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A warm welcome to Natalie Vale and her story:
My love of horses started when I was 10 years old. I learned to ride at the local riding school and then worked there for 2 years gaining my BHS stage 1. December 2002, A very nervous 20-year-old me stepped foot onto a riding school to start her new career in horses, little did I know the journey it would take me on.
Previously I was 2 years away from horses where I worked in a Children’s nursery and a pub. Here I started my training on my NVQ L3 in horse care and management.
Sadly the riding school closed and I stayed on in a freelance position looking after the 10 horses that remained, slowly these were rehomed and so my journey as a freelance groom developed.
For the next 10 years I worked on a number of yards both commercial and private teaching and doing general yard duties. I also got the chance to compete in an unaffiliated intro and prelim dressage on some lovely horses. I gained BHS stage 3 Care. In 2012 I went to work for my instructor and we set up a small riding school where I gained UKCC L3 in teaching.
2015 saw the riding school at its busiest diary full to competency, this year also saw the birth of my son. Reuben coming into the family meant I needed to find more family time so I retrained as a swimming instructor, loved the job but once Reuben was at school in 2018 it wasn’t giving me the family time I needed, this led to me working at Equus Health.
I was still doing the odd bit of teaching and during the past 16 years I had been involved in direct selling with different companies. 2015 was also the year I brought Rash Promise a 16 year old thoroughbred, who came with abox load of Equus Health supplements.
Towards the end of 2018 the start of 2019 I started working on the idea of selling Equus health products directly offering a similar service to that in direct selling becoming the horses personal shopper for supplements. I became NV Equine, set up a website and attended a few shows, started to introduce the products to clients and the business was starting to build alongside my teaching.
This brings us to January 2020 the teaching side of my business is doing really well. The supplement side is building slowly and I get the chance to manage a pony party business, all is looking great and then March 2020 hits….
On March 23rd, 2020. Boris Johnson announced that due to the rate in covid 19 cases the county was going into lockdown with immediate effect. I couldn’t teach and the pony party business wasn’t going to happen. Like many, I felt a massive weight on my shoulders concerning what I was going to do next.
I decided to focus my energy and time on the supplements and develop my aim of the business, To supply supplements directly to the stable door, offering advice and that personal shopper experience to my clients. The website was given a facelift and then I started selling on eBay.
I contacted all clients old and current explaining what I was offering… I started by sending 5 – 10 parcels a week, this soon grew to this amount daily and there has been times I’ve posted 20 parcels a day.
After covid the website an eBay sales slowed down, this led to me concentrating on the more personal side of the business, I wanted to offer customers the excess to all my knowledge and slowly the Never Run Out Club was formed.
Every day I am astonished on how my business has grown, if you had told 20-year-old me I would be selling supplements I would never of believed you, however I love my Job, the flexibility it gives me with the family and I still get to help people with their horses.
Top Equestrian Tips
1 – Set small goals and reward yourself when you reach them.
2 – Don’t be afraid to follow new paths, you never know where they will lead.
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