A 13-year-old girl is cycling to every one of Redwings’ five visitor centres across England and Scotland to raise money for the largest horse welfare charity in the UK – with a little help from her father and his best friend.
Fantastic fundraiser Isabel Wright, from Rugby, Warwickshire will start her journey at Redwings Mountains in Forfar, Angus, Scotland on Saturday (19th) along with her father Rich Jones and his best friend Dave Wright, who’ll take it in turns to ride the distance on a tandem bike with her.
The route will see them cycle 740 miles, averaging between 50 and 70 miles a day, visiting Redwings Caldecott and Redwings Aylsham, both in Norfolk, Redwings Ada Cole in Essex before finishing the tour at Redwings Oxhill in Warwickshire.
It’s the latest – and biggest – challenge Isabel has undertaken in aid of Redwings, who she has been fundraising for over the past two years.
Isabel said: “I don’t have a horse of my own, but I love and ride horses.
“My nan took me to my local Redwings visitor centre when I was eight and it gave me the idea that I wanted to raise money to help them. I decided I wanted to do something every summer.
“My dad and me are really into fitness so we wanted to do things that would be a good challenge.
“This is the third fundraiser we’ve done, and I can’t wait!”
Isabel, Rich and Dave walked 100 miles across the Shetland Islands in 2021 and the father and daughter did two of the three highest peaks in Wales in 2022 before their trip had to be cut short.
Rich said: “We started planning when Isabel was nine but then Covid happened, and we had to delay it for a year.
“Isabel had connected the Shetland Islands with Shetland ponies, which is how we ended up doing the first challenge. When I realised it was a 12-hour ferry ride I thought we might have made a mistake! We walked ten miles a day for ten days, finishing on Isabel’s 11th birthday.
“The plan was to do one big challenge then a smaller one the next year, so we stayed a bit more local with the Wales trip which unfortunately had to be abandoned two thirds of the way through.
“Isabel came up with the idea of visiting all of the Redwings visitor centres this year, and as we’ve done a walk and a hike we decided on a cycle – the next one will probably be a swim!”
Isabel has raised over £3,000 for Redwings with her annual fundraisers so far.
Debbie Scott, Head of Fundraising at Redwings, said: “What Isabel is doing is just brilliant and we couldn’t be more grateful for her support.
“Redwings is entirely funded through generous donations, and we couldn’t do any of the work we do to help horses, ponies, donkeys and mules who need us without our amazing Redwings angels.
“We’ll be giving Isabel, Rich and Dave a big welcome at our visitor centres when they arrive and we’d love our supporters to come and cheer them on too – keep checking Redwings social media to find out more.”
In 2022 Redwings took in 109 horses and ponies. The charity’s field officers identified and intervened in 175 cases, improving the conditions of 622 horses through advice to their owners or the removal of the equine into their care. Horses taken in so far this year include Alfie, whose owner contacted Redwings after he was found with a serious and potentially life-changing injury to his face thought to be caused by a dog attack. He has now almost fully recovered thanks to Redwings care.
To support Isabel in raising funds for the charity please visit her JustGiving page here.
Suzanne Ashton, Founder of Everything Horse (Est, 2012), has a BA Hons in Marketing Management and a Diploma in Equine Science. Suzanne has ridden and owned horses all her life and has twelve years of experience in marketing, writing, design, SEO, and website creation.