Family groom

GEORGIA HERBERT

GEORGIA works for a family whose three children are at boarding school, so her job varies according to term time. The parents don’t ride regularly, and there are four hunters, Georgia’s advanced medium dressage pony and the veteran family pony, all of whom she exercises daily. When the children are back at home, she’s busy preparing their horses – and their riders – for the meet. Like many grooms’ roles, people skills are essential.

“The biggest challenge is trying to get three teenagers to keep to timings,” she laughs. “I like plaiting up and getting the horses ready, but the children don’t rely on me completely. They do their own tack cleaning, but they might fight over who has which sponge. So I’ll turn the radio up and let them work it out, or split them into different rooms.”

Georgia’s competitive background, representing Wales for eight years in dressage, helps her empathise.

“Being 25, it’s not long since I was a teenager; I remember being 12 and what the down days were like,” she says. “I’ve been there and done it. I can pick them up when they’re down or bring them down a peg if they need it. They come to me for hugs and we have a laugh. The radio’s always on, we’re singing, dancing and having fun.”

Likewise, when she passed her HGV test last year after a major struggle to pass the theory, there was a family celebration – “we popped a few bottles”, she says.

Although Georgia admits she’d rather go through the gate than over a fence, she enjoys the children’s adrenaline rushes vicariously.

“I love the joy when they’ve jumped something they’re excited about and they’re buzzing, seeing them beaming,” she says. “I feel like the children and I have grown up together.”