Dr David L O Smith - Model Engineer, Horseman and Operations Director at Receptional

I semi-retired from internet marketing (on-line promotion of commercial websites) at Receptional Ltd. in 2006, although I remain a director, so I now have more time to follow other interests: to ride my horses with my wife Liz, to be a model engineer, and occasionally to visit steam railways. I am a director of Unicorn Trails and work as a horse guide, or escort, on selected horse riding holidays around the world. I am also a director of eCow, a company that specialises in the non-invasive monitoring of dairy cows.

My background is in agricultural engineering and in civil engineering (I have a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from Iowa State University and I am a Chartered Engineer through the Institution of Agricultural Engineers), and I do keep my hand in as an external examiner at Cranfield University. Just over ten years ago, Dixon Jones and I co-founded Receptional Ltd. shortly after I 'retired' early as a Principal Research Scientist, and then a Senior Business Manager, at the now closed Silsoe Research Institute. (There is more detail in a brief history of my career).

I was an active volunteer on the Ffestiniog Railway in the 1960s and I have long been an advocate for the restoration of the Welsh Highland Railway, in North Wales, where I now volunteer as a steam fitter and fireman for an occasional week during the summer. I also help to manage Rushymeade (also known as Pulloxhill Meadows), 20 acres of wildlife meadows in Pulloxhill, Bedfordshire, for which we have three old tractors (Ferguson TED20, MF35X and MF65) and a few contemporary implements.

	Horses
My mare, Fern	15.1hh Arab x Hunter mare - even when she was old she didn't seem to know it. Fern - She was a sort of 'classic sports car' - not new but she still had a powerful motor! Sadly, she died towards the end of 2007, by which time she was about 31 years old. Read My Fond Memory of Fern
Claude	17.1hh Clydesdale x Thoroughbred gelding - 17 years old, my 'new' horse. Claude - A gentle giant with a very kind nature. From a local, former riding school, he was an instructor's horse - he's happy to lead, or follow, or to go out alone. He doesn't do anything special so he's ideal for me as all I wish to do is hack out on the local Bedfordshire bridleways and, in due course, pull chain harrows in the field. We have been learning natural horsemanship, particularly Australian Natural Horsemanship, and we've become firm friends!
Unicorn Trails	I am very fortunate that, as a director of Unicorn Trails, I travel around the world as a horse guide, or escort, and I also look into new horse riding holidays. Below are a few of my adventures of seeing the world from horseback but there are more on my page of the Naturally Horses website: Horse Riding Adventures
Nassim	Nassim - In May 2004, I had an adventure in Morocco with Nassim, a Berber Arab stallion. The horse riding holiday was a trial run of the High Atlas Crossing, arranged specially for Unicorn Trails. It started in the desert at a kasbah in a palm plantation in Skoura, traversed the High Atlas Mountains (pass of Tizi-n-Tichka at 8000ft, 2400 metres) and finished at the Plains of Marrakech. The trip was 230 miles (370km) and involved ten and a half days of riding. See some pictures of my adventure in Morocco.
Champs	In 2005, I joined two others from Unicorn Trails as a horse guide on a corporate riding holiday for 150 people from an international management consultancy that involved riding the first few days of the High Atlas Crossing. I was disappointed that Nassim was not amongst the troupe that we used; I'd liked to have seen him again and would certainly have asked for him if it'd been possible. A job for a rainy day is to collate the photographs and write up this remarkable desert experience!
Hasni	Hasni - I rode on the Aragon Trail, Spain, in mid October, when the weather would normally have been very pleasant but, especially for me, it was rather wet! Hasni was a very willing horse who needed but the slightest suggestion to do what I wanted. Bertrand, our guide, has trained all his horses very naturally and, although we had bitless bridles for insurance purposes, they could all be ridden by near beginners in a rope halter, if necessary.
Nassim again	I rode Nassim again in 2006. I was an escort for Unicorn Trails to a party of riders who raised nearly 100,000 Euro for the Irish Heart Foundation on the Moroccan Horse Trek Challenge. This was a special version of the Skoura to Tarbahlt Desert Trail which ended with a gallop (see the video) to our final camp, nestled in the crescent of a desert sand dune.
Rodi	I rode Icelandic horses on the Glacier Trail through Kjölur in the central highlands of Iceland -160 miles in five and a half days. Before Unicorn Trails offers a riding holiday destination, a senior person in the company has to check it out. I know, it's a tough job but somebody has to do it! We had 73 Icelandic horses for 20 riders and we each changed horses once or twice every day; the unridden horses ran free with us. Pictures from the Glacier Trail.
Bull	I went on another exploratory ride for Unicorn Trails: the Forest and Lakes Trail in Sweden, riding with Natural Horsemanship as the heart of the experience. The North Swedish Horses (cold bloods) are powerful but biddable animals, real ‘diesels’ in their performance (bit slow to warm up but they go and go and go!) Picture and more text about this ride in Sweden.
More recent horse riding adventures ...

