Who you are and location – My name is Ellen Brimble, I live close to Bath with my husband, 2 children (twins, now in their second year at uni), 2 dogs, 6 fish by the last count, and currently 3 horses.
Your occupation – I’ve been working for an Italian manufacturer of equipment for the printing industry for almost all my working life, first in Germany, then in Australia and since 2000 in the UK. My work takes me to the Benelux, Scandinavia and the Baltic countries, as we are looking after different geographic areas.
How long you have been riding & how did you became interested and involved with Icelandic horses – I started riding when I was 14 years old, trying to be one of the lucky children in our street who could catch a ride with a family who had Icelandic Horses. One of their horses was called Jarpur and he was my all-time favourite. He was ridden with a Western saddle and never trotted, which was my luck as one day I was allowed to ride him back to the yard with the rest of the family. In my desperation to be the lucky rider of the day, I didn’t tell anyone that I had never ridden a horse before. Much to my luck Jarpur was a very sensible horse, just following the other horses in tölt whilst I was clinging to the pommel for dear life.
Nevertheless, this experience didn’t dampen my enthusiasm and a lifelong passion for Icelandic horses started there and then. A year later, I was given my own Icelandic horse, a rather ugly young gelding called Grákollur. He had only been trained for 4 weeks; I was a total novice and so the trouble began. After no time at all, he refused to leave the yard, always tried to turn around midway through a ride and run home, became totally insensitive to the bit (I must have kept my balance by hanging onto the reins quite often) and took off at frightening speed whenever he felt like it. I wonder to this day how I manged to go through my early riding years without any accident, especially keeping in mind that nobody wore a riding helmet.
My saviour was a very nice lady at the yard who helped us both to learn together and to understand each other. I learnt so many things from my horse, he was the best teacher I could have ever wished for and perhaps the greatest thing I’ve learnt from a lot of frustrating experiences is not to give up, perhaps try a different way when things don’t work out, but to trust your instinct and watch your horse, as it will tell you if you’re doing something right or wrong. Grákollur and I learnt together and eventually he was the horse I rode for my Trainer B exam many years ago.
Horses past and present – – that’s too long to answer. The most memorable one is Blesi frá Skollagróf, a gelding with terrible conformation that always wanted to run as fast as he could in every gait. He could literally run like the wind in each gait and has given me some exhilarating rides.
What do I enjoy most with the horses – Having a bond with them, as we keep them close to the house and they can watch us when they are in the paddock. You learn so much about their personalities when you keep them close by and I enjoy that very much. The other thing is to learn with the horse, to improve and to become the best we can be together. Looking to the future, I hope that we will have more training opportunities within the IHSGB.
Other interests – There is not really any time between family, horses and work, those three cover it all.
