Following on from his time at Baramul Stud, Josh for a period with Kendall Neilson at his property ‘Leeburn’ at Dungog in the southern part of the Hunter Valley in NSW, north of Newcastle. Here on ‘Leeburn’ Josh continued his work with horses, blending his experience from Gerry Harvey’s race horse stud and the invaluable experience gained at ‘Glengyle’. All the while working with Kendall, Josh found himself developing his own style and further advancing his experience as he blended his station style work in camp drafting, breaking and physical horse care with training, sale preparation and general handling.
With a sabbatical period of about 4 years at Coffs Harbour where Josh pursued several of his other key interests and passions such as body boarding and fishing, working and living around those hobbies. All the time however he found himself maintaining his interest in the equine industry, allowing his passion to continue simmering, niggling and eating away until the that transformational day in early 2013 when he broke-in the horse for his friend.
Since then, Josh is riding on a wave of success with his newly developed business. Spurred only initially by intense word-of-mouth promotion by those clients he slowly started doing work for, he’s found himself developing a solid client base and enabling him to leave his previous employer and pursue his passion and gifted skill set on a permanent full-time basis. “I’d be working with the horses at the Coffs Harbour race track from about 4am until around 8am, go to work at the bait and tackle shop where I was working full time, then doing shoeing, filing and breaking-in after work until dark. It was getting pretty tiring but I was always nervous about letting go of the fulltime job until I had enough regular clients.” With a client base of 70+ customer now…and growing…he’s finally been able to leave the bait and tackle shop and establish himself as he has wanted to do for a some time. His clients now include recreational and professional horse owners. “There’s nothing like helping an owner with a mischievous pet, breaking in their latest purchase or even re-educating owners as well with how to handle their horse. Helping re-educate owners can be just as important sometimes as the re-education of the horses.
“There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That a young buck from old Coffs with horses had a way,
And had launched his given talent - he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the horse owners were gathering to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from properties near and far
Had begun experiencing his skill…oh what a sight,
For the horse owners love their riding where the open paddocks are,
And the wild ones snuff in fear of him and want to take flight.”
Love Thy Horse Magazine 9