How we became Adventure Clydesdale

This business is born of a passion for Clydesdale heavy horses with which I have been involved for the last ten years. Clydesdales, the heavy horse of Scotland, are classed as a rare breed and numbers have dwindled over the years simply because they have lost their traditional use in agriculture and draft work as these industries have moved on and increasingly mechanised (only to be expected in a changing world of cost cutting and efficiency).

What most people don’t realise is that these magnificent beasties actually make a fantastic riding horses which inspire confidence in their riders as a result of their generous but forward going nature. They are very special to work with and I spend my life now with these big friendly giants, taking people for rides out in our beautiful countryside as well as schooling them to improve their ability. Their adaptability as a breed, I believe is second to none, and their ability as a riding horse earns a living for them thereby enabling their continued existence as a breed.

My life with Clydesdales goes back to my involvement with a business called West Highland Heavy Horses, based on the Isle of Skye in the far Northwest of Scotland. We rode out with clients there on the estates of the Clan Donald Lands Trust. We gained a good reputation there and were awarded the Talisker Tourism Award for 2003, a prestigious trophy for tourism in the Scottish Highlands. In 2006, we made a decision to move from the relative obscurity of the Scottish northwest to the relatively high profile Lake District of Cumbria. To make this move we decided to journey on the backs of our big friendly giants the 450 miles from Skye to Cumbria and our new base in the Whicham valley. We journeyed with 12 of the horses with clients riding and the horses performed fantastically over the most difficult of terrain through the Highlands, lowlands and borders of Scotland and northern England, getting to our destination after six weeks travel exactly on time.

The journey was covered closely on Scottish television. This journey, dubbed “The Great Clydesdale Migration” confirmed to me the horses ability to do long journeys, giving their riders a safe and comfortable ride. Cumbrian Heavy Horses as we called ourselves, established itself in the Lake district over the next five years, taking all levels of rider on short hacks to 6 day journeys through the world class scenery of Cumbria and we were featured on the BBC Countryfile program. In so doing it has become a top tourism attraction and in 2010 we won the Best Tourism Experience, firstly in Cumbria, then in the NW region and finally at the National finals in Birmingham this year.

Cumbrian Heavy Horses continues to thrive in the Lakes but I decided to bring some of my big friendly giants down to the southwest and show off their abilities in this beautiful part of the world and to particularly concentrate on their longer journeying abilities. The riding in the south west is particularly good and gives us loads of opportunities to show off the Clydesdales abilities.

I am now based at Brimpts Farm near Dartmeet, in Dartmoor National park. Our aim for this summer is to establish several journeys in the South West both on Dartmoor and beyond. We will also be doing our own special heritage rides introducing people to the joys of riding a heavy horse and exploring the local history, archaeology and wildlife found in our area of Dartmoor. We are developing a bespoke, hands on experience for those of you who would like to come and spend time in the company of the horses learning how to look after them and work with them.

All this promises to be the next great chapter as the BFG’s find their way into peoples’ hearts as we go.