No mucking about with the new Equine Speedskip

4:25pm Thursday 7th August 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

NECESSITY has proved the mother of invention for horse lovers Gareth Hulbert and Elaine Pickering.

When they struggled to find the right tools to muck out their stables, they started an experiment, and the result was the Equine Speedskip, a long-handled rake with sprung steel tines and a detachable scoop.

Not knowing how to take their idea further, Gareth and Elaine contacted Business Link in Hereford where they did a business start-up course.

Business Link put them in touch with the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) in the West Midlands and MAS funded some CAD drawings while Mick Adams of Birmingham Prototypes Ltd helped develop the hand rake.

But the couple hit problems trying to find a British manufacturer. Marketing expert Steve Joliffe, a Business Link client who runs Start 2 Finish Marketing in Birmingham, stepped in when he heard of their problems.

“I arranged a meeting between them and Stourbridge manufacturer Nick Copson from C J Tools and Mouldings and, at last, they found a company willing to support them in keeping the product entirely made in Britain.”

Nick said: “We produce tooling and plastic injection moulded components, and are able to offer our clients full product assembly, something this project really needed. We pride ourselves on being the total solution and this enabled us to guarantee that Equine Speedskip could be developed and produced as a truly British manufactured product.”

The first shipment of Speedskips had been exported to Holland and 30 retailers up and down the country are stocking the new product.

Now, thanks to the £24.99 Equine Speedskip being marketed through national horse magazines and the equinespeedskip.com, horse owners can spend more time riding their horses and less time mucking out.

Gareth and Elaine said: “We both feel proud to have a wholly British-made product and are grateful to the West Midlands companies whose support has made it possible.”