At eighteen, she finished school and the only thing she wanted to do was – you guessed it.

Now, at the age of twenty, she’s head girl and right-hand gal at the same riding and agistment stables which is run by two excellent people who are not only her bosses at Team Equistar, but mentors and teachers, and her friends and family. She knows the ins and outs of the everyday requirements of running and working a horse establishment, and has learned so much from the farriers and equine dentists and vets. Young women in this field can deal with people, horses, dogs, chickens and goats, or trailers, trucks, floats, golf buggies and quad bikes and much more. Pretty cool!

Of course, daughter working at a stables means Mum and Dad get to have some fun too.

Mum learning how to tow a float (loved it). Mum attempting to back the float (not so much fun, especially when Mum gets rather mad when she sees Dad and daughter sniggering – but good fun when Mum gets out of car, throws the keys to Dad and daughter, then watches them learn how to do it).

It was fun! It was also possibly the hardest manual labour I’ve ever done (barring walking to Machu Picchu without porters, which was tremendously hard but that’s another blog post).

The property had been empty for a long time and was neglected so there was a lot of work to be done to make it habitable and safe for the 20+ horses moving in. The workload was tremendous, but boy, can horsey people work hard and not give up. No matter what has to be done or what time of the day or night it is, it gets done.

A ten metre length must have weighed around 50 kilos, easy. Dad made metal hooks and drilled holes in the rubber so we could drag a length at a time from outside to inside. I enjoyed this part – much better than going to the gym (not that I’ve been there for some time…). Dad did the drilling and rubber cutting and I cut and made hundreds of wire ties, was in charge of the cable ties, and held up the rubber (it was really heavy and damn awkward!) while Dad fixed it into place. I even got to wear a tool belt.

But there are always problems with the best plans. The conveyor belting wasn’t the right width, so that meant finding a way to join two sheets together to make the correct drop to line the stalls. Truthfully, this took a bit of thinking because we couldn’t have rough, sharp edges of anything in the stalls.

So how to get the conveyor belting, once cut to length, together? We worked it out (involving cable ties, saw horses, and someone on the dirt floor beneath the saw horses. Dad volunteered, bless him. But I also had my share of crawling in dirt, beneath heavy rubber, while shooing away large spiders of the non-venomous variety and carefully keeping my eye on the Redback venomous variety).

Then we had a nice cup of tea in our staff room.

Basically, Dad was chief driller, dragger and lifter but I offered my excellent skills of design whenever I thought he was doing it wrong or my idea was better than his. There were a few short, sharp words at these points, but we did reach agreement that Dad was in charge so long as he did what Mum told him to do. 😉

Years of my soft furnishing upholstery, curtain making and craft came to very good use in the design and how-to elements of our job. For which I’m sure Dad was truly grateful, because I caught him smiling (when he wasn’t cursing).

Anyway, we’re still married.

After a few days, we were on a roll and knew exactly what the other was going to do or what the other needed. I was thoroughly exhausted mind you, not having done such hard manual labour in – oh, forever, really. But I was wearing my kick-ass boots and my tool belt, I was filthy from head to foot and that was really cool.

Two foals were born earlier this year, and sadly, Pablo lost his mother when he was only four days old. Foster mares were tried, to no avail. A goat was brought in as a companion.

Photos above: my daughter taking care of Pablo while a foster mare was collected.
Pable meeting his new companion, Paula.

But Paula kept jumping the fence and doing her own thing, so Paula is now the property mascot instead and keeps an eye on everyone and everything. On tables, on tree trunks, on her new playground, and through windows. Nobody escapes the eye of Paula. And if you’re a dog - watch out because she’ll charge you and make you run away, fearing for your life. She is the boss.

Pablo the foal was hand reared (taken on, in turns, day and night, by the two Team Equistar owners, Eve and Rick, and my daughter) with a small pony as companion. His companion pony is now a little bigger, and he’s one happy chappie.

If anyone ever says to me “Why doesn’t your daughter have a proper job?” I may have to get my kick-ass boots on again, because the discipline, the training, the learning, the effort and hard work these young people, and young women in particular in this case, put into their love of horses – and having a laugh where they can find one - and their need to be around and working with horses, is overwhelmingly admirable.

The dedication, the early hours and late evenings and working seven days a week produce team skills, working autonomously skills, customer service skills, leadership skills, business skills, and communication skills. I am tremendously proud of my daughter for being one of these hardworking, caring, disciplined young women.

Find Team Equistar on Facebook

Read more about Jennie Jones and her books on Meet Jennie Jones here on ARR

Or find Jennie on her website JennieJonesRomance.com
And visit Jennie on Facebook Jennie Jones, Author on Facebook