Todmorden Country Fair 22/06/2024

https://todmordencountryfair.com/ 22nd June 2024.

My background is growing up with 3 brothers, a boatload of foster kids and lodgers. My mum and dad were frugal but had a beat-up old VW camper van and took us out camping and for kids’ parties, piling us all in. Sometimes we had to get out and push!!

When I had kids – 2 step kids, Sid (19), Violet (16) and later Elowen (10) and Frank (5) we took them all over in our old beat-up camper van to festivals and camping and days out and kids parties that I planned meticulously. I always wanted the kids to have the BEST memories and the BEST parties that people would talk about for years.

Hobby Horse Adventures started as an idea based on the pony shows we go to. I thought that I could hire an arena since there was nowhere for my kids to go. I expected a few school friends and the odd kids from the local stable yards. But I still wanted to make it as fun as possible and a mix between a kids’ party and a festival!

Every family festival we go to and pony shows in particular we always make a beeline for the Crafty Pony stand (Defender Bramham International Horse Trials, Great Yorkshire Show, HOYS) and every birthday and Christmas a bulk of Elowen’s presents are from our favourite toy pony brand, Crafty Ponies.

We advertised our first Hobby Horse Adventures event in the late Christmas holidays. Within days we had over 100 people interested and parents contacting me excited and grateful, all with the same story – their kids did it and wanted to go to Finland as there was nowhere in the UK!

The cheeky, optimistic side of my made me think it might be worth contacting some of our favourite brands and suppliers we would love to be involved if we were going to get a good turnout. Lisa & Lucie laughed when I told them I had contacted Crafty Ponies, PonyMag, Horse & Hound, Yorkshire Evening Post and LeMieux.Little did they know all of them got excited by the concept and wanted to be involved.

Within weeks a few of them had got back to me and agreed to run articles, supply raffle prizes and most exciting of all was that Crafty Ponies wanted to come to our event as they had a hobby horsing child who would LOVE to come. They also said they would bring a stand so then I thought I had REALLY made it!

Our relationship with Tamzin at Crafty Ponies has gone from visiting her stands at every show we attend, buying her toys for every birthday and Christmas, inviting her to attend our first-ever hobby horse event, her daughter participating in the event, her running her stall, us selling her stock for her, us becoming a stockist to now…

Tamzin has asked us to bring Hobby Horsing to the TODMORDEN COUNTRY SHOW. This Iconic agricultural horse and country show that Tamzin co-organises in the local town near where she lives is everything I love – animals, outdoors, kids and hopefully sunshine!

Todmorden Show includes more shows, a dog show, ferrets, terrier racing, sheep, falconry, donkeys, llamas, fairground, vintage cars and tractors (I am not going to see Frank all day!), handicrafts and produce, arts and crafts and now HOBBY HORSING!  

We will take to the ring and give a demonstration (Elowen and Frank) before running our clear round classes all day. Everyone gets a rosette.

We feel so honoured to be selected to represent the Hobby Horsing community and bring hobby horsing to new people or children who don’t know there are now events you can attend and classes you can do.

We can’t wait to have a lovely day out here and hopefully become a regular spot at country shows!! (we are open to taking bookings for 2025 and already have some in the pipeline!!).

My kids will have a great day out here and we can’t wait.