Equitana

First, though, they've called themselves the Saddle Sisters, a group of six horse-mad friends from Mackay who swapped the show ring for the saddle.

They had planned to head south for the Equitana this year, but when the event was cancelled, they decided to make their own adventure again.

Vicky Crowley is one of the writers and she tells Amy Mitchell that she feels pretty grateful for the opportunity.

Right, well, it starts at Yarraman.

So it, it really is important to, to keep that in mind.

Another case that stands out in my mind was at Equitana, and I, I really don't know why I remember this one so clearly.

But we were at Equitana and, uh, you know, people were coming up to us i- in, you know, pretty rapid succession asking about their horses' diets.

And I remember this guy, and he, and he was asking for a core feed and, you know, something that could sort of get on top of, of his horse's behavior.

And the more we spoke, the more I started to go, "Hmm, there's something just not quite right here." And I said to him, "Does she happen," this mare, "Does she happen to change her behavior like this at this time of year each year?" And it's not, it wasn't a great question because it's not necessarily going to happen every year because the, the fungi that lives with the grass doesn't necessarily produce mycotoxin at the same level every year.

And I had a mentor that I hired, and he was like, "Hey, Cole, you say your whole purpose is to educate horses and people with a lifetime in mind.

You want to help as many horses and many people." And I was traveling the country, teaching clinics, taught Equitana, people like Ronnie Reamer down in Florida, or Laura Graves, was headlining with those people, and I was in the horsemanship side of things.

And he's like, "If you want to reach more people, you should be helping horse professionals on the business side." And I was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, like horse professionals are allergic to money.

This is a bad idea."

Let's do that."

Mm-hmm.

And I get asked a lot, like what's the one thing? What's the one thing that changed everything from being the broke horse trainer to being where we are today, where within, from the time we built our, started building brand to the time I was at Equitana was, like, 24 months, right? So it was very fast.

And, and so, and you kind of hinted with, like, was it just because you're really good at what you do, or was it because of this? And it's, number one, you have to be good at what you do.

And then you have a complication at birth.

So I'm just throwing that extra little piece in there because it's how we see this and realizing that, you know, now I think it was years ago that out of Australia, Ian Bistrip, I want to say, did a lecture at Equitana.

And I knew Ian really well because I used to lecture a lot in Equitana.

Australia.

And he was talking about all these fractures and foals and their withers and sternums.

That's going to be, I'm going to be there on Saturday, the 10th of October.

And then I'm also going to be at Equitana in Essen on Saturday, the 20th of March, 2027.

So that's a little while away.

But for my German friends, we'll be coming back to Germany.

Yeah, definitely.

Your mum, Sarah, definitely asked the right questions when you guys were talking to me about switching to Sen at Equitana and yeah, it's now full circle.

We can't thank you guys enough for all your support.

I think, Ansh, you've got a few.

Yeah, so totally no experience in that and running a trade association but I did and I truly do love what I do because no day is the same ever.

So BETA is the British Equestrian Trade Association set up in 1978 by a group of traders who at the time really wanted a trade association because they'd been to Germany, seen this wonderful thing called Equitana, which was the greatest equestrian show on earth at the time.

There was lots of trade stands and they said, we need our own fair in England.

And so BETA was in a way formed to set up the trade fair, which still bears our name, BETA International.