AWE Horse Transport

I'm not sure how many full time equestrians can fully appreciate how difficult it is to run a yard of competition horses with no easy or affordable access to transport but it has been quite an adventure!

It genuinely means every time you want your horse to step hoof off the yard, there are multiple people, many phone calls, forms to fill out and a lot of money and travelling that have to be involved. Every time the lorry has to be fully packed and fully emptied, mucked out, washed out and cab made spotless on the day of hire. In that time, I have driven pretty much everything; I enthusiastically got my HGV license at 21, only to learn pretty much every insurance company won't allow named drivers to be under 25, meaning I still had to hire a lorry AND a driver!

I ran a competition livery yard for 3 years, regularly taking multiple horses out competing, and now run my own producing and selling business where I often drive the length and breadth of the country picking up horses and weighing up whether it's more cost effective to use transport or for me to hire and get them myself.

After Barbury last year, I really did run out of the relentless motivation I seemed to keep finding to compete and I am so so happy this long wait is finally over and so lucky that I've made it to this point because of the kindness and generosity of so many amazing people.

I can tell you arrive back from a day of driving at 2am, in the pitch black, pi***ng rain and freezing cold, the very last thing you want to do after unloading the horse and all its stuff, is wash out the lorry and drive it a further 30 mins to 2 hours to return it and get your car and then drive home, having done that already that day, probably at some ungodly hour the previous morning. One time I had finally got home after returning everything, only to realise I had left my riding hat in the hire lorry and had to drive a further hour round trip to go and get it in the middle of the night! It’s easy to forget all the training sessions away from home and little shows that it takes to get an event horse ready for the actual event as well.

As much as it has been a long, hard relentless journey, there have been some incredible amusing memories on the way that I wouldn’t change for the world, and actually feel incredibly privileged to have had these experiences. I have met some amazing people and it means I appreciate having my own lorry more than most people can probably imagine!

I think the one that shows the most determination is when I had 3 horses entered for Hickstead and some clients horses needing to go to a show. I’d perfectly planned a prep show for weeks and we were all ready to take 6 horses, 4 in a lorry Dad was using and 2 in my Auntie’s trailer. The day before the show, the wheels literally fell off the lorry on the motorway while someone was taking some horses competing in it!!, and my Auntie had a blowout on the trailer tyre - while towing the horse I was meant to be competing - a few hours later. As Anna (auntie!) was close, Mum risked driving our dying trailer to go and rescue our beloved family horse from the hard shoulder.

I had managed to source a new 4 horse lorry but I now needed a 6 horse one!!! With our cheapest quote being £1,000, my client and friend Katya then introduced me to a transporter that must have felt sorry for us and did the most incredible deal and we went with it and made it to the show and had a great, entertaining day! When I went to the pub that evening to pay him I came out with a new job riding racehorses 📷😂

We also had a very entertaining trip to East Soley (for those that know us - what trip to East Soley is without entertainment?!), as well with one of my most amazing owner’s and great friend, Juliet. My longest standing livery client and good friend Hermione had very kindly let me hire her lorry to take the two horses, and while I was waiting to enter the arena on Juliet’s horse, I heard a crash from our truck, looked over, the jockey door flew open and my horse flew out! Unicorn, pregnant with baby Bambi (now 3 📷😊), had jumped out of the lorry! The cupboard was open and there were pony nuts all over the floor, so we think she had tried to reach the nuts in the cupboard after seeing us put them in there! She was totally unscathed but sadly she never travelled successfully with me again. I have always wondered if being tied up had caused her head to be pulled back as she jumped and made her flip completely over.

