The winning formula

The future looks bright for Vicky Tuffs and Andrew Williams, as their business producing young event horses goes from strength to strength. Catherine Austen meets them

- Catherine Austen

Vicky Tuffs (left, with Kogola and CFH Daker Hill) and Andrew Williams (with Kojak and Linkin Park K) enjoyed an “extraordinary” year in 2020 for their business, GHF Equestrian

“DESPITE the virus, we’ve had our best year,” says Vicky Tuffs. She and her business partner Andrew Williams are sitting in the kitchen at Great House Farm, in midDecember. It is the physical centre point of GHF Equestrian, the event horse sales and production business that they run together.

Perched on the side of an emerald-green Welsh valley just outside of Usk, it is possibly the closest thing to the Sheanes’ Cooley Farm that Britain offers. At the top of the complex is Andrew’s newly built house, then Vicky and her husband Craig Pritchard’s, where they live with their two small boys. Vicky’s parents, whose free-range chicken and egg business this site originally housed, live next door.

The site slopes down to three interlinking yards that have the capacity for 27 horses. At the bottom of the hill is a huge outdoor school, naturally protected from the Welsh weather.

One of the striking features of 2020 was the buoyant nature of the horse sales markets.

“Perhaps, for some people, Covid-19 put life into perspective; if you want something, go and get it,” says Andrew.

GHF Equestrian turned over more than £500,000 in 2020; a 25% increase on the year before.

“At the end of the season, we went from 30 horses to 12 in two weeks; it was extraordinary,” says Andrew. “The difficulty is in trying to replace them.”