HEROS Charity and leading pioneers of body protection in Equestrian Sport, Racesafe forge partnership

HEROS Charity and Racesafe have forged a new partnership, working together to educate people on the importance of equestrian safety. Racesafe have generously supplied the Special Educational Needs (SEN) students attending HEROS Education with the body protectors, to keep them as safe and secure as possible when riding and handling horses.

HEROS Charity, based in Oxfordshire, is British Horse Racing’s Aftercare Lead, working in partnership with RoR on aftercare provisions for former racehorses. Since HEROS started in 2006, it has retrained and rehomed 100’s of former racehorses, working hard to find the most suitable new life for each individual thoroughbred that comes through the HEROS retraining programme.

In 2015, HEROS diversified and started HEROS Education and now welcomes up to 65 students aged 11 to 16 per week with Special Educational Needs (SEN). They also run a post 16 Diploma courses for SEN students with EHCPs, with a view to finding them relevant equine jobs at the end of it. HEROS uses former racehorses as a catalyst to spark inspiration into SEN students. The synergy in educating both horses and students is a unique model that works brilliantly well for both.

This new partnership will see many exciting activations and collaborations, working with the SEN students that attend HEROS Education provision, to show both the importance of rider safety and how the students learn and develop using former racehorses.

One of the aims at HEROS is to educate the wider equestrian world on all parts of owning a horse, from equine nutrition to safety and everything in between, so together with Racesafe, HEROS aims to further develop and expand its strategy on educating people on rider and horse safety.

Grace Muir Founder and CEO of HEROS commented; ‘We are hugely excited to work with Racesafe and are very grateful to receive new Racesafe body protectors for our students and team at HEROS. Racesafe’s high quality equipment is fantastic for HEROS students, many of whom are vulnerable young people, so having access to top of the range equipment is essential in making them feel safe and secure. However, our partnership with Racesafe goes much further than that. Together we want to further educate people on the importance of rider safety. These wonderful horses we know so well and love, can be unpredictable, so having the right equipment is paramount to ensuring the safest environment possible. Working with Racesafe we want to communicate this message far and wide.’

“We’re really pleased to be working with Heros said Racesafe’s James How. Educating people on rider safety is a key focus for us and by supporting Heros’ work with SEN students and ex racehorses we plan to share that message more widely. Each body protector that leaves our Northamptonshire factory is underpinned by over 50 years of research and development, ensuring that every rider has access to the highest levels of protection and performance, whether starting out riding, or competing at the top of the sport. We’re glad to offer the students at Heros this market-leading safety wear and look forward to following their journey.”