Imagine being 3 feet tall and being able to come face to face with a horse as small as you are.

Toddlers in Claudia Campbell’s Little Pony Mommy and Me class get to do just that.

The class is the latest addition to Campbell’s packed schedule. The busy mom of 1-year-old Sasha and 3-year-old Arabella has been riding since she was 6, and taking and giving lessons all of her adult life.

She moved to Loxahatchee 10 years ago with her husband Scott. She teaches English riding and hunt seat equitation. She taught at Wellington Show Stables for years before she started giving her own lessons.

The Campbells’ home is named Delmar Farm after Campbell’s 17-year-old horse Delgamo, the only horse she brought with her from New York. The farm has 13 horses, four dogs, four cats and two bunnies. Campbell got the idea for the Little Pony Mommy and Me class while taking Arabella to gymnastics class. Campbell noticed that the parents just stood around while their children were having their lessons.

“I noticed that the moms had nothing to do,” she said.

Campbell thought that a Mommy and Me class that involved her miniature horses would be a great way for the kids and their parents to interact and for the toddlers to mimic what they saw adults doing.

“I got the idea from my 3-year-old,” Campbell said. “She’s been grooming and brushing since she was old enough to walk. She’s always been obsessed with doing everything that I do and everything the kids are doing.”

The class is in its infancy, but is already showing promise.

“I have a Monday and Tuesday class, and I might have to start a third,” Campbell said.

Campbell has a handful of high school students who help her in exchange for lessons. She needs all the help she can get during the summer when she has camps, lessons and classes going on simultaneously.

“It’s a lot of hard work, don’t get me wrong! It’s hot, you have a lot of responsibility, but I have the best counselors,” she said.

The toddler class is held in the afternoons once the high school students get out of school.

When the kids and their parents arrive at Campbell’s farm in the Deer Run neighborhood, the horses are ready to go.

“When the kids get here, I have two ponies tacked up with girls leading them and two miniatures here in the barn on cross ties,” she said. “I have a bucket of brushes. They come right in and start grooming the minis. They brush them. They each go out two at a time and do pony rides. The moms walk alongside them. When they are all done, everyone gets a bucketful of hay and they all get to feed the ponies and the minis.”

The toddler class is an introduction to horses for many of the kids. Campbell hopes the kids will continue to take lessons once they’ve outgrown the minis. She hopes people will see the Little Pony Mommy and Me Class as an alternative to traditional toddler activities.

“I think it teaches them to work with animals,” she said. “If they want to ride, it’s an introduction. It’s good for their motor skills because they’re working with brushes. They’re working with animals, so they need to be aware. They can’t just run around; they have to learn some rules because it is more dangerous than being in a dance class. They have to be more aware with animals.”

The Prescott Animal Hospital treats animals of every shape and size.

However, treating horses at its Iron Springs Road office is a challenge. Horse owners find it difficult to maneuver their trucks and trailers on the parking lot.

All that is about to change.

The veterinarians at the animal hospital are opening a new equine center at the Prescott Air Park specifically for the treatment of their four-legged patients. It is the first all-equine hospital north of Phoenix.

Drs. Steven Dow and Bryan Nolte will open a new Prescott Animal Hospital Equine Center for the safe and efficient treatment of horses this summer.

Dow said the wide doors and large rooms will allow staff members to walk the horses into the building for exams. The hospital will use state of the art diagnostic equipment including ultrasound and digital radiography.

One of the exam rooms includes a bay door and stocks so horses can enter the exam stall directly from the trailer.

“The stocks provide a safe place to examine and perform procedures,” said Nolte. “Stocks are like a gurney is for people.”

Adjacent to the exam room and on both sides of the surgery room are padded, post-surgery stalls.

The new center includes a fully functional laboratory. Dow said the doctors do a lot of their own lab work.

“A lot of the lab work is the result of emergencies,” he said.

The nine stalls will line the side of the building for overnight stays.

In addition to the exam and surgery rooms, the new equine center will have an apartment for vet students or staff members keeping an all-night vigil on a patient.

Five veterinarians work at the Prescott Animal Hospital. Dow and Nolte both work on large animals, with Nolte doing most of the detail work.

Operating on a horse is not easy. First, the animal receives a pre-anesthetic. The doctors then lay the animal on its side, place it in a hoist and raise it onto a padded table.

Nolte said horses tolerate anesthesia relatively well, but staff members monitor them closely during surgery.

“Operating on horses is an art that requires a padded room,” Dow said.

Nolte said the new equine center is not just for surgery.

“This is a full-blown hospital. The need for an equine hospital in this area is great,” Nolte said.

People who take their small animals to the Prescott Animal Hospital need not worry that the doctors will abandon them. Dow said the office on Iron Springs Road would remain open for the exclusive treatment of small animals.

Dow said the original plan was to open the new equine center the end of May. However, he said crews still need to finish some of the details and Dow and Nolte want to wait until “everything is perfect.”

The new Prescott Animal Hospital Equine Center is at 2611 Avenger in the Prescott Air Park.

