Rod and Sue Weeding, founders and owners of the Easy Horse Care Rescue Centre.

Rod was brought up on a farm in England, where he spent his childhood around horses. There was no “pony club” for Rod and HIS horses, as they were Suffolks and Shires. What Rod grew up appreciating though, is that the horse is something to be respected and treated with dignity and that the relationship between you and your horse is something very special.

Sue has had horses all her adult life and when she met Rod, the horses came too! Through their love of horses, and having the adequate premises, they decided to set up a livery yard where they lived in Hadleigh, Suffolk. They went on to have 15 horses on full livery, doing all of the work themselves. Sue’s view is that she feels privileged to be part of a horse’s life.

When they decided to come to Spain for a better life around 9 years ago, they brought their two rescue dogs Henry and Pepe, two very handsome Bearded Collies with them. They bought a Spanish Finca with land, and settled in to their new life, leaving the 24 hour horse care, mud and horse muck behind them, or so they thought!

Within three months, they acquired two horses that had been left in a finca, where the previous owner had died, and the new owners had got more than they bargained for. At this point there was no Easy Horse Care Rescue as such, only two people and their love of horses.

So as you can see, setting up the Easy Horse Care Rescue Centre, was always on the cards. They first decided to make it official when they heard about Luceiro. You can read all about his story here.

Oh forgot to mention, that in between all that, they also rescued a cat, two more dogs, two parrots, and a cockatiel.

John and Margaret Tingley, patrons of the Easy Horse Care Rescue Centre

John Tingley, history involving horses and ponies in the competition world

I was brought up on my Grandfather’s farm in Sussex, on which there were two working horses and a little black pony. Apart from unruly, I can not say what his particular background was. As this period at the start of my life, included the latter part of the war, and carried through to the end of the nineteen forties, there was no possibility of enjoying the type of equestrian activities that we all know and love today. In nineteen seventy one, I met Margaret, and almost from the word go, I was in at the deep end, totally immersed in her competing all over the country, doing eventing and show jumping, at places like Hickstead and Wembly to name but two. This was, I must add, a bit of a culture shock to start with, as from leading a pleasant life traveling round the UK and parts of Europe, with my work, I suddenly found that part of my week was taken up with the possibility of sleeping on a camp bed in the back of a trailer, or on more than one occasion we shared a mattress in the back of the Landrover. (I have to confess that later on I bought a horse box with a luton for more home comforts). This was the beginning of my learning to be an efficient tea boy, through to collecting numbers, and then graduating on to become a groom. Between all of this, we were heavily involved in riding for the disabled, with up to ninety patients a week attending lessons at the yard where we lived which was owned by Margaret and her father. One of the highlights of this was when Margaret was invited to bring a team of her disabled riders to do a display in front of Lady Davina the duchess of Norfolk, who I believe I am right in saying, was at that time the patron of the whole society.

After a few years, the children started to get to the age where Margaret decided that it was there turn, so the next fifteen years or so were mapped out to include moments of anxiety from, will they fall off in their first ridden class, through to elation as their successes started to materialise. None of their future claims to fame had anything to do with my prowess as a tea boy, but solely from the skills of Margaret buying the right ponies, and teaching them the correct way of riding them. This was evident by our daughter Claire winning a foxhunter class at a county show in the West Country, when she was only just a teenager, on a fabulous jumping horse called Brittany, which Margaret bought off the hills in Yorkshire. This was followed up some time later by our son Giles winning his first lead reign class at the Richmond horse show at the tender age of three and a bit. Giles, has for the last eleven years, enjoyed a successful career in the Household Cavalry, based in Knightsbridge London, and will continue until his twenty two years are done. So far he has qualified as a tank driver, a Master Saddler, and is now doing a Farriers course.

Over the fifteen years I’ve learnt all the rights and wrongs of how to present a pony for a show, plus how they should be ridden, as well as how to keep my head down when things did not go according to plan. Through Margaret’s and the children’s endeavors, we enjoyed a very happy and successful time. It was then that we moved to Norfolk and I, after a short period of success with Giles up there, was asked if I would like to join one of the area committees of the British show pony society. This was a stroke of good fortune for me, due to the fact that one of the committee members was the leading working hunter course builder and designer in the country. His name is John Hall, and he owned Whitehall show jumps. He was also the director responsible for all working hunter and show jumping events at the summer and winter championships of the BSPS. It was not long before I was lending muscle round the shows, and listening with intent at everything that was told me. It was at one of the national championships, that I was introduced to the then very well known Alan Oliver, who used to ride the Queens show jumpers, and was acknowledged as a course designer of great vision. This started yet another new phase in my equestrian activities, as both John Hall and Alan Oliver suggested that I was the material they were looking for, and so would I consider training to be a course builder? I readily accepted, and so began a three year period of training, and whilst it was hard work, it meant that I got to visit many shows throughout the UK, and also got paid for it. For the last twenty years it had been the other way round.

