Meet an equestrian retail legend… Dawn Dodd-Noble, founder of Buntingford, Herts based Sandon Saddlery, is still running the business in her 80s. She talks to Lauren Barber.
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awn Dodd-Noble received her first pony on her seventh birthday. “He cost 45 shillings [£2.25] delivered and was an unhandled Dartmoor pony called Dickon,” she said. “He was good looking, so I worked on him before showing him and then selling him on.” A dab hand at gymkhanas, Dawn brought home many rosettes. “I used to think about the races tactically,” she admits. “The first thing I would do was go outside of the ring and measure the start to the finish by walking the distance to see if all the positions were in the same place – often it was ten feet shorter one way!” Dawn had always wanted to work with horses and would spend all her spare time practicing. “When the war came, ponies were of no use to anybody unless they were driven,” she says. “So I began breaking horses for harness and sold them – with or without a vehicle. Sometimes I would deliver a horse and hitchhike home!” From an early age, Dawn learned to tailor her business to the needs and requirements of her customers. “My clients then wanted good looking, well mannered horses, so that’s what I gave them,” she said. War time When the war began, the well-educated Dawn was offered a place in the Navy, working on the Isle of Bute as a torpedo mechanic. “It was the equivalent really of being in a garage and working with cars. There was nothing glam about it. I was one of three females in a workplace of 25
men – we even had to share the lavatory with them.” After the war, Dawn worked as a petty officer restoring order to establishments that had been used to house people. Here she learned valuable management skills. “We had to check that the contents of the buildings were as they should be,” she said. “There were many extra items and many things missing, so I found a trolley and asked my second officer if I could take the items into the town - wearing plain clothes as you were not allowed to be seen in town in uniform - sell them on and buy back the things that we needed. “The officer said she wouldn’t condone it, however she was going to be away for five days. I read between the lines and off I went to restore order. When she returned, I gave her the left over money as well as a bottle of gin, and bought a box of choccy biccies for the rest of us.” Back in the saddle On leaving the Navy, Dawn had made and saved £3,000 and decided she wanted to invest the money in a riding school, horse dealing business and saddlery. “I wanted stables and enough land and I specifically wanted it in the Berkshire area - but there was no way I could afford it there,” she said.
28 FEBRUARY 2012 EQUESTRIAN TRADE NEWS
“My mother was in mechanized transport business,” Dawn explains. “She was a very good driver and had her own Royalton car. One day she suggested I went to see a property in Hertfordshire. I said ‘no way, I don’t want to live in Watford!’ I was a Geordie, my mother’s family was from Northumberland and the only experience I had had with Hertfordshire was driving north on the A1, which went through Watford. Anyway, we drove down there, turned off in Watford and became surrounded by fields, cows and birds - and then I fell in love.” Sandon Saddlery The plot had ten acres, three little cottages and one big barn with a rusty tin roof, which would later become Sandon Saddlery. “It was 1949. I got the riding school going and turned one room of my cottage into a shop. I started to establish a loyal customer base and things grew from there,” said Dawn. Although the business was going well, Dawn had to work hard to stay afloat financially. “One particularly difficult winter I was called by the mother of three children who rode with me. She said she was taking her children – who were four, six and seven – out of
school and would I be governess to them for £3 a week? “I don’t like teaching but she persuaded me by saying how well I taught them to ride. Later, after they had moved away, I received a phone call saying the children had been through three governesses and were so naughty, would I please come back and she would pay me £5 a week and my petrol! “So it was that I reached the dizzy heights of owning a car, an old Ford Van 500, which I painted green with a brown saddle on it to advertise the business.” Moving with the times In 1967, recognising that the demand for donkeys had increased, Dawn asked a customer and friend, Joan Howard Carter, to assist her in setting up the Sandon Saddlery Company Donkey Stud. Over the years, they enjoyed great success in the show ring giving Sandon Saddlery valuable publicity. “People would come and ask me how to pick a donkey,” Dawn recalled. “I used to tell them ‘just imagine it’s a horse with big ears and a slightly odd tail and pick a good looking one.’” Along with Dawn’s partner, Gillian Robertson – a great side saddle rider - Sandon Saddlery also set up a wholesale business. “We set up around a similar time
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