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| I was born and raised in a small village, in Hampshire, surrounded by farmland and countryside. Growing up at my parent’s riding school ensured horses became a major part of my life and from the start, I was fascinated by them. I loved all aspects of being around the horses and ponies in the yard (although, sometimes, the work and the falls could be hard!) and I realise now, how fortunate I was to be able study them at such close hand. |
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I was also fortunate to be introduced, as a child, to the wonders of Polo and Horseracing. My Mother and Father had each been raised close to the hallowed grounds of Cowdray Park Polo Club and Cirencester Park respectively (the ’discussion’ over which is the finer ground remains today!) and I would soak up every detail of the ponies and players they had seen. On the rare occasions one of my parents could leave the yard, they would sometimes take me to their ’home’ ground, where I could marvel, first hand, at the speed of the play and the bravery of the ponies. |
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| My father ignited the passion for racing. I would pour over the racing pages of the newspapers and the books that lined the bookshelves, sketching from the photographs of current and past greats and if the racing that day was televised , there would be a competition to pick the most winners (which was usually won by my mother - who never read the form, but has a liking for greys, the number 7 or the prettiest one). |
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| One of my favourite activities had been to roll up the leathers on my Shetland pony’s stirrups, to make them as short as possible, and then race around the paddocks, jumping over piles of fallen branches (that I had placed there when no one was looking), whilst imagining we were leading the field at Cheltenham. Being a Shetland pony, he would only tolerate this humiliation for so long before he would give me an impromptu lesson in being thrown off. |
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The Cheltenham Festival was almost a three day public holiday in our house and the most important race of the year was, and still is, the Cheltenham Gold Cup - it was also the first big race day I was taken to. |
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| This was the year Dawn Run ran in, the winner, with Jonjo O’Neill on board, meaning Dawn Run had become the only horse to have won the Gold Cup and the Champion Hurdle (the most prestigious hurdle race at the Cheltenham Festival), a couple of years earlier. The reception for the winner was overwhelming and I was completely hooked. |
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| From an early age, I also took great interest in the animals, birds and insects that populated the countryside around our home. As well as the domestic beasts on the farm, there was endless supply of wildlife and I would spend hours sketching from life in the paddocks, fields and woods. Unfortunately for my parents, these ‘field trips’ sometimes led to the discovery of an injured bird or animal, which was duly brought home to nurture back to health. This also gave me the opportunity to sketch them in detail, until they were strong enough to be released back to the wild. |
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| When I started work and left home, I would still take my sketch pad, along with a camera, and venture into the countryside - occasionally returning with a new patient. One particular casualty led to me starting Muldoon. |
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| Whilst living and working in Stockbridge, Hampshire, I chanced upon a day old duckling, lying abandoned and apparently deceased , on the pavement in the high street. It was a cold, rainy day in November - not the usual time of year for ducklings. On picking him up, signs of life appeared, but there was no sign of his mother in the street or on the nearby River Test. |
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| After warming up in my jumper on the walk home, he ate a hearty lunch of scrambled egg and made himself very much at home. From then on, he would follow me about the house, making a sound like a squeaking wheel (hence him being named Scooter), the volume and pitch of which would increase dramatically if he became stuck or lost. Housemates and visitors became used to finding him in the bath or snoozing on the sofa (which, due to his bad manners, had to be covered with a thick towel at all times). As he grew, it became obvious he had a weak leg - probably the reason for his original abandonment - so release back to the river wouldn’t be an option. The only option, it seemed, was to move to a new home with a garden big enough to build him a decent pond. So we moved, housemates and all, a few miles up the road to a cottage on Chilbolton Down Farm - a working farm set amid rolling down land. |
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| It seemed ’meant to be’ as the garden already had a purpose built, fox-proof night shelter and more than enough space for a pond for Scooter and plenty of inspiration for painting, right on the doorstep . It was here that I began to have thoughts of working for myself. Up to this point, I’d worked as an illustrator/painter for various graphic and interior design companies and as a floral decorator, firstly with a wonderful floral designer (Fiona Doyle of Chatterbox Flowers) and then freelance. I’d enjoyed working in both fields and realised they could both be incorporated into my new venture. A workshop on the farm had become available in one of the old stables (originally built to house the heavy horses that had worked the farm, years before), which could be used as a studio - something I’d always dreamed of. I wanted to offer my own paintings, alongside unique, hand made accessories for the home, that reflected and celebrated the beauty of our countryside and this quiet, rural location seemed the ideal place to do it. |
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| And so, in 2000, I moved my drawing board into the ‘studio’ and began work. All I needed was a name for the business. I would have liked to name it after the beloved duck that brought it all about - but, unfortunately, Scooter Studios didn’t sound quite right. In the end, I decided to name it after a favourite pony from childhood - Muldoon (or Spotty Muldoon, to give him his full title), a wonderfully tempered but somewhat food obsessed Appaloosa, who’d carried me safely to and from many of my field trips and didn’t mind all the hanging about - as long as I’d remembered to bring the picnic. |
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