As a little girl I had big dreams to be a dancer. I danced and danced and danced but was never quite good enough. I wasn’t polished enough, maybe not serious enough and I had no memory for it. I had to dance at the back of the troop so I could watch the dance take place in front of me. Don’t get me wrong, a great dancer I was, but more of a disco queen or trance party raver, fire walking all night groover.
You see, I grew up in Byron Bay as a little hippie girl filled with whimsical dreams. Even though I was a lonely, single parents only child, I had wonderful dreams and some how for the most part they are still coming true. One of these dreams was to have a horse. Quite amazingly at 12 years old a very dear family friend surprised me with a beautiful pure white horse ‘Sundowner’ or ‘Sunny’ to me.
He was incredibly wild and a little psycho but in a way the gentlest creature I had ever met. Even though I couldn’t ride, I chose to learn to ride bareback of course. It was lucky I had natural balance from all the dancing; as all we did was go go, go. I’m not sure who felt more free, Sunny or me. We were one; the groove of his back had a little arch carved out just for my little bottom. One day a cowboy said to me ‘If any horse is capable of love, that horse loves you’.
Galloping down the beach after school on my beautiful white horse is one of the most spectacular and beautiful memories’ of my life. I think Sunny’s spirit has stayed with me and in those moments I felt ethereal, so what better name for a company created from my heart and soul than Epona Co… a Gaelic term for Goddess of the horse.
