In the charge of a small team of friendly and knowledgeable people from the Hayling Island donkey sanctuary. See reference 1. We learned some stuff about donkeys.
Donkeys, like humans and dogs, have friends. In a place like the sanctuary, donkey A may get on with donkey B, spend quality time with donkey B, but not with donkey C. Donkey A is apt to grieve if donkey B goes missing.
Donkeys get a bit tetchy if they don't get out and about a bit. So these ones seem to like their outings to Bognor. They also like and need a bit of serious exercise.
Donkeys are very hardy and very strong for their size, although regulations limit the weight they are allowed to carry to 8 stone - so most children but not many adults. For his famous ride into Jerusalem, Jesus probably got some kind of exemption from the sanhedrin, an early version of the Health & Safety Executive (aka HSE, which once used to include AI, the alkali inspectorate, rather than artificial intelligence, not then invented, in those far off days when we had both intelligence of our own and alkalis to inspect). In the case of children, stirrups are more bother than they are worth, so the saddles are provided with steel hoops at the pommel which the child can grab hold of. I thought that this might be an idea with horses, but the team said that this would make bending forward uncomfortable, something one does quite a lot of on a horse.
Reference 1: http://www.haylingislanddonkeys.co.uk/.
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