I’m Michael Owen; I’m a three-day event rider, Great Britain. I’ve been eventing for over 20 years now, and I’ve ridden around Badminton and Burghley many times on different horses, and I’m here at my yard with my new Cheval Liberté stable block. You can read more about Team Owen Eventing on their Facebook page.
We had an internal barn that was completely empty, so we had a blank canvas to work with. We wanted something quite stylish and durable and something that enabled the horses to really interact with each other.
We chose Cheval Liberté because of the style of the stables, there’s lots of variety in style. You can custom make your stables how you want them, especially when on a budget, depending on what you wanted. Moneywise, you can really sort of bling it up if you want, or you can keep it simple and basic. But the main thing was the durability of the material and the style of the stables, which was a real plus for us. I also spoke to many friends and professionals in the business where they all recommended Cheval, probably more than any other company and it was a bonus that they were in the area. So I was very keen to get them out and price me up with some nice stables.
I was really happy with the quality of them and with the freshness of them. You know, the horses could really and they could see each other. They can integrate with each other and they were very relaxed as soon as they moved into the stables.
All in all, I was just really happy with the quality that the doors on the stables were quite modest and very easy to use, yet very secure for the horses. There’s no fiddly sort of foot bolts to mess with. It’s all very modern and very up to date with the current styles of all the stables that you can get.
I went for the Fontainebleau plastic recycled stables, purely because of their nice style. They look very modern and classic at the same time in recycled plastic. I have used these types of stables before, and I found that they are extremely durable. Horses don’t tend to want to chew them and, they will probably last longer than I will! So that’s the main reason I picked them.
Because of the style of the stables, they’re so easy to use, our members of staff find it very easy to use the hay racks that we have, which are an additional extra for the stables. The hay racks are internal but you open the bars from the outside of the stable and put the hay into the hay racks, and so they can eat very naturally with their neck down; they’re very easy to use. So there’s no hay net filling – which takes up a lot of time. We’re probably saving an hour or two each day just by having the hay racks. Because of that, the girls can utilise all that time for other things then.
I also went for the external timber stables outside. I hadn’t really seen these until Guto showed me what we could have and again, they were extremely durable whilst being very, very stylish. Plus they look like they will last a very long time and they’re very cool inside in the summer when it’s really warm. I couldn’t believe how cool the stables were. And I would imagine in the wintertime; they will stay very insulated and actually be quite warm in the winter, which is really important that the horses stay nice and relaxed in their environment.
So the customer service has been absolutely fantastic. As soon as I’ve contacted them about anything during the process, they’ve gotten back to me within the hour, no problem at all. Nothing’s been a problem. Everything’s gone very smoothly, and I’m very, very satisfied with the whole experience.
