NORFOLK LAW - Front Page Billy the Stallion and me at the Wayland Show 2011

NORFOLK LAW SOCIETY Winter of Discontent? Equine Crime Fears as prices set to rise

Though LEX Recruitment is my main business interest and bread earner, I also have an obsessive interest and love for horses and ponies.  This year I have had 3 foals born which was so exciting and bought and sold a few ponies to help make by passion financially self-sufficient.  I am now up to 11 altogether, 5 of those being foals under 3 months.  I also have a stunning stallion who drives and rides with impeccable manners, even though his thoughts are often elsewhere.

The children have had an amazing summer holiday handling the foals and riding.  We have even had a camping holiday in North Norfolk at a friend’s Deer park, and were able to pitch our tents and have the ponies join us for breakfast!

My main concern at the moment is how I am going to feed these ponies through the next winter.    The hay price has sky rocketed due to the very dry growing season.  Farmers have only managed to yield 80% of the usual hay crop.  Hay is already being sold at £8.50 a bale and the winter has not even started, (I am writing in August).  Hay and straw rustling is set to be a significant rural crime to join house oil theft as a soft target.    Indeed the Police in Kent, Cambridge and the Thames Valley have reported an increase in hay and straw thefts already.

The corn prices have also gone stratospheric but this is due to global reasons as well as more localised climatic reasons.  Corn has to compete for space as farmers are switching to the production of bio-fuels.  The oil price and currency fluctuations have not helped as well as the extreme weather conditions across the globe. 

More locally we have also been hit by the closure of Watton Produce near Snetterton.  The canny horseman (me – allegedly), could arrive with a one tonne trailer and collect a load of carrots and parsnips for £20.  Enough feed for a week at my stock level to supplement the haylage, of which I was paying £26 for a large square bale.  My animals came out of the winter very well and one mare was even decidedly fat.  This year, I do not know where the carrots will come from and my haylage price is probably going to give me sleepless nights.  The sensible plan would be to not have so many animals and hope that we have a mild winter and let the animals take as much from the grass as possible.  As a child growing up in Scotland with native ponies, it was normal for my ponies to drop their weight over the winter and fatten up over the summer, we did very little supplemental feeding other than hay when there was snow on the ground.  I will, to some degree let nature take its course in this respect, and try not to give in too much to begging, hungry eyes.

Another point to add is that even if I wanted to sell any of my youngstock, I would probably not be able to.  I have been advertising to sell foals most of the summer and have only had two unsuitable enquiries.  I have spoken to friends who are experiencing similar responses to sales.  I will be lucky to give any of them away.  But then I think, if a person cannot afford to buy a horse, they certainly can’t afford to keep it.  Let’s pray for a mild winter.

Animal welfare groups have already warned that animals will go hungry this winter.  Another major issue to look forward to is the abandonment of animals.  Also, “Fly grazing” is a problem whereby a horse owner puts his horses on private land without the landowner’s permission.    These are not necessarily abandoned horses but horses squatting on grazing land.  Perversely, it becomes the landowner’s responsibility to provide for the horses needs.  

For advice on Equine Law, contact a member of the Agricultural Team at Birketts LLP in Norwich on 01603 232300. Birketts deal with a range of issues from equine property, syndication, livery agreements, loan, sale and purchase agreements.

Alison Thorne LLB LPC

Fellow of the Institute of Recruitment Professionals

Director and Legal Recruitment Consultant at LEX Recruitment Ltd

Contact 01953 681015 or 0750 239 6649

Today has been beset with challenges.  

We trained this morning doing our special combination of circuits and I was gutted that I could not commit to my very annoying press up challenge.  This time last year I struggled to get to 20.  Only a few weeks ago I did a personal best of 63 full man (straight legs not bent knees) press ups in 2 minutes.  Today, I could hardly get a set of 10 in before collapsing and as for the tricep dips, it was more of a sherbet dip.  It was absolutely not going to happen. Anyway the abs work went well and I always enjoy the leg work.  

Training is still very important to me after all these years since school.  I then had a slightly different motivation to train, i.e. get into the athletics squad and get out of school.  I was incarcerated at a lovely school for young "ladies" in Scotland which had more ice on the inside of the windows during the winter than there was in the local butcher’s freezer.  It was a great school but the walls were very high and all I ever wanted to do was escape.  We had it tough, no doubt, but it was the making of the woman so to speak.  My love for running started then and I was particularly lucky to train with a girl who went on to become a Scottish International sprinter.  I never had that much talent but I had a bit of courage and certain amount of pig headedness not to give up.  Also, I was probably far too vain to let anyone beat me without a struggle.

I have recently plucked up the courage to re run the Frostbite 50 mile event in Yorkshire in January.  I ran this event last year and had a fantastic time, but I was not able to finish.  I had a map reading problem - (I couldn't do it!) so I had various extended detours over the Yorkshire moors.   I'm hoping I will have learnt from my mistakes and will be successful next January.  I did manage about 40 miles over very rocky, muddy terrain on the hills in about 10 hours.  So just 10 more miles to go on that and hopefully a finish.  


Also, I have rather rashly and prematurely agreed to run the North Norfolk Ultra run (marathon only) which leaves from Kelling Heath on Saturday 6th October.  I have not really been doing much training lately but if I can't manage to run, there is always walking and any old sausage can do it if they try.  


Whilst I am looking forward to both events, it's always with a certain amount of trepidation, fear, and light headedness.  There is no doubt it does hurt and it goes on and on and on for miles.  But the end of the race is such a relief it somehow blocks out the pain.  Probably a bit like giving birth.  But then when the running is going well one can fool oneself into thinking you are a super hero or your body is a machine and the whole run floats past in a blur of mind/body displacement.  I believe that this is possibly more to do with the endomorphins being released, rather than an actual out of body experience.  But thinking about it helps let the time go by.

And then there were my emails.  In the last week I have spent possibly 4-5 hours on the phone to some poor chap in Mombai begging him to sort the errors, pop ups, cookies verifications issues and lord knows what else.  This was eventually sorted and today for no apparent reason, it all went wrong again.  I had however, made notes throughout my endless IT informal training sessions and was able to right the wrongs.  Just as well as I was quite near to tears.

As for work - well it's been brilliant.  I am really excited about a few opportunities that have come along and look forward to getting stuck in.  

LEX Recruitment update

I am currently updating my website and hope to become an all dancing and singing media machine.

This is a test blog to check out the the bananas.

Do feel free to offer positive critique and suggestions.  Thank you.