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Coldblow Equestrian
Training & Camp Centre
Coldblow Pony Club's Halloween Party
The pictures above show the Coldblow Pony Club Members and our Instructors, Head Girl and Working Students at our Halloween Party.
About Us
There have of course been horses at Coldblow Farm for many hundreds of years. The farm is situated in a truly rural locality on the Kent Downs between Maidstone & Sittingbourne. We, the Pilkington family, purchased the farm in late 1998. The farm was somewhat derelict having been run as an intensive poultry meat production unit and heavy goods vehicle premises in the 1990’s.
Initially we kept our own horses on the farm and gradually built up a small livery business. The main farm business is now self-catering holiday accommodation. We have a small holiday cottage in which we discovered a Victorian stable floor underneath several feet of rubble.
We established Coldblow Equestrian as a licensed riding centre in September 2007 and it has built up over the past three years. Our primary business is to offer career training but we do cater and welcome the leisure rider. Our young riders are so keen they have recently persuaded us to start up an After School Club as well as their Saturday lessons! Every school holiday we have to organise Sleepover Camps too! As soon as we judge our students and clients to be ready we encourage them to hack out and also take part in competitions such as dressage and show jumping at a nearby competition centre.
From June to September we open our Centre to outside Clubs and groups for Horse Camps and this is building into a successful venture. We initially thought our Camps would be mainly Pony Club Summer Camps but in fact the “Grown Ups” camps: local Riding Clubs, Richard Maxwell Forum Camp, etc. outnumber the under 21’s Camps!
NVQ Training in partnership with land based training provider KEITS has offered to Staff & Working Students since 1996. We firmly believe that NVQ training and qualifications, if done properly, are an excellent complementary package to the BHS qualifications. We have developed our confidence in training staff and students for BHS examinations and to date all our internal students and private clients have passed – with none or very few ‘x’s! We have prepared students for BHS Stages 1 – IV (now known as Certificates and Diplomas) and both the PTT & Intermediate Instructor’s Training.
We are currently looking into the BHS Equestrian Tourism and BDS carriage driving qualifications as an alternative to the instructor’s qualifications. We are already BHS Where to Ride Approved and hoping to gain, shortly, the prestige of BHS Where to Train approval.
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