Charlie is Lucy’s son and on completing two years of further education at Hartpury College, learning relevant agricultural skills, he came and joined us under the title of “Handyman”. This really means Charlie does just about anything and everything we need him to do within his range of skills!
The most important by far to Charlie is his Kubota tractor, trailer and Kubota ATV, which he uses to oversee the collection of 1,100 droppings our horses produce every day – this is a lot of poo!
Charlie also strims, mows the grass, cleans and maintains the vehicles, and gets on with pretty much any task the rest of us ask him to do. He also, without fail, makes a cake every weekend for the team to eat over the following week. Like us all, Charlie rides regularly having had ponies at home from a young age and has a riding lesson each week at Lavant.
It is impossible not to warm to Charlie with his gentle kindness, lovely manners, natural empathy with the animals and rather silly sense of humour!
In honour of our Charlie, the chosen charity of Lavant Equestrian, which we have supported since 2001, is the registered charity “Charlie’s Challenge”, which has done an amazing job over the years raising both awareness and serious funds for research into children’s brain tumours.