Keysoe International has unveiled its masterplan for the future, to provide top-class training facilities for riders at all levels, alongside projects that support the local community, including a professional therapy and wellbeing centre, and a cafe that caters for all.
Formerly The College Equestrian Centre, Keysoe International in Bedfordshire was bought by Sarah Stoute in December 2020. Mrs Stoute has since expanded the site from 270 acres to 570 acres, and invested in improving the facilities, including the existing arenas and cafe.
The stables, which are the base for her daughter’s competition horses as well as hosting top international riders, have moved from across Church Road on to the main site, and a brand new all-weather cross-country training arena has been added.
However, the planned next steps in the redevelopment extend far beyond what has gone before.
Although an official planning application has not yet been submitted, Mrs Stoute’s vision is to build a brand new state-of-the-art yard for elite riders to use as a training base to help them prepare for major competitions. The yard will include climate-controlled barns and a range of indoor and outdoor arenas, as well as the latest therapy systems, including a hydrotherapy pool.
A birds-eye view of the proposed redevelopment of Keysoe International.
The plan has the support of a number of top riders, including Cian O’Connor, David Simpson, William Funnell, Natasha Baker and Sir Lee Pearson.
“The new development at Keysoe will be a unique opportunity for athletes to stay in the UK and they would no longer have to travel abroad to develop,” said Cian. “We need facilities like Keysoe here in the UK, where grass-roots riders to elite athletes can train, develop and practise before competitions.”
The grass-roots of the sport also feature prominently in Mrs Stoute’s plans. The Keysoe Academy will enable riders of all levels to benefit from the new training facilities. She plans to work with the affiliated governing bodies, as well as local riding clubs and Pony Clubs, to provide camps and other training opportunities on site. The site hosted 32 members of the Woodland Pytchley branch of the Pony Club for camp this year.
Mrs Stoute explained: “I want horses and riders to come here and be safe. The whole site is now fenced and we have security on site at the stables. When hosting children for Pony Club camp, safeguarding is critical. We won’t have members of the public wandering around during camp and everything is secure.”
A new indoor arena that would be available for elite and grass-roots riders to use.
By splitting the site into zones, Mrs Stoute believes it is possible to cater for the needs of very different groups. Professional landscaping will be used to produce a calm and natural environment with buildings that are in keeping with the local area. “The future’s more than just riders,” she said.
The current indoor arena building will be redeveloped into a much larger cafe, while the old lorry park will be redesigned to provide safe parking, enabling it to become even more of “a local hub for the community”, and visually enhance the area.
With a background in nursing and medical supplies, Mrs Stoute explained that “physical health and mental wellbeing remain close to my heart”. The existing Keysoe Therapy & Well-Being Centre provides both on-site and off-site animal-assisted therapy sessions, but the number of people the service can currently help is limited by its facilities.
An artist’s impression of the new animal-assisted therapy centre at Keysoe International.
The plan is to move the therapy centre to the other side of the road from the cafe and equestrian facilities, which will allow it to expand considerably. The old stable barns will be redeveloped into classrooms, which will allow therapy sessions to continue year-round and mean the expansion of the centre’s existing assessment services for autism and ADHD.
The therapy centre will be set in new sensory therapy gardens, which will be accessible to everyone including those with mobility challenges. The centre will then be able to expand to offer more therapeutic services.
For those wanting to know if the future for Keysoe International will include running regular competitions, the answer is no. Although Mrs Stoute is not ruling competitions out entirely – “we might host a small number of invitational shows a year” – the venue returning to being a competition centre is not on the agenda.
“Sometimes the things that people want don’t make good business sense,” she said.
Keysoe International is hosting a pre-planning submission public engagement meeting on site from 2.30pm until 7.30pm on Tuesday, 7 November. People who work in the equestrian sector and those that live in the local area are invited to attend to learn more about Keysoe International’s development plans.
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