I would like to start by thanking Shella Morton for the loan of her horse Exit Strategy.Also I would like to thank the following for their support towards this endeavour. Kitt Equestrian, Equine America, Worldwide Tack, Waterman Bros Garage, Keratex and Mrs H Hezlett.
Having set out with the idea of riding from Larkhill to Ascot for the Horses for Heroes ride, I left armed with information of where to ride to avoid the danger area at about 10am on the 7 July. Riding a horse called Exit Strategy aka Tommy kindly lent by a friend, which is 6 years old and only raced on the flat.

The first incident was to be confronted by a grey Arab galloping flat out onto the road with the saddle flapping under his belly and no rider anywhere. Managed to catch the horse, stop the traffic, the rider appeared and I left everybody to sort it out as there was a track vehicle coming straight at us. Tommy behaved perfectly throughout the whole crisis and trotted past the track vehicle. I must just emphasise how nice it was that the Arabs rider sent a van to catch me up to thank me for my help. Enough for one day you would think, but on continuing along this road, I arrived on one of the fastest and most traffic laden stretches I have ever tried to ride. Ambulance going flat out, double decker buses, cement mixers, motor bikes etc. Well I decided that after about 3 miles that it I was lost and it was too dangerous to continue, so I called Lynne who was backing me up with the range rover and trailer to come and get me. She drove up and down the A338 and could not find me. At last an army vehicle stopped and having shown him where I should be, he told me I was on the right road, so eventually Lynne found me and we loaded up. We then drove around Tidworth and she dropped me off again and I rode my route to Fifield. After the earlier experience and knowing the next bit, we loaded, drove around Andover, unloaded and then I rode to Stoke for our overnight stop.

From Stoke we set off for Riseley, a peaceful piece of riding along lanes and pretty country. I suddenly recognised a farm that belonged to a friend of a friend so went in for a chat and gave them quite a surprise. Continued over the top of the A34, worried me more than Tommy and then rode the bridle path on the old Roman Road. Some of it was not well marked and one piece narrow and over grown and the stretch on the B3349 was not at all pleasant. Continued on the lanes to Ibworth, where we loaded up and drove the rest of the way to Riseley. The day was very hot and we were getting into more urban areas and if the day before was anything to go by we came to the conclusion that this was the safest thing to do.

On the Friday morning at Riseley we took local knowledge, only to be told that the bridle path we wanted to ride was overgrown, as the day was exceedingly hot we made the decision to go by box to our overnight destination.

We were not going to be allowed to ride into Ascot racecourse on the Friday due to racing and the route I was going to take was not guaranteed that the paths were rideable. A disappointment in many ways, as         having ridden much of the route in 1987 for the Windsor to Paris Mousquetaires Ride, it would have been good to retrace my steps.

So in the end we rode about 35 miles, with Tommy being excellent. On the Saturday for the Horses for Heroes Ride at Ascot, my own horse Mrs Bustle came up and I rode her on the day. Although Tommy was brilliant on the journey, I thought it would be irresponsible to take him into a crowd of horses only having ever raced. The actual ride was well organised and a good route but it was a shame that more was not made of the event itself.

Donations are still coming in, but more are always welcome

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.