Lexington, Ky. - From a region known to cater to some of the finest and most temperamental equine athletes in the world, Lucas Equine Equipment has spent more than 25 years opening new doors for itself by building the signature entrances that grace horse farms across the Bluegrass and the world.
The company, which is headquartered in Cynthiana, has combined both artistic design and technology to create equine accommodations that are both stately and sturdy enough to meet the expectations of the self-proclaimed Horse Capital of the World. That experience, in turn, has helped them grow their business among national and global markets of horse enthusiasts looking for distinct, well-crafted horse havens.
The company, named for its original owner, builds custom components designed for horse stalls, barns and farms, ranging from stall doors and screens to entrance and paddock gates. After being purchased in 1981 by Dana Looker, the three-employee welding shop expanded from simple paddock gates to custom-designed gates, stall doors and grills. Within ten years, the company's reputation was expanding beyond its Bluegrass home, and the company broke ground on a new facility in 1995 to accommodate its growth. An additional building was added to the facility in 2001.
Today, under the leadership of owners Looker and Mike Ravenscraft, the company has expanded to include close to 50 employees and serve a growing international clientele, but still with a focus on custom development and hands-on quality fabrication.
With its own full-service tool and die shop and woodworking facilities on site, Lucas Equine Equipment custom designs and builds virtually all of its products on site. Over the years, more and more of its products have been packed up and shipped for installation at distant locales, including as far as Japan, Ireland, England, Egypt and Dubai. The expansion of its customer base to markets outside of Kentucky has meant working to understand the styles and preferences in different regions, in addition to the tastes of individual customers, according to marketing manager Nick Thornton, but the Bluegrass-tested quality of the company's products has served them well in all terrains. Building gates and stables sturdy enough to pass muster with Thoroughbreds in particular, which have a reputation for destructive behavior, has helped the company hone its processes for added strength and quality, Thornton noted.
"This Thoroughbred market is where we grew up," Thornton said. "If you can hold a Thoroughbred, you can basically hold anything."
That doesn't mean the company isn't continuing to improve and streamline its systems. In January, for instance, the company invested in its own welding robot to fabricate specialized cross-hatched panels on site, a design that Thornton said offers greater strength to hold powerful horses.
While establishing a network of clients among established Bluegrass horse farms has helped to grow its business, Lucas Equine Equipment has also worked to develop a wide breadth of knowledge across the company's staff. Almost every member of Lucas' sales staff, for example, has previously worked in the shop on some element of the product's manufacture, Thornton said. The experience comes in handy when helping clients translate their ideas into workable designs, he added.
"Everybody has knowledge of the material and the product firsthand, and understanding of how it goes together," Thornton said.
About half of the company's clients come to them with a detailed design to be implemented or replicated, while the other half seeks more design help, Thornton said. The company's salespeople often become their clients' technical representatives, draftsmen and designers in this regard, with all of them being versed in basic computer-aided design tools as well as the manufacturing processes.
The projects commissioned from Lucas Equine run the gamut from basic designs intended to house the pleasure-riding pony down the road to the four-star equine equivalents that grace some of the horse community's most prestigious breeding operations, and timelines and costs can vary accordingly, Thornton said. Projects can take anywhere from two months to two years for completion, with the most elaborate carrying a