TWO horse-lovers have made their dreams come true by opening a livery yard.

Victoria Goodall, 22 and Rhona Smith, 24, have owned and worked with horses all their lives and have always dreamed of opening their own livery business.

The pair have been friends for several years and decided this year to go into business together.

Miss Goodall said: "When you're young, it's hard to get started in business. Teesdale Enterprise was excellent in providing us with management training in areas such as accounts.

"But we also found we couldn't get much in the way of financial support from banks because of our ages so we applied to the Prince's Trust for help. Rhona and I each received a £2,000 grant for creating two new jobs."

The friends have leased the yard area at Low Green Farm, at Romaldkirk, from farmer Richard Wall. It includes stables, a tack room and an office. There is also an outdoor schooling area and a grass arena.

"The facilities are enormous and allow us to provide lots of different services. We offer riding lessons and a breaking-in service where we take young horses in for four or five weeks.

"Competition schooling is available. We have two ponies in at the moment for this. We also recently helped someone to buy a pony and we will work with them and the horse so that they can compete next year.

"We can provide transport for hunters to meets and we also offer horse rehabilitation. In the future, we are planning to build another barn to house 16 horse boxes which will help us to offer even more," Miss Goodall added.

Miss Smith owns her own hunter and has had previous experience in running a yard in Northumberland. Miss Goodall has also attended racing schools and completed a course in business in Oxfordshire.

Miss Goodall said: "The yard officially opened on Sunday, August 10. I was amazed at how many people turned up. They were from all over the North-East and we received quite a bit of business."

The pair also have some grand plans for the future. Miss Smith eventually hopes to compete at the Olympics and Miss Goodall is working towards gaining a national hunt licence.

For more information about the livery yard and the services available, call Miss Goodall on 07815 756386 or Miss Smith on 07810 648940.