Hay There, Ellie!

Our dedicated HorseLife and Research Project Manager, Ellie, has a varied and interesting role within The Horse Trust, assisting with ground-breaking research and working on big exciting projects to propel us into the future. Not only is Ellie hardworking and dedicated but she is lovely to work alongside and lives and breathes our values here at The Horse Trust. Let’s find out more about Ellie…

Full Name – Eleanor Taylor

Job Title – HorseLife and Research Project Manager

How Long have you been working at The Horse Trust – 3 years (and a bit)

Favourite horse at The Horse Trust – Goliath holds a special place in my heart. He was one of the first horses I met when I started at The Horse Trust and has a personality as big as his feet!

Best joke – Why did the horse get an award? Because it was out standing in its field!

A little background on me –

I have had a really varied career across charitable, education and health and social care sectors including: team, volunteer and project management; student support and fostering. Plus I worked with unpaid carers as a Support Worker, Peer Support Officer and Lead Practitioner! I also have a MSc in Equine Science.

A typical day working for The Horse Trust – My day is usually spread across several projects. There’s lots of variation day-to-day depending on what we have going on at the time – I could be working with data, collaborating on a campaign or looking at effective ways to disseminate information. One main focus, and something I usually spend time on each day, is a large and ongoing project called HorseLife. When launched, HorseLife will enable us to collect information about UK horses across their lifetime by surveying participating (consenting) horse owners. The information collected will help us understand more about the health, behaviour and management of horses over a long period, improving our understanding of their lives, experiences and welfare. The research will help inform horse owners and ultimately improve horse wellbeing. It’s really exiting to be involved in the development of HorseLife, which will be of so much benefit to the research community long-term and will give owners a fun and unique way to be contribute to equine wellbeing.

Favourite part of my job – Probably that I’m always learning. Sometimes that’s actively upskilling for a project, but mostly I’m learning from the people I work/collaborate with, the consultants working on projects or from the researchers that The Horse Trust fund. It’s quite a privilege to have access to these amazing minds.

With equal measure, I love that everything about my role has a focus on improving equine wellbeing in some capacity, whether that’s for our Horse Trust herd or for the larger equine population. Working on HorseLife gives a unique feeling of long-term contribution too, which I get a great deal of satisfaction from. I think that about sums it up.

Oh, and the variety!

Dream job if not doing this – Definitely a Detective! I’m naturally inquisitive and find myself questioning things, and I love the moment when you realise you have worked something out. Plus, my career has been based around helping or advocating for others (humans, now horses) so I think it would tie all these themes together.

Thank you for being this month’s Spotlight member Ellie, it’s great to have you as part of our wonderful Horse Trust team!

Keep an eye out next month for the next Hay There…