The Brooke - India Ride raises £90,000 for the Brooke

Thirty Brooke supporters have completed the ultimate challenge for charity by riding 120 miles horseback across testing terrain in Rajasthan northern India, to raise money for the charity’s work in India.

The intrepid riders trekked eight hours a day for five days through dusty desert, volcanic outcrops and lush mountain terrain raising a total of £90,000 for the Brooke in the process.

Passing through villages, the riders were cheered by crowds of waving people.

“Children would run out to greet us, waving and shouting…it was a fantastic experience,” says Jane Whyte from Bournemouth. Like the other riders, Jayne fundraised to meet the £3,000 target that enabled her to take part.

The trip was Annie Allington’s first to India and, for her, it had a poignant aspect: her grandparents had lived in India where her engineer grandfather worked on the Bombay and Calcutta Railway, and her mum, too, spent much of her childhood there.

"The stories mum used to tell about India suddenly fell into place; it was wonderful,” says Yorkshire-based Annie. “The local people were warm and friendly running out to say hello as we rode past - they must have thought we were bonkers!"

For Andrew Varley, the trek’s only male rider, the experience was a baptism by fire - he learned to ride especially so he could join his girlfriend, life-long rider Andrea Reynolds, on the trek.

“It was tough,” says Andrew, a landscape gardener from Northumberland. “Most of us ended up sunburned and sore, but it was a fantastic experience.”

En route, the riders saw first-hand the vital work of the Brooke’s mobile veterinary teams when they visited one of many field clinics held by the charity’s vets across India.

"Seeing the difference the Brooke teams are making for these hardworking Animals and the poor people who depend on them for a livelihood was worth all the effort. It really brought home to us just why we were out there, and the importance of the money we had raised throughout the year," says Nicola Farmer from Swansea.

Nicola Farmer and Scarlet Emporer © Brooke

Nicola almost never made the ride. After she had booked it, she ran across a field to feed her horse, but tripped and broke her leg. "The cast only came off a few months before we left for India, and I had a rush to get fit enough for the ride," she says. "In the end I was fine, but the ride was really challenging."

The money raised by the group will be used to support the Brooke’s programme of veterinary care and training in India, which includes competitions for children, animal care workshops in villages and free access to veterinary treatment for thousands of horses, donkeys and mules.

The next Brooke challenge will be a 400km cycling expedition along the banks of the Nile River in Egypt, from 11th – 19th October 2008. For more information please call Charlotte Simmonds on 020 7968 0826, or email: charlotte@thebrooke.org.