We tried to train her, the wonderful Juliet taking me everywhere in her lorry with stallion partition but she got so stressed we left it until after the baby was born. But without your own lorry, daily training is almost impossible. After she was weaned and back in work, our yard neighbours and friends Annabelle and Tiana kindly let me use their lorry for loading training. I used Timmy as the travel companion as he is so perfect, but one time when we had the partition shut, she reared, got one foot over her rope, the other in Timmy’s partition, I opened the partition to help get her out and she shot backwards still tied up (why does the string never break when you really need it to!), hit her head very hard on the top of the lorry and she just crumpled down the ramp. She needed stitches in the head wound but was otherwise ok. Poor Timmy was really frightened by the experience though and so that was the end of that! I was so disappointed to sell her to what I was strongly led to believe would be a life long home only to be told she’d been sold 3 weeks later. She is a very special horse to me but has since had amazing people in her life, all of whom have stayed in touch and she now travels well, which is so amazing! 📷

As a result, Timmy now won’t stay in a lorry with a tack locker by himself, having previously been perfect. One of my best friends in the world, Alice, took me to Solihull with 2 horses. We took Pony off to do his dressage and left Timmy as usual, only to come back from Pony’s test with Timmy standing up on the tack locker with both his front shoes hooked on the haynet! As Timmy doesn’t tie up, (he chews the rope then pulls back and panics that the rope is in his mouth, stupid I know), he had to come everywhere with us on the lead rope for the event! I found Tiana on our travels and she kindly let us store him in her lorry while we finished Pony’s event!

I borrowed Alice’s lorry again for South of England because I really needed a living to stay in for Timmy’s first CIC*. We are both so busy we had left the insurance to the very last minute and it ended up taking ages to complete, so we were sat at hers in the lorry waiting for me to be able to drive it while that was all sorted out. Eventually we were good to go and I drove it away, only to stop 5 minutes later with what felt like a flat tyre. Eventually we sorted that too and I was on my way. Stupidly I’d gone to get it before washing and plaiting, and by the time I got home it was so much later than I’d planned for. Literally the only person on the yard, and now well into the middle of the night I was washing, plaiting and packing the lorry ready to leave at 4am. I got home at midnight and decided to shower, grab some clothes, drive back to Boomerang and sleep in the lorry ready go again in 3 hours time. It all paid off and Timmy was 6th in his first one star, with Pony 3rd in his first Pre-Nervous.

When I got back to Boomerang though in the dark/around midnight the following evening, when I unloaded them we had a disaster! My horses are incredibly used to me being on my own, and they have to load and unload themselves. Timmy and Pony are pro’s. I am used to it too, often unloading 2 3yo’s by myself that don’t know each other in the dark after a long journey.

So when I untied and let go of Pony to go down the ramp by himself, I expected him to wait at the bottom like usual while I got Timmy. As I opened Timmy’s partition, who was starting to panic as he doesn’t like the tack locker style lorries and he couldn’t really see Pony, it fell off the hinge, almost onto Timmy’s back and whacked my leg. It literally took all the strength I had just to hold it off him, but I now couldn’t open it by myself. Pony got bored and wondered off into the dark by himself. Timmy was now panicking and I literally couldn’t move the partition. I was so fortunate that because I was in a bigger lorry my brother was coming to pick me up to take me home in a car rather than driving the lorry back home. I called him and said you need to get to Boomerang literally right this second – but don’t drive so fast that you run Pony over because I don’t know where he is!! Luckily Mum was with him and the longest 7 minutes of my life later the 3 of us had lifted the partition out and got Timmy out. Pony was quietly grazing round the corner completely oblivious to what had just happened.

Then in May last year, 10 days after my best attempt at breaking my neck and high on many painkillers, I tried to take a 4yo to Badminton BYEH. Although there were no official fractures, I had pretty significant whiplash, pain and weakness in my left leg, and hadn’t been riding much. Sarah, a friend from Boomerang had said I could borrow her lorry but the partition was lower than I felt was safe for such an inexperienced young horse so I hired Amy’s as usual. We had planned a team barbeque at Badminton after we’d competed, so I picked up the barbeque from home having collected the lorry the night before, so would be ready to leave early in the morning.

At 6am, I was just getting into the truck and I bumped into Russ (who runs Boomerang) and he said ‘where are you off to?!’ Crippled, grey and out of it I excitedly replied ‘Badminton!’, thinking his suspicion was due to me riding at all so close to such a serious injury and looking the state that I did. But he replied ‘not with that flat tyre you’re not’. Oh my god!