At the end of the three years, I was asked to build at the summer championships as usual, but whilst there, I was told that during the three days I would be asked to build a course, which would be inspected for both the design of the fences, plus the design of the track to see how it flowed relating to the class it was meant for. I am pleased to say that I passed with flying colours and was awarded with my official badge of office plus appointed to be the society’s official course builder for the East Anglia, and East Midlands area.

This involved working at county shows, building courses for Wembly qualifiers and Royal internationals etc. I also was invited to become a member of the BSJA. I would be involved with anything up to thirty five shows a year. Come Friday nights I would be preparing to go in one direction to a show and Margaret would be off some where else to Judge. I was asked once if this caused any conflict between us. My reply was that, by Sunday night when we met again, we were both so tired that, a “good night”, was the most we could manage.

In 2004, we decided due to both suffering with arthritis, that we would retire to our home in Spain, to lessen the effects of long hard and wet winters, and so it was with surprise and pleasure, that having met Sue and Rod, we found ourselves being invited to join, in helping with such a worthy cause that they have so unselfishly embarked upon. Like us, they are prepared to put the welfare of there horses and animals in general at a premium, and sometimes to there own cost and comfort. They are definitely our sort of people, and we want to offer as much support as we can. Good luck to the charity and all of the people who help.

Margaret Tingley.

I started riding at 11 years of age and had my first pony for my 12th birthday, which was a New Forest cross thoroughbred standing at 14hh. I joined the pony club - fox hunted and went to local shows. Two years later, my father bought me a 14.2 jumping pony who was also brilliant at cross country. We did pony club horse trial teams for a number of years and finally competed at the pony club national championships when the pony was 21 years of age. We then retired him.

When I left school I trained under a German instructor and also Peter Jeffries who started the association of British Riding Schools. I was there eighteen months and passed all pony club exams ( D C B & A )

At the age of 19 years with the help of my father, I opened a hunter livery yard, including hunter hirings. This enabled me to carry on competing with my own horses plus other peoples, and was very successful.

One of my horses won the National Riding Club Dressage championships. Another very good horse I had was upgraded to open horse trials, medium dressage, grade B show jumping and was champion at national level at the Horse of the Year Show in London for dressage, with jumping on two occasions, and reserve champion twice, all in four years. He took me to Horse of the Year Show and on 6 different occasions won or was placed each time. We were also in the winning Riding club team, and jumping in the main arena at Hickstead. At the age of nineteen we were still winning hunter trials. Another great achievement with this horse was when we qualified for the Burghly Three Day Event.

My teaching career started a little later with me passing my BHS exams, Horsemasters and BHAI: I trained local riding club and pony club teams with placings at national level.

When my children came along, my interests where steered towards small ponies, which I preferred to buy unbroken and produce myself for showing, as manners are of top priority for childrens safety. We had some very nice ponies over the years and a lot of wins. Our ponies hunted and went to pony club. I ran the school for thirty two years which was BHS and MBRS approved. After the children had left home, I treated myself to a Connemara pony mare which I bought from her breeder at 10 months old. I do like native ponies!

We showed her in hand with a lot of success as a 2/3 year old at county shows and she was young stock champion at breed show. I backed her at 3 years of age and then started her again in the following spring when she was four.

Her first show was ECCS where she won the novice rider. We started novice dressage and basic jumping; some of my best results were winning working hunter pony classes at the breed shows and qualifying for NPS championships. At six years of age she rode 45 dressage tests, winning ten, second in ten and third or forth in the others. She also liked show jumping. I was very proud of her when she qualified for the trail blazers national dressage at Stoneleigh, doing prelim and novice at 6 years of age, plus novice and medium levels at 7 years, both with good placings and at 8 years coming home with a first and second place also a ninth and tenth.

As the riding school became larger, we were asked if we could take some disabled riders from a local hospital as the physio thought this may be good therapy for them.

This was before the RDA was officialy started. We did this for over eighteen years. During that time we formed our own RDA registered group involving a total of ten sections a week which included approximately 90 riders.

Two of our disabled riders represented the group at RDA regional dressage using our show horses. These horses also did all lessons, went to pony camp in the summer plus days out fox hunting in the winter.

We decided to come to Spain and have a quiet life but having rescued three dogs, two kittens, bought an old horse to ride, who thinks he is about four, things have snowballed very quickly and our time is fairly taken up caring for them all. Since meeting Sue and Rod we became keen to join in with the rescue of horses and ponies. My husband and I are very honoured to be asked to become patrons of the new charity and we will endeavour to help all we can with the plight of those horses and ponies that find themselves in need of care.

To show our commitment to the cause, we have adopted a yearling colt, called Moses