Our meeting on 04 October 2023 was a face to face meeting with a speaker, David Cherry of the Rotary Club of Pinner who spoke on his experiences owning a thoroughbred horse. There was also some business to sort out including an allocation of crocus corms for the Inner Wheel Club of Northwick Park and another for our garden in Northwick Park Hospital. There was also some good news with a member’s son being selected to become a partner in his employer’s firm. We also had to consider accommodation for our Rotary Scholar at the coming District Conference.
We then learned about the history of thoroughbred horses, who are descended from just three Arab stallions imported to England in 16th Century. All thoroughbred horses in the Northern hemisphere share the same birthday – 1st January (and 01 August in the Southern hemisphere)!
David described how he came to own a thoroughbred horse as his first horse in his 50s, and the difficulties he had had with learning to ride (let alone learning to ride a thoroughbred). He had hurt himself many times falling off the horse which was highly strung (like many thoroughbreds) before discovering that the horse had also hurt itself jumping fences before he owned it. In the end, after owning it for 16 years, the horse had been put down when the injury started to affect its quality of life.
By then, David had the ‘bug’ along with his wife, and they both ended up owning horses, and stabling them locally at Bury Farm Equestrian Centre. David had also entered dressage competitions and found the experience very challenging.
Robert proposed the Club’s Vote of Thanks after there had been a stream of questions from the members comparing horse ownership to other hobbies and pets.
