Meet the Founder: Di's Story

Hi, my name is Di & I'm one half of HorsePlan, an app for horse care management that my fiancé, Max, built for me, and that we hope you can all enjoy too!

My parents moved to a house in very rural south Lincolnshire in December 1990 and seven years later I was born, with my brother following a couple of years after that. My dad occasionally "rode" the family's pet donkey in his very early years and my mum used to love going to the riding school as a child but both chose to focus their time and energy on running and their studies growing up. They both did athletics to a very high standard, with my mum even representing Team GB and breaking Scottish native national records, and whilst very competitive and understanding of elite sport, aren't classically "horsey".

That said, the property they purchased together in Bulby came with stables, which used to house racehorses but had long stood empty. A plucky young lady, and now a great friend, Jane Riley, came down the drive a few years after my parents moved in and suggested we set up a livery yard and riding school. My mum, Sue Bevan, jumped at the opportunity to rekindle her childhood passions, and the rest, they say, is history. Sue used to work very physically hard on the yard, up at 4am every morning to muck out 10 stables before getting two small children ready for nursery/school and then going on to work a full time job as a doctor. Very sadly that led to total burnout and physical exhaustion such that while she's still very hands on in a lot of ways and is the administrative backbone to Bulby Equestrian Centre, we now have an awesome team that keep the show on the road day-to-day preparing lessons and looking after the horses.

It really was a dreamy childhood growing up in the middle of nowhere, not only with multiple 4 legged furry friends but also so many 2 legged human friends who chose to join "saddle club". We'd spend every day of our school holidays, every weekend day and every other moment we could snatch down at the yard, learning, helping and growing.

My mum passed on her first love, horses, to me and it's something we love doing together. From the early days of learning to ride through to present day, she has been an ever constant support and we have learnt an enormous amount together.

I joined our pony club centre at Bulby and competed at the pony club championships in the centre classes and earnt lots of pony club badges (if you don't know, it's like brownies for horsey girls, and those small fabric circles are so sought after!). Aged 9, I joined the Belvoir branch of the pony club but after a short spell moved closer to home and joined the Burghley branch, welcomed open arms by the most wonderful group of people.

Aged 10, I got a lovely 13.2 pony called Owen who gave me oodles of confidence - whilst I fell off more times than my mum can remember, he was never malicious and he really taught me to ride. I had two fabulous mounted games ponies, Dino & Louis, who I qualified with for pony club national championships for mounted games and polocrosse - we even managed a couple of podium finishes!

I then had 3 amazing 14-14.2 ponies who I all pony trialled - gordon came first, who really was glory or humiliation, but when I was on it, he was unbeatable. We qualified for badminton grassroots 100 in 2012 and were in the lead before he stopped at the smallest fence on the cross country course (my fault for not being 100% on it!) - horses are so character building hey! He was very much at his limit at BE Novice level but gave it a good crack. Spice and Enzo came next, and together we were made a reserve for the GB European Team and won at PT level.

Moving onto horses, my mum had bred Lily from one of our eventers that Jane rode, Soldier, and together we competed at 2* and won at ONU18 level. When I was 16 my horse of a lifetime came along, found by Jane - Roberto had show jumped to 1.20 so we knew he could jump but the idea of cross country was completely new. Thankfully, he took to it like a duck to water, and whilst he hated the dressage that we worked very hard on with Tracy Woodhead, we went on to compete at Junior and Young Rider National Trials and Champs and at Advanced level. We won the Pony Club Open Eventing Champs, second at Hickstead Pony Club SJ Champs and third at the Pony Club Open Showjumping Champs. So many other great experiences and top placings along the way, he very much earnt his semi retirement and is now the perfect hack for my mum, max and any friends that come over.

I spent two very happy gap years working with horses, teaching and competing and managed to pass my Pony Club A Test, BHS Stage 4, BHS AI (UKCC Level 2 Coach), HGV test and trailer test (not that you need that now!). I always knew I wanted to go to university and whilst I considered working in the equestrian world, I decided to enjoy horses as a hobby and a sport, and seek a career elsewhere.

I now have two lovely horses in homebred Maggie (2018), Lily's daughter, and Bassi, bought as a 3yo from Ireland in 2016 and still with us over 9 years later. I have had some other gorgeous horses over the years, but I now work a busy job in London and live in Cambridge so we just about manage to juggle the two.

For so long, I was managing the horses' training, care and management through a combination of excel spreadsheets, notes, WhatsApp messages and google calendar. I told Max I'd love to have all of this information all in one place and hey presto, here we are! I am able to manage all of my horses' appointments with the chiropractor, vet, physio, farrier, dentist etc and remember important dates such as vaccinations and worming schedules. You can customise it to suit you in so many ways and add as much or as little information as you like. Do let us know if you have any feedback- we'd love to hear from you (and thank you to those who have messaged already!).

If you ever see me at an event or out training, please do come and say hi!