HORSE and pony owners, like horses and ponies, come in all shapes and sizes and do different things. They also rapidly discover, if they didn't know before, that looking after a horse or pony is a seven days a week job.

Which doesn't suit everyone. Especially if the owner is working a shift pattern job to pay for their four-legged friend.

While one week it might be perfectly easy to muck out at 7am, the next the owner may be halfway through their shift on a busy hospital ward at that time, or behind the wheel of a police car, or in some other occupation with irregular hours.

Sue Rogers knows all about these sorts of problems, because she used to be a nurse.

Which is why, when she achieved her life's ambition and took over her own livery yard, she was determined to offer a service that helped those who were sometimes hard at work just when their horses needed them.

Now, along with husband Peter and daughter Vicki, Sue is part of the team behind Eastbury Manor Equestrian, the yard on the outskirts of Worcester between the city boundary and the village of Lower Broadheath, just opposite the food factory.

The scheme she has come up with is called assisted livery. "We offer a range of five livery packages from grass keep to full," Sue said. "We will do the whole lot in turning-out a horse for competition or a day's hunting. Clipping, plaiting, tack, even including transporting it there.

"All the owner has to do it get on it, get off it at the end of the day and give the horse back to us.

"Of course, I know other reputable yards do the same thing - it's what makes a good business. But where I think we are different is with the assisted livery.

"This means offering a flexible service for an owner who cannot get to their horse the same time every day.

"For example, if they are working a shift that means they cannot turn out in the morning and do the stable, we will do that for them.

"They can then get the horse in during the evening. Or vice versa. They can do morning and we will do evening.

"Or if they are ill or need to spend some time away, we will make sure the horse is fully catered for.

"The aim is to be as flexible as the owner needs, because horses and ponies, especially during the winter, need attention every day. They are not like a convertable car you can park in a garage and forget about until the weather's better."

A vastly experienced equestrian, Sue has been riding since she was knee-high to a mounting block, hunting through her teenage years and turning out show ponies and generally doing the whole Pony Club thing.

She grew up on a farm at Feckenham, Worcestershire, but had always hankered after her own yard.

Now at Eastbury she has 13 boxes and a full range of facilities, including a show-jumping area, an outdoor working arena and a three quarter-mile gallop, which presumably you can use when you come off your shift at 3am - providing you fit headlights to the horse.