A RESTORED horse-drawn grocery van fondly remembered by Fleckney residents has made its first appearance since the 1950s.
The refurbished Co-op van was back in the public eye at the recent St George’s Day event in the village.

It was its first public appearance since a restoration project was finished at the end of last year.

The van spent decades in retirement, lying in a village garden as a pigeon coop until it was bought and restored by Fleckney History Group.

Secretary Betty Morley said: “There was a lot of positive response to it. There was a shire horse there and people were shown how they are harnessed up.

“There was even a chap there who worked on it and other people in the village who remembered it.”

The van is kept by one of the restorers, Gary Ward, of Lubenham, on condition that he brings it to the village when requested.

Lindsay Sceats spends about 30 hours a week with horses — after school and on the weekends.

“My bond with horses is extraordinarily important to me, and my daily hours at the barn are an escape from the pressures of school and the real world,” she said.

Her love for the animals goes back to when she was a toddler, and her mother used a Barbie horse to cajole her into using the potty.

“When I was little I wouldn’t go to the bathroom in the toilet, so my mom got me a Barbie horse and said if I went, I could have the horse,” Sceats said.

Sceats, whose horses are named Cruiser and Puffy, founded the Cheyenne Mountain Equestrian Team at her school three years ago and serves as captain. She ranks eighth nationally out of about 500 in her age group for competitive equestrian.

She sometimes missed school Fridays to compete in horse shows but always came back with her homework done, said one of her teachers, Janie Mueller.

Sceats, 18, has been a counselor at a horse camp for the past three summers, where she helped young and disabled campers learn about basic horse care and riding.

She plans to follow in her parents’ footsteps and become a doctor. Her goal is to volunteer with Doctors Without Borders, an international organization that delivers aid in more than 70 countries. Her training with horses, she said, is helping her prepare.

“The balance between horses and school has taught me to be an exceptional manager of time,” she said. “Working with young horses and inexperienced riders has taught me patience in the most trying situations.”

Trainers Graeme Rogerson and Peter Moody have labelled the all-conquering Redoute’s Choice filly Miss Finland the ‘the best horse racing in Australia.’

At Tuesday’s barrier draw for the $2m, Group I, David Jones AJC Australian Derby (2400m) to be held at Randwick on Saturday Rogerson was in no doubt about the status of the filly.

“Miss Finland is Australia’s best racehorse,” said the veteran trainer who won the Derby in 1997 with Ebony Grosve (NZ).

Moody backed this up on Wednesday when he said the filly was ‘the one to beat.’

“Miss Finland is arguably the best three-year-old, and probably the best horse in the land,” he said. “She is the one to beat.”

Nevertheless, both Moody and Rogerson have entrants for the Derby that they have high hopes for.

Moody has Ambitious General who was second behind Rogerson’s He’s No Pie Eater in the Group I Dubai Rosehill Guineas (2000m) at Rosehill on March 24th. The Caulfield trainer is hoping that the General Nediym colt is throwing to his dam side for his stamina for the 2400m.

Ambitious General has stepped up in distance from 1200m on January 13th, to the 2000m at Rosehill, and each time he has not been further back than third place over five races.

Rogerson’s He’s No Pie Eater has been the surprise package of the autumn, but after two Group I wins in succession there is no doubting the Canny Lad colt’s ability. He won the Chipping Norton Stakes over the older horses at weight-for-age, and then had too much turn of foot for his own generation in the Rosehill Guineas.

“”I don’t think one and a half miles (2400m) is the true distance for my horse, but he is a very good horse,” said Rogerson.

Tony Vasil, trainer of Emirates Doncaster Handicap favourite Haradasun, was in accord with the thinking of his fellow trainers on Tuesday.

“Miss Finland is the best filly in Australia and she is back to three-year-old company with a weight advantage,” said Vasil.

“She will be extremely hard to beat,” he said.

Miss Finland, the current favourite for the race, has the 2kg weight allowance over the colts and geldings. She demolished the field of fillies in the Arrowfield Stud Stakes over 2000m last Saturday by 2L without being extended.

On Saturday Miss Finland, trained by David Hayes, and to be ridden by Craig Williams, races over 2400m, for just the second time, after her win in the spring in the Crown Oaks over 2500m at Flemington.

FIREFIGHTERS battled for two hours to rescue a pony that was stuck in a dyke.
Two people were riding in the trap being pulled by the pony along Baker’s Lane, just off Wimblington Road, March.

The six-year-old black mare, called Jonah, was startled when a dog barked and ended up in the steep dyke, which has 10ft banks.

A crew from March retained fire station and a rescue vehicle from Peterborough were called to the scene, as well as a vet, who administered a tranquilliser to calm the agitated animal.

Jonah was declared fit and healthy by the vet after being winched out. No one was injured during the incident.

Firefighter Stewart Smith said: “Jonah’s owner gave £100 to the firefighters after we had rescued Jonah. That money will now be donated to the Fire Services National Benevolent Fund.”