? You’ll definitely want to book in with Pammy. All entrants will also receive free entry to Talland’s star-studded Christmas demo, and Pammy’s planning a special extra demo to celebrate the end of this crisis, too.
To enter, head to the JustGiving page and make your donation – £10 gives you one entry, £20 gives you two, and so on. Be sure to click the box that says ‘I’m happy to be contacted’ so that Talland can see your email address and use it to get in touch with your discount code and details of any prizes you win. If that option doesn’t appear for whatever reason, pop Talland an email with your details and the amount of tickets you purchased – a screenshot will help here! – to [email protected].
So what’s on offer? Well, more prizes are being added every day, but at the moment you could win…
- An opportunity to meet Valegro and Utopia at home at Carl Hester’s yard (2 available)
- A year’s subscription to Horse & Country TV
- Dressage day tickets for the SsangYong Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials (10 available)
- Tickets to the Festival of British Eventing with forward parking (2 available)
- A £50 Gift Voucher for Annabel Brocks
- A £50 Gift Voucher for Hawkins Organic
- An exclusive demo and Q&A session with Irish eventer Jonty Evans and Cooley Rourkes Drift (15 available)
- Course walk with Jonty Evans at the next 5*, plus a ticket to the event
- A lesson with 5* eventer Tom Rowland Eventing on winner’s own horse
- Course walk with Tom Rowland at his next 5*, including a ticket to event
- Jump lesson with H&C presenter Jenny Rudall on own horse or Talland horse
- Advanced lesson with Pammy Hutton Dressage (2 available)
- Nearly advanced lesson with Pammy (2 available)
- An Equiboodle – Equestrian Outfitters voucher
- A wheelbarrow from Bill Yelding at Wheelbarrows Direct
- Lessons for a beginner with an instructor – if you’re not a beginner yourself, you can donate this as a gift
- A side-saddle lesson
- A transitions lesson with a coach
- A leg-yield lesson with a coach
- A pole-work lesson with Brian Hutton
- Group grid lesson (4 riders) with Brian
- A lunge lesson with a trainer
- A day watching Pammy train at home
- A coffee morning at Talland with cake and riding (2 available)
- A hack round the farm with an instructor
- Attend a competition day with Pammy
- Tour of the yard and meet all the horses at Talland.
- And, of course, a highly covetable loo roll
Of course, Talland isn’t just hoping to care for their own horses and ponies through this crisis – they want other riding stables to follow suit, and are encouraging local yards to get in contact with top riders and companies to work in tandem to raise funds. They recommend asking for prizes such as coursewalks, lessons, days at events, tickets to events, and product prizes, too. Planning to follow Talland’s lead? Drop us a line and we’ll shout you out on EN. Go Eventing.
