‘It will be difficult for some of them'

Remember children won’t be ring-ready straight away, says Julie Templeton

- Alex Robinson

LOCKDOWN, furlough and social distancing are three terms we would have never imagined becoming part of our normal, day-to-day vocabulary, and no one could have dreamt that getting our lives back to normality would depend on each of us receiving a vaccination. Fortunately, I fall into a certain age bracket so I have received my first dose of the Covid vaccine. Being needle phobic I was apprehensive about it, but it was painless.

Looking back over the past year, it’s strange how everyone has just adapted to the changes we’ve had to make and we have accepted the “new normal” way of life.

However, like everyone else in the industry, our yard has also had to adapt. We’ve never had to speak to our insurance company so often about what, as a business, we can and cannot legally do.

We wouldn’t have predicted that part of our new business plan would include booking the staff in for bi-weekly drivethrough Covid tests, or adding hand sanitiser and masks to the list of items needed to be packed into the horsebox before a show.