Charlotte Jenkins started Clyde’s Equine Bodywork in 2024. Photo: Bronte Mednis.
Not many people have landed their dream job by the age of 21. Even fewer are successfully running their own business so young.
Charlotte Jenkins is one of the select few who have done so. As owner of Clyde’s Equine Bodywork, she was named Outstanding Young Business Leader at the 2026 Eurobodalla Business Awards for the second consecutive year. Last year she also won the Best New Business of the Year award.
Ms Jenkins and her family moved to Batemans Bay nearly 22 years ago. She grew up with horses.
“All of my extended family are polocrosse players except my mother,” she said. “It skipped her, but that horse gene ended up in me. I grew up riding and competing.”
Being a competitive rider and owner of off-the-track horses, her horses invariably had different problems. Ms Jenkins turned to equine sports massage therapy, known as bodywork, to treat her horses’ ailments.
After a stint working on a sheep station in South Australia, Ms Jenkins returned to Batemans Bay. She got a job at Willinga Park in Bawley Point working alongside the team of vets.
“They are all specialist vets and being able to see the anatomy and rehabilitation more in depth opened my eyes to another world,” she said.
That led her to begin her studies at Equestricare, an online specialist college. She had to spend time in Melbourne though for the more intensive and practical components of the 18-month course before she could sit her exams. She thoroughly enjoyed the studies that took her deep into the world of anatomy, skeletons and fitness. Ms Jenkins is now a qualified equine sports massage therapist.
Charlotte Jenkins grew up riding and competing. Photo: Mel Goodson.
Out of the blue, Willinga Park closed down its reproduction program in 2024. All the team members, including Ms Jenkins, lost their jobs.
“It was around the time I was graduating, so it was the perfect opportunity to jump into a business headfirst,” she said.
She was encouraged to take the plunge by her mother. “She said, ‘What do you have to lose?'”
The job takes her along the coast, to Sydney, the Snowy Mountains, Wagga, Albury, Cowra and Orange. Clearly the word is spreading.
During summer she hits the road at 4 am and gets home when it is dark. In winter she starts at 6:30 am but still comes home in the dark.
Sometimes she must stay overnight and work some weekends. “A lot of my clients are young and still at school so sometimes I must work on weekends to work in with them.”
Ms Jenkins’ passion is treating competition animals, but she treats “anything with four legs” from retired horses to children’s ponies.
Charlotte Jenkins loves her job. Photo: Bronte Mednis.
Ms Jenkins said there was a lot to running her own business and she was lucky to come from a family grounded in business.
“My nan has owned a business forever and Mum worked in that and then my uncle took over running it so I can go to them for whatever I need and bounce ideas,” she said. “I also have a very good community of small business owners around me.”
She said the industry was trying to work more closely with vets.
After attending a recent conference Ms Jenkins is optimistic that the next generation of vets will collaborate more with sport massage therapists.
She said she owed all her success to her mother and sister. “Mum is a rock and the biggest support. She is the number one.”
If you thought her business name referred to the Clyde River, think again.
“When I was nine months old and started walking, I looked like an orangutan, so my Pop called me Clyde, the name of the orangutan in the film Every Which Way but Loose,” she said. “No one in the family calls me anything but Clyde.”
Ms Jenkins loves her job, finding it so rewarding to see the horses progress and to be able to run her own business.
“I am a horse-mad girl so to get out and touch and sniff a horse every day … If I could show my younger self, she would be over the moon,” she said.
