Meet the team: Becky Darby

“Hi, my name is Becky Darby and I work as part of the Advice Team at Global Herbs HQ. My position involves speaking to customers, providing product advice and support, as well as some general office admin.

The best part of my job is getting to talk about horses all day long! I really enjoy hearing our customers stories and finding out how they are getting on with our products. There’s also a really friendly atmosphere both in the office and on the phones.

Before working for Global Herbs, I worked for a company that specialised in poultry products. Ten years experience in this industry means I am really confident when providing advice on Global Herbs’ new range of poultry supplements http://care4chicken.co.uk/.

Both of my parents are horsey so I started riding at the age of four. When I was 11 I got my first pony and have had my current horse Fred (picture above) for 10 years. I bought Fred as a 3-year-old ex-racehorse straight off the track and keep him at a yard 15 minutes away from the Global Herbs office.

I feed Mud-X through out the winter, which works wonders, and am currently feeding Globalvite and Movefree Maintenance for a bit of extra support!

MEET THE TEAM: MIDLANDS SALES MANAGER MICHELLE

“Hi my name is Michelle and I am the Area Sales Manager for the Midlands. This means I get to visit all the stockists in my area, keeping them up to date with our new products, providing staff training and attending their open days etc. This gives me the opportunity to speak to members of the public and give advice.

I love my job because I have a shared interest with my customers and hear so many interesting stories, no two days are ever the same. By far the most rewarding aspect of working for Global Herbs is hearing the amazing feedback from customers about how different supplements have completely transformed their horses.

When I was four years old, I experienced my first pony ride at the beach and was hooked. I begged my parents for riding lessons and birthdays and Christmas wish lists soon became purely filled with The Barbie Horse Collection. I was never allowed my own pony, but I would spend all my spare time at the stables, helping in return for exercising the “naughty ponies” that everyone else refused to ride.

I completed my BHS exams and various equine qualifications whilst I was a working pupil and then went onto work at a wide range of yards, livery, point to point, hunting, dealing, breakers and eventing. During this time, I not only leant how to fall off in every conceivable fashion, (swiftly followed by how to adopt the brace position and stay on most things), I also finally became a horse owner and no longer needed to change the rugs of Barbie’s many steeds.

My all time favourite horse was a small coloured chap called Splash, who I bought as an unbroken four year old. Splash was certainly unique and kept me on my toes, but I had so much fun with him, breaking him in and competing in many disciplines, eventing, show jumping, dressage, team chasing and showing, plus lots of hunting.

 I am currently riding my partners two horses, Billy and Gormless, who are an……erm….. acquired taste! Billy is a legend on the hunting field, but pulls like an absolute train, sees things that don’t exist and weaves to a blur, even when you’re on him. Gormless has anger management issues, an opinion on everything (usually the opposite of your own), and wrote the book on evasions to work, but he is quite amusing in his own special way and just occasionally, he behaves.

 When I’m not sat on a horse, I perch on a saddle of another kind and compete in Triathlon and Time Trial events. As I see it, there are many similarities between the two worlds: both eat into your free time and your bank balance, put an end to any thoughts of a lie in at the weekend, make your legs hurt, expose you to every kind of freak weather system, hurt when you fall off and always leaves you dreaming of a new bit of kit, be it carbon fibre pedals or a new diamante browband, it’s never ending. Both also put a huge smile on my face and going fast gives me a great adrenalin rush. I’d rather go uphill on a horse than a bike any day of the week though!”

Meet the team: Office Manager Dana

“I am the Office Manager at Global Herbs, so I oversee the administration in the office as well as working on the advice line and liaising with our stockists. I have worked here for 5 years now so have gained quite a lot of knowledge on our products and experience on the advice line.

I’ve spoken to so many interesting people with a variety of horses and issues, so its not often I’m too surprised. The calls that start with “you might think this is a really strange question but……..” are normally not strange at all, though there has been the odd one that actually is a bit unusual! I really enjoy being a point of contact for our sponsored riders and following their progress, seeing how our products are helping them achieve success.

“I started riding when I was 4 years old, having lessons fortnightly at a riding school, then when I was 8 I used to go and help out at the weekend and holidays in return for free rides. I was lucky enough to be able to go to some shows on the riding school ponies and attend a few pony club rallies and camp. When I was about 13 the riding school stopped doing lessons and became a livery yard, but I continued to go up and help and ride some of the livery horses. After my A-Levels I decided I wanted a career with horses, but not necessarily practical work on a yard, so I enrolled at Writtle College, an agricultural college in Essex, to do a BSc (hons) in Equine Studies and Business Management. I really enjoyed Writtle and the opportunity to ride the variety of horses at the college, and became a yard supervisor, being responsible for the teams of students and 30 horses at the weekends. I came away from Writtle with a 2:1 honours degree, lots more equine knowledge and a fantastic experience of ‘student life’!

I had been desperate for my own horse or pony since I first started riding, but we couldn’t afford one. Just as I left for Writtle, the lady who owned the same livery yard where I had very first started riding, bred two foals, one of them being a naughty colt called Norman. I used to go back to the yard to help when I was home in the holidays and see Norman growing into a big boisterous lad and was upset to hear he had been diagnosed with a kissing spine after problems when he was broken at 3 years old. Vets advised he would be a good candidate for surgery, so his breeder decided to go for it. He had the operation and an unpleasant 6 months box rest, and was being brought back into work when I returned from University. I was asked to ride him and slowly his breeder and I worked with him and he started to move forwards more and become stronger and forget how uncomfortable he had been before. After a couple of years of continuing to ride him for the breeder, she decided it was time to sell him, and there was no way I was letting him go!

So aged 23, just when I also started working for Global Herbs, I finally bought my own horse. Norman was just turning 6 and that is where the real fun began! We are affiliated with British Dressage and have competed at Regional Championships at Novice and Elementary, most recently coming 4th at Elementary Restricted at the Southern British Dressage Regional Championships. We also enjoy jumping for fun, with the occasional trip to a cross country course or local show jumping competition. This summer we are looking forward having another crack at Summer Regionals to see if we can make the National Championships and also plan to make our debut at Medium level.”