The leading lights from South Yorkshire's manufacturing sector were celebrated at the Made in Sheffield Awards 2024.

We are delighted to announce that Equi-Trek was awarded the Made In Sheffield Award and is now a Made In The UK 2024 finalist. Congratulations to the team at Equi-Trek for all their hard work and dedication.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Equi-Trek, which has grown to become the largest horsebox and horse trailer manufacturer in the UK.

Equi-Trek operates from a 75-acre site in Stocksbridge and has 50 dealerships worldwide, with plans to expand into new markets. The judges said that Equi-Trek exemplifies the manufacturing talent here in South Yorkshire and is "going places" thanks to its impressive growth both nationally and overseas.

Q. What was it like to prepare for the Badminton Grassroots BE90 Championships?
A. I’ve never been the most competitive person; I compete for fun more than for prizes/podium finishes. But after qualifying in 2022 for the 23 Grassroots Championships and sadly having to withdraw last minute due to illness, I made it my mission to qualified again for 2024. I was determined, dedicated and disciplined… I was going to train hard and give it my all.

Hand on heart, I have never enjoyed training so much, it’s been awesome, I’ve learnt loads, and we are both the fittest we’ve ever been too!

I do need something else to aim for now though as having no training or clinics in the diary is making me feel a little sad!!

Q. How did Banksy cope with the special Badminton atmosphere?
A. Do you know what I was so proud of him. He can be a tense and spooky horse, but he certainly rose to the occasion and just looked proud as punched to be there.

He was the most rideable I have ever had him at an event for the Dressage. It’s like he knew how important it was! For the Showjumping warmup he was a little less relaxed and definitely knew the jumping phases were coming. He focused on what I was asking as soon as we got into the Main Ring. On the Cross-Country course, he was just a dream, this is by far his favourite phase!

Q. Were you nervous ahead of competing?
A. I am normally a very nervous anxious competitor, I overthink/over analyse what could go wrong, and have a massive fear of messing up and letting my boy down But, as soon as we left Cornwall on that Monday morning, I was nothing but excited.

I was extremely lucky that my coach surprised me by helping me in all three warm-ups, which massively helped my focus and desire to give it my best shot. So, a huge shout out and thanks to Alex Bragg for giving up his time when he was also extremely busy himself competing in the 5*.

Q. Do you have a standout memorable moment from the competition?
It’s got to be crossing that finish line in the cross-country. It was actually pretty overwhelming the amount of people that were there to support us and cheer for us at the finish.

It’s still a bit of a blur but thankfully I have lots of photos and videos to look back on!

Q. How pleased were you to secure a top 10 place?
Elated!! However, I will be honest at the time I was very cross with myself for missing out on the prizegiving in front of the house by 1 second, as we gained .4 time XC which sadly dropped us two places from 5th to 7th.

Banksy gave it his all and so deserved to be in that top 6 line up for a pretty picture!

Q. Did Banksy have a comfortable journey in the Equi-Trek Sonic?
A. He sure did… he loves it, you don’t hear a peep out of him!! He has spent a lot of hours in “Sonique” the Sonic over the last few months travelling out of Cornwall for training and competitions. We are so very grateful to Equi-Trek for their support and assistance in enabling us to comfortably and safely cover all of these miles.

Equi-Trek is delighted to be supporting Dinky Ponies, who provide animal therapy to care homes residents and children in educational settings.

The team of six adorable Shetland ponies will travel to and from their visits in an Equi-Trek Apollo horse trailer that has been specially adapted to accommodate the needs of the ponies.

Equi-Trek’s dedicated engineers have designed and fitted two custom built partitions to create a layout suitable for safely transporting four Dinky Ponies.

Horses have always been a part of owner, Sarah Woodland’s life and she was a freelance groom for top event riders including Sir Mark Todd. When Sarah ended up with six Shetland Ponies that had been given to her, she knew that they needed a purpose, and the Dinky Ponies team was born.

Sarah began doing enrichment visits to care homes helping to promote wellness and happiness to their residents, which soon became incredibly popular.

For residents with dementia, a visit from a Dinky Pony can make such a difference as their eyes light up and they engage and interact with the pony.

More schools and education providers are also seeing the benefit and the positive impact of animal therapy on children’s mental health, wellbeing, self-esteem and development of communication skills, empathy, independence, and relationships.

Each pony has a different job and specialise in certain visits. Some of the ponies are better with the elderly and others are better at coping with children where there might be unexpected noise and wheelchairs.

Said Sarah: “I was so pleased to take delivery of the newly adapted Equi-Trek Apollo, the team at Equi-Trek have been incredibly helpful to come up with a design and internal layout in the trailer that suits the needs of the ponies.

“I love getting out and about, meeting people with the Dinky Ponies and seeing the joy they bring to people, which makes all the hard work worthwhile and now we will be arriving in style in the Equi-Trek Apollo.”

The Equi-Trek Apollo horse trailer is available on Flexi-Tow, Equi-Trek’s most affordable transport solution for just £250 including vat per month, on a rolling contract that only requires one months’ notice to cancel.

For further information on Flexi-Tow click here.