I jump out the truck, see that he’s right. Now in a flap, late again, I ring Sarah, cannot get hold of her at all, no-one is at the yard, but just decide to go for it! I moved all the stuff over, horse, equipment etc, find Sarah’s spare keys, but when I tried to load the barbeque the poor horse was like ‘what the f*** is that?!’ and I didn’t feel it was safe to travel her in the lower partitions with the barbeque, so I had to leave it behind and ruin the party!

It was weeks before we were able to get it home as we had to wait until the next time I hired a lorry that was going in the direction of home so it just sat in the Boomerang car park! When I got back from Badminton, Russ helped me sort out the tyre, I went to drop the lorry back at Amy’s and it said it had run out of fuel and wouldn’t turn on or drive. Exhausted, injured and on plenty of medication I called the recovery people and just had to sit and wait. I was seriously low priority so it was hours before we could fix it but it turned out to be a problem with the fuel gage and the fuel level itself was fine! I can’t remember much from that afternoon but I got the lorry and therefore my car back somehow…

I remember when I was borrowing my amazing friend Annie’s 4 horse lorry with limiter – 56 mph top speed! – I had to leave Oakingham Stud’s awesome Christmas party early to drive an hour and a half each way to get it, to take Timmy to a Blue Chip Qualifier the following day and take it back after that show. I remember I was on my own that day and it was way more stress than fun. And so dark and cold! But good old Timmy won his qualifier!, so we arranged to go back for the final!

Having struggled to find the most cost effective way to transport him there for the weekend, I was recommended the amazing Claire Whatley from Personal Equine Transport. We arranged everything, but on the morning her lorry broke down! Hannah (my groom for that show) and I decided to get going in the car with all the stuff, walk the course and explain what was going on and Claire would catch us up with Timmy. She had never met me or him but it was the only option! I was not missing the final I had put so much in to qualifying for!

I sent her a picture of him in his stable and told her where I’d left the passport and hoped for the best. She found him, loaded him and sent me a photo before she set off to check she’d loaded the right horse, and off she went. We made it to Blue Chip and told them what was going on, but they were adamant if we jumped out of order we’d be eliminated. I stayed in touch with Claire (hands free of course!) and told her we literally had to tack up Timmy and put me on as he came out the lorry. We hadn’t been allowed to park the car anywhere near the lorry park so Hannah and I had carried everything, tack, boots, rugs, grooming kit from the car to the lorry park ready for this mission. The dream team managed to make this happen and I got on with 2 horses in front of me and he jumped clear 📷:D

Plans often change - the horse you were going to view and pick up having paid for the lorry gets sold, or the horse you were going to take to the event goes lame, or the event is cancelled, or you need to go and buy a horse but can't book the lorry so you miss it, or you just want to go to a show that day but the lorry is booked out and it would cost £1000 to go, or trying to co-ordinate the amount of people to go loose jumping doesn’t work out – you get the idea! I am so eternally grateful to Amy Westcott-Allen from AWA Self Drive Hire who repeatedly went above and beyond to let me pick up and return the lorry at ridiculous times, always at short notice, and often cancelling last minute – nightmare client! I’m so sorry and so grateful! 📷

Almost every single time I have made a sale video, the loose jumping part is done at our lovely friend’s yard – which is approx. 40 minutes away in the lorry. So to loose jump for the sale videos, I would pay for and hire a lorry, drive to get it, get a team of 3 or 4 people together to film different angles, hold horses, do jumps – we only have one shot, we can’t screw it up – co-ordinate all the times for arena hire, get all the jumps from the outdoor arena to the indoor arena, bring the horse out, and aged 3 or 4 tired and stressed from its journey it doesn’t jump well enough and you have to do it all again next week! Put all the jumps away, get the horses home, wash out the lorry and return it. I worked out with lorry hire, fuel, arena hire and staff it was costing me IRO £250 per time for one loose jumping session with 2 horses.

Another time we were going to a dressage competition on some sale horses. I was completely ready to go, as was Anita who was driving me, the lorry wouldn’t start and we were stuck. Will, one of my liveries at the time, kindly offered us his lorry. It was 25 minutes away. It was touch and go as to whether we’d make the test, but not one to give up we agreed and went as fast as we could to get it! It was 25 years old, with no power steering and no fuel!, but we made it and in time for the test, and again were so grateful to Will for being so generous.

