Hello, here I’m going to try and do my best to give you a bit of my background to enable you to form a bit of an impression.. and if you’d like to know any more, please drop me a message.
The usual grassroots horsey upbringing, lots of pony club camps with the obligatory trips to A&E. I chose to put an academic spin on my equestrian endeavours and completed an HND in Equine Management in Yorkshire. This included a year in industry during which I duly tripped off to Spain to learn the ropes on a classical dressage yard, which tied in nicely alongside my mums burgeoning PRE and PRE Fusion stud at home.
My time in Spain certainly cemented my love for the breed and set me along the path as a more effective and understanding dressage rider. Although my thirst for formal learning was unquenched, so off to the Royal Agricultural College for me and after many black tie events I emerged with a BSc Hons in International Equine and Agricultural Business Management. This was followed by a ski season and some au pairing which all set me up with the tools and life learning to take on a yard which I managed for a year, successfully providing all livery services and learning the saintly patience required of a livery yard manager. Luckily I was saved from a second winter there by a PRE stud owner requiring a new manager. I worked at Rocky Lane Andalusians for four years overseeing all aspects of managing a busy breeding enterprise and training/competing a variety of horses. My hard work there paid off and I can credit myself with producing and piloting Oculto II to BAPSH National Ridden Champion in 2009, amongst many other accolades. At the same time I had a steady string of my mums homebred youngsters to back and produce, lots of spooky baby Intro tests certainly makes all those lunge lessons in Spain worth it!
Saddlers Hall
I had the good fortune, in many ways, of having a lovely and very good master saddler and saddle fitter to look after us at the stud. In fact they were so good and made the job look so easy I decided it was the new path for me.
I relocated and embraced life back in full time education to complete the Cordwainers Diploma which is the starting step to achieving the qualification of being a Society of Master Saddlers qualified saddler, I completed my training through an apprenticeship at a family run equestrian supplies store and I subsequently settled into life as their resident bench saddler carrying out all repairs, bespoke leather requests and began the lengthy task of acquiring enough knowledge and skill to become an SMS qualified saddle fitter. I seemed to have a bit of a knack with the saddlers round knife and the awards and prizes began to mount up, including overall best bridlework entry at the 2016 SMS National Saddlery Competition.
Early 2017 I was lucky enough to be invited on a tour of Albion Saddlemakers factory and participate in a demo day. This exposure to the inner workings of a highly developed international brand really highlighted how much more I could do within my chosen career. After knocking on a few virtual doors, CV in hand, I was granted a ‘chat’ with the Director, a job offer was proffered, and eagerly accepted. The job title is a rather lengthy one but includes hand making bespoke/custom Albion bridlework and accessories, researching, designing & developing new products and most excitingly - saddle fitting for our sponsored riders. A very varied and lovely job within a great team.
I still work with Albion but I couldn’t ignore my growing love for saddle fitting so I decided to reduce my hours which freed up some time for adventures out on the road with my flocking irons, meeting and helping a vast array of people and their horsey companions.
Also that old maternal instinct started to kick in somewhere along the way and I ended up putting down roots in Shropshire with my partner and three sons.
There you have it... apologies, it appears ‘succinct’ isn’t in my vocabulary!
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