	Tractors and Other Vehicles
MF35X	MF35X with disc harrows used to restore grass and meadow plants to the former bramble and blackthorn-infested areas of Rushymeade (also known as Pulloxhill Meadows), the village wildlife amenity land in Pulloxhill, Bedfordshire. As well as the relatively diverse flora and fauna, Rushymeade preserves areas of medieval ridge and furrow (long, low mounds and shallow hollows, created by farmers ploughing their fields to improve drainage, particularly in heavy clay soils, in the 13^th and early 14^th century). Nenagh and Claude have their stables in our two acre field at our back gate that has a fenceless boundary with this area.
TED20	I also have a 'Little Grey Fergie' TED20 which is designed to be started on petrol and then switched over to paraffin / kerosene (actually TVO, Tractor Vapourising Oil) when the engine is sufficiently hot. TVO is no longer available as a fuel but, if you have a license, it may be mixed up from domestic kerosene and petrol, along the lines suggested by Shell and others at The Friends of Ferguson Heritage Ltd.
Land Rover	Our Series 3 Land Rover is just a 'toy' - we cannot justify it, but then you don't need to justify a toy. We do use it to collect wood that we have sawn up for our wood-burning stove if it's too long a haul or too small a job for the MF35 and 30 cwt Wheatley trailer. A friend has borrowed it to haul her horse trailer and we do use it when one of our cars has been in for servicing/MoT but mostly we just drive it when we feel like a smile.
TK Horsebox	We had a Bedford TK 860 horsebox, that was originally registered in 1974 but has only 45,000 miles on the odometer; we believe this is genuine because the chassis appears to have been owned by a utility (Post Office Telephones?) before the horsebox body was added. Its six-cylinder diesel engine does not develop much power by today's standards although the fuel consumption is moderate. Sadly, we did not really use it enough so we sold it a few years ago.

click on the images below for larger views and more details	7mm Scale (O Gauge, 43.5 : 1) Railway Engineering Models
GWR Saint David	Saint David, an early member of the Great Western Railway saint class of locomotives, built in 1907 and broken up as the last survivor in October, 1953. Awarded a Silver Medal at International Model Engineering Exhibition (London), 1990
'Dean Goods'	Great Western Railway N^o. 2415, a member of the ubiquitous and numerous 'Dean Goods' class that was originally built in 1891-2 but is modelled in its mid 1920s rebuilt condition.
LMS Fowler Diesel Mechanical	LMS N^o. 2, a diesel mechanical 0-4-0 with jackshaft drive built by John Fowler of Leeds in 1935 for shunting at the LMS Beeston Sleeper Works in Nottinghamshire, England.
These are just three examples, but please view more of my railway engineering models and some of my workshop machine tools.
I can recommend RailOnline as a good source of inexpensive railway photographs for downloading