FRIENDS rallied round Sally Haynes, staging a horse show for her benefit, after she was paralysed from the waist down in a riding accident.

The event was so successful, raising more than £2,000, that the group of volunteers decided to hold another – but this time to expand the show. At Sally’s request it was to help send a team of paraplegics athletes to the International Stoke Mandeville Games.

This became the first Finmere Jumping Show, with the Duke of Edinburgh as its patron.

Now known as the Bicester and Finmere Show, the event will celebrating its 50th birthday on Saturday and Sunday, August 1 and 2.

So far the shows have raised more than £550,000 for charities that help people with spinal and other severe injuries.

Sally, who was involved in the organisation for most of the 50 years, said “We could not have kept the show going for half a century and raised so much money if it had not been for all the volunteers giving their timefree.”

The show has always drawn on the local horse and hunting fraternity. Chairman is Derek Ricketts, who is manager of the British showjumping team and lives at Aldershot Farm, Howes Lane, Bicester. His wife, Sue, is one of the secretaries.

Sally added: “I have known Derek since I was a child. He has been involved in the show since the beginning.”

Sally, who had been riding ponies and horses since she was toddler, was in her first season as a point-to-point rider when she had her accident at the Grafton Hunt races near Towcester.

She was rushed by ambulance to hospital , where it was found that her spinal chord had been severed, leaving her paralysed from the waist down.

She was transferred to the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, near Aylesbury, for treatment and rehabilitation.

The centre was run by Dr Ludwig Guttman, who founded the Stoke Mandeville Games in 1948 when competitors were mostly ex-servicemen and women who had been injured in the Second World War.

Sally said: “Dr Guttman had realised the therapeutic benefits of sport for rehabilitation. I began by doing archery, then swapped to fencing.”

As a member of the British team she took part in five paraplegic Olympic Games, which have since dropped the Stoke Mandeville title to become the Paralympics.

“In the early days we tried to interest the BBC in broadcasting the games but they declined, saying they thought it might be distasteful. But attitudes towards the disabled have changed and the BBC now covers the games.”

Twice a week Sally goes to Stoke Mandeville Hospital as one of six volunteers who talk to patients with spinal and other injuries.

“We tell them that although they and their families have been thrown into a new world, there is much they can still achieve. I was told I could expect to live for 15 years but I am still here 50 years after my accident.”

Over the years the show has moved around from her parent’s home, Hill Leys Farm, Finmere, to land at the old Finmere airfield and after a brief spell on the outskirts of Bicester to the present site at Dymocks Farm, Buckingham Road, Bicester, at the invitation of John O’Niell.

In 1998, Sally was awarded the MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her charitable work.