yard
The stable cats' look around
Orchard Cottage Riding Stables
Over the annual Show Day on Sunday 20th. September 1998.
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Click here for a giant 101Kb version of this wide photo (slow).

The yard is the hub of the universe, the humans started there well after sunrise today - as late as 7am, but of course a mouser's work is never done... We leave the loose boxes (for instance as above) to the horses but we patrol the offices (Hokey catnaps by the coffee machine given half a chance), and the tack room,

oakey and our favourite places include the feed room (Hokey sleeps in there) and the hay barn (Timmy hunts in there). These are shown on the left.

At times the yard can get very busy with people and horses coming and going, but we usually get a bit of peace and quiet.

 timmy
The indoor school is another place we visit, it is the massive aircraft hangar round the back of the yard. Below left you can see it set out with jumps - although why the horses go over them instead of round them beats us. They also have something in there that sounds as if it is to do with Dressing and involves prancing around looking pretty. This is nearly as mystifying as the sign below (in the middle) which we think is to remind them where they are if they get giddy from going round and round. Frankly they're wasting their time if they're looking for mice - the best mousing is at the other end, shown below right, but they never seem to let the horses in there...

Fields: The outside of the stables is enormous, but why go hunting for mice if they come to you? This doesn't stop the horses and people who go all round the cross country course, a part of which is shown on the right. They also use the falling-off field at the top (see left) and have fields beyond the hay barn, and on the far side of the cross country - on Show Day they all played in the fields and school.
And as if that wasn't enough they sometimes all wander off down the lane and we've heard from the horses that they go to far distant places like Banstead Heath. Orchard Cottage was Riding School of the Year in 1993, but Hokey says she didn't notice any difference really - still the same amount of food, mice and nice warm places to sleep.
A giant version of the yard panorama at the top of this page (Warning 101Kb, may be slow).
Our first page on the horses and what they got up to
Page 2 of horses and courses on Show Day 1998.
Finally our thanks, links (and a few more pictures) page.
back to our Orchard Cottage Riding Stables home page.

 URL: http://www.vino.demon.co.uk/ocrs/places.html. Latest update: 21st. September 1998.