Easterton Stables
Easterton Stables, incorporating Easterton Livery and Easterton Equestrian, employs four full time staff and four trainees. They have 25 school horses in excess of 30 liveries and also have competition horses and a breeding unit. In order to train their employees in their own way they use Scottish Vocational Qualifications (SVQ) and Modern Apprenticeships (MA). Easterton Stables won the Modern Apprentice Employer of the Year Award in 2003.Industry: Livery and Equestrian Centre
Number or Employees: Four full time staff and four trainees
Ownership: Family Owned Business
A word from Rosemary Brown, the owner of Easterton Stables:
I was always a keen show jumper from an early age and enjoyed help amateur riders to learn. In 1992 we had a small scale stable with 4 ponies on my partner's farm. In conjunction with my employer at the time, GlasgowUniversityVeterinarySchool, I began teaching the undergraduates in the stables. The first hand experience of working with the horses proved invaluable to the students and the scheme expanded due to popular demand.
In 1995 the opportunity arose to take over an existing riding school and livery yard, it was at this point that we decided to offer training so that we could train our own employees in our own way. We decided quite quickly to go down the government route SVQ leading to Modern Apprenticeship (MA) route as opposed to other more established methods of training.
Equestrianism is often perceived as an elitist sport and we endeavour to dispel this myth. At Easterton we work with disabled persons, disadvantaged youngsters, minority groups, asylum seekers and the over 50's. We have also worked in conjunction with Sport Scotland to introduce Equestrianism to youngsters at an early age. Similarly we are involved with work with Lantra and the Scottish Equine Forum on an ongoing basis. This sees our involvement in a number of activities including the development of the land-based curriculum and Scottish Progression Award in Rural Skills, which Lantra is leading.
We are proud of our work at Easterton and extremely proud of our students, all of whom have gone on to responsible positions in the industry. We will continue to follow the MA route and strongly support vocational training in Equestrianism.