I thought it would be interesting for you, not me ( I have already had to live through the shit and move on from those amazing highs.) to see a bit more in depth of the girl behind the brand. I promise you i will skip the boring bits, keep it short and not whinge.Much.
Right now I am 25, going up another year in just under 2 months and run a business called EEquine. Many of you will know me from Mechanical Millie im sure. Travelling the UK helping develop peoples riding position, feel and understanding of how their own body affects their horse. This however is only a small part of our story,
Our mission to promote horse and human health throughout the equine industry.
I got into horses late, my mum had horses before she had us kids but she never got back into them again until we were older. We moved house freeing up some cash that just had to mean ponies. I followed for a year or so helping mum with here’s and loaning my own but then the passion phased out. They say you never know what you had until its gone and I had a friend, someone who would never judged me for being me, someone who would always listen to me,always there when I needed them and I tell you at the time boys just didn’t live up to that!
I came back into the equine world and I hit it hard pouring everything I had into it. Found a horse in a field I fell in love with. Found the owner, persuaded/begged her to sell him to me, all 17.2 of him and I brought my first horse. A first horse being an ex racer was a steep learning curve but one I thoroughly enjoyed, you do crazy things when your in love. We learnt so so much together and beast is still with me now, living life in the slow lane now as a true mud monster, a grumpy old man when he wants to be and I love him for it.
Beast is afraid of small children, so that makes two of us,hates donkeys and miniature Shetlands and when you disturb him while he’seating to adjust his rug expect a back leg to come flying at you in protest.
We did some of our BHS exams and had the most hysterical man for my Riding and road safety, I will never forget him marching around the arena with our make believe roundabouts and his white gloves. Trying to leave with my new qualification resulted in having my car break down, at the top of the hill which left me rolling all the way back down to get out the way. However, silver linings and all that a 3 hour drive home ina recovery truck talking to a young lad about his HGV licence inspired me to domine. Now we have our trailer and lorry licence and have driven lorries professionally and for fun for the last 4 years, because well I can.
Injury wise I have a few and not all horse related I have to say in the ponies defence although, I promise you they haven’t helped somedays. I fell down a stupidly tall wall in my cadet days, its not advisable to do HOWEVER we had a point to prove as it was the first time girls where aloud to compete against the guys and we came 2nd so well worth it.Falling down walls does really bad things for your hips which in turn affects your knees, ankles and lower back, so don’t do it. Health and safety don’t like it these days either.
So skip forward a bit I now have a cheeky monkey of a pony called Oliver and he is the reason bless his heart I started experimenting with a variety of training techniques. We studied Monty Roberts, then to Parelli,then back to Monty trying to fit into a system or method that worked for us. Simply, there wasn’t one! I liked a bit from everyone’s techniques and I finally accepted that was ok. We kept studying every time he threw me a new problem.
The most interesting being laying down when he doesn’t want to dosomething, Yup!
I studied Enlightened equitation and got showed a whole new way of riding. There was explanations on how to preform movements, not just being shouted at to do them over and over. I loved being able to teach my students in depth techniques so they knew what to do to achieve their dreams rather than hoping and praying. This led me into finding Millie. Shortly before however I found my current partner. A soldier of all people within the British army, the same army I couldn’t join due to my injuries. I am incredibly thankful now tho because I wouldn’t be able to live the dream life I am living now. He was getting deployed for 6 hell ish months and before he went, bless him we drove to Holland to pick up my machine. Formally known as Mechanical Millie now.
A year and a half down the line I am still teaching, me and the fella are still together and the business has expanded to incorporate horse and rider health. I see so many injuries while travelling in both horse and rider and a huge lack of awareness of the human body. The website evolved to address this and is building to be the hub of knowledge from a variety of opinions, techniques and specialists. I will always continue to learn more develop more because well my horses, (horse first) and me deserve it.