I'm India: volunteer coach and long-time devotee of Abingdon RDA (Riding for the Disabled Association) in Southmoor, Oxfordshire. I've seen and been involved in a lot of the behind the scenes of keeping our group going through the pandemic, including a 3 month total closure, a phased reopening, and a total wipe out for all of our regular fundraising events. It's not been an easy year for a charity which has been limited in so many ways, and hasn't been able to do good on the front line because of the nature of its work. We want and need to be in a good place to continue offering our life-changing riding sessions to disabled children and adults when we are able to operate at full capacity again, but until then the horses will still need feeding, the yard will need maintaining, vet and farrier bills need paying...

Some good news this autumn is that we are able to go ahead with our 7 mile sponsored ride at Blenheim Palace (a big fixture in our regular fundraising calendar, and possible to run under current regulations) and I am fortunate enough to have been offered a ride on one of our wonderful RDA horses. It might be interesting to see how much of my quarantine home workouts can be applied to a few hours in the saddle, but I am keen to use the opportunity to raise as much as possible. All donations go directly to Abingdon RDA, keeping our horses happy, fit and healthy; our yard safe and well equipped for sessions; and our group ready to continue making opportunities for disabled riders.

The sponsored ride is taking place on 2nd October, which by happy coincidence is shortly before my birthday on the 5th! I was planning on running a birthday fundraiser already, but have decided to streamline this with sponsorship for the Blenheim ride (nothing like making it easy to donate to a worthy cause, right?). My RDA group is a huge personal priority for me, and securing its present and future would be a real gift for more than just me.

If you are interested in my reasons for giving so much of my time and energy to this incredible organisation, I also blog about RDA in my spare time and post weekly on my website, www.rdacoachindia.co.uk. I've been volunteering with my group for close to nine years, but last year decided to write down some of the experiences and thoughts which have come up during that time. Particularly relevant to this year's challenges are the posts under the #NoRDA label.

If you are able to support me, whether by donating or sharing, a huge thank you! RDA groups cost a lot of money to keep going (horses aren't cheap), but the impact each one has is something way beyond anything money can buy. We want our riders to keep riding way beyond my seven miles on 2nd October!

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If you'd like to learn a bit more about our RDA group and see us in action, a great place to start is our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/abingdonrda/

If you would like more information on the sponsored ride (perhaps you'd like to bring your own horse?), you can find it here: http://www.rda-abingdon.org.uk/blenheim.htm