Anita and I have had some weird and wonderful crazy times with hundreds more journeys and stories – perhaps the one that stands out for me the most is when she had a suspected broken ankle from an accident the day before, but being as determined as me, she still drove me to Aston, groomed for 4 horses and drove me back, despite her ankle not really bending at all! I am so incredibly lucky to have such an amazing group of friends and supporters, many of whom I haven’t even been able to mention in this post, without whom I swear I wouldn’t have trained, competed or picked up a new horse in the last 10 years! Caroline Lovejoy and Richard Selleck played such a huge part in my life and career and I eternally grateful to them for all their help with this adventure and all the amazing, hilarious and unforgettable times we had.

We did some crazy things when I was running the livery yard, I once had 5 horses going to a JAS competition. I’d washed and plaited them all the night before, and my good friends Anita, Jess and Michelle had literally arranged a shuttle service of lorries for me to be able to compete them all – at Hand EC – an hour an a half away – just out of sheer kindness and generosity. I won the Kenneth Clawson award for most promising up and coming rider in that JAS series, but I owe it entirely to the army that got me to all those competitions that season.

I will never forget the time we were driving to the event at Stonar with Katya and Immy and Katya’s accelerator got stuck under the carpet – on full throttle! Immy and I had an idea something was up but Katya stayed so calm we casually carried on chatting. It wasn’t until she had pulled the lorry almost to a stop with the handbrake and was reaching down by her foot when we were in the hard shoulder that we realised how serious that could have been!!, but it was very entertaining for a while after! We weren’t on time for that event either…

But probably the best one of all, is turning up in our rickety old trailer with my pony with mane down to his knees, my untucked shirt, a total embarrassment to the Stonar School team I was supposed to be representing, and winning the Individual Junior Final on my beloved pony Sam 📷

I literally cannot believe I never have to drive my car to hire a lorry again, the last journey to get my car last week was so incredibly satisfying, it felt like the breaking up for the holidays from the last day of school ever!

The team at Bloomfields have been absolutely unbelievable to work with from start to finish. I have rung poor Ben (the South West agent) pretty much every day with a new or improved idea and he has not only done but added to every idea I’ve had. I have the perfect lorry and couldn’t be happier 📷:D I remember the day I saw the mermaid/chameleon paint on Facebook and called him immediately, ‘Ben! Ben! I know what colour my lorry needs to be!’ He replies super calm ‘You’ve seen that video on Facebook haven’t you? We were waiting for you to call…’ And that is the colour they have managed to make it, I literally cannot believe it 📷😊

I don’t want to just moan as we have had some hilarious and incredible experiences, but my god it has been tough and I hope this gives some idea of how the last 10 years have been and why this lorry is so so special to me 📷

As a result of all these experiences, I have seen so much go wrong and so many cool inventions. I’ve seen things go wrong that you couldn’t even dream up!

Perhaps some of my favourite lorry journeys have to have been in Dave Mason’s lorry where I used to take my duvet and just sleep in the living for the whole journey! - the LED loading lights down the side and back of my lorry and the hanging buckets so you can leave the horses with water while you’re off doing something else are very much stolen from him but there has been no stone unturned and no corner cut in my quest to design this lorry to perfection over the last 7 months.

It means we no longer have to fit as much into one day as possible even when it doesn’t suit the horse. If I hired the lorry, it seemed such a waste of time and money to take one horse somewhere local so we would do crazy things like go to two shows in one day with 4 different horses - for example an event in the early morning and a Dressage or SJ show in the afternoon. Or I would collect a new horse then take 2 xc schooling. I will admit to once schooling at Lyneham in the dark because my plan didn’t quite work out but I think you’ve probably worked out by now that giving up isn’t really my thing.

‘AWE Horsebox Hire’ has had a pretty awesome start to its hiring career with none other than the legendary AP McCoy as our first client!! 📷:D

Keep an eye on this page for more details on hiring it 📷😉

And thank you for reading if you made it this far!