A 10-YEAR-Old from Old Down, has proved herself an able apprentice after coming up with a novel horse gift for a local firm.

Lottie Wilkins helped to develop a new idea for a Tockington-based equestrian business.

So clever was the idea that it was taken up instantly by many of the UK's leading equestrian online retailers and thousands have already been sold worldwide - as far afield as South Africa and New Zealand - since it launched 2 months ago.

Lottie, like many kids of her age, had loved this year's craze for loom friendship bracelets, which are made from weaving together simple, colourful, rubber bands and realised how the bands would be perfect for making browbands for horses and ponies.

The bracelets have become a staple on school playgrounds across the world and have been spotted on the wrists of people including David Beckham.

The bracelets reportedly hit the top 20 spot in Amazon's best-selling toy chart. Lottie hopes that her browbands will mirror their success in the equestrian market, particularly as they make such great Christmas presents for pony mad girls like her.

She said: "I was making bracelets for all my family and friends but no one had room left to wear any more! Then one day I was up at the stables and decided it would be fun to make bands for the horses too. They looked so good, that my aunty, (Christina Jones of Yourgifthorse.com) arranged to have the browband kits made up and we started to sell them. It's so exciting to see my invention going all round the world."

The loom browband kits are available at http://www.yourgifthorse.com/products/loom-band-browband-kits and other leading equestrian retailers worldwide, including enough materials to make several browbands.