Early Morning ....

and whilst these gentlemen are on a 'Rest Day' the rest of the farm is already a buzz with staff preparing for the days bookings

Harness Cleaning.....

Before every job Harness & Carriages must be cleaned and Horses bathed & groomed.

Harness cleaning is a very time consuming job but an expertly cleaned set of harness makes all the difference to the final appearance of your turnout.

Bathtime......

Its important that each Horse always looks it very best - after all our Horses are our reputation.

Shires are renowned for the beautiful 'feather' on their legs and to keep this in tip top condition legs must be regularly washed & lubricated with special 'Shire Oil'

Each & every horses is hand bathed before they go to work & their tails bandaged to ensure that they dont get dirty on their journeys.

Transporting........

Once all of the preparations are complete the Horses can be loaded onto our purpose built Horseboxes.

Haynets are put up to ensure that they have food for their trip and buckets of water are on hand.

All of our Staff hold the new WATO certificates to show that they are fully competent in how best to load the Horses and knowledgeable as to how to make their journeys safe & stress free.

Mucking Out........

Once the Horses & Staff have left the farm its time to clear up whats left behind :-)

Whilst good old fashioned man power & wheelbarrows are used to muck out the Barns, Stables & Stalls a dumper is needed to move the sheer volume of muck to our rather large dung heap !!

So with Feeding, Cleaning, Loading & Mucking Out finished it time to start on the rest of the days jobs.

Training........

There are always a number of Horses who require training for future years.

we trains all of the Horses ourselves on the farms and Paul is seen here with a Dapple Grey Shire.

The latest additions to our stable are two more White Shire Horses called Drum & Major who we expect to have completed their training by the start of the 2012 season

Breeding.....

In addition to our Working Horses, we also have a number of Broodmares and breed under our stud name of 'Elyof'.

This is Big Kate with her foal Elyof Alfie at 3 days old.

It is important to ensure that their is always youngstock being 'run on' for the years to come.

Dinner & Bedtime....

From early evening Horses & Staff will start returning from their various jobs.

Evening feeds now need to prepared, fresh hay put in all the haynets & clean bedding put down for the night.
 
Once all of this has been down & the Horses are bedded down everyone will usually be found in the Harness room having a well earned cup of tea before heading off to get some sleep before it all starts again tommorow.

Where it all started...

A very young Paul seen here with his late father Billy at a 1963 Carnival.

Clearly smoking cigars wasnt known to be bad for children in those days !!

Inspired by his father Paul has had a lifelong involvement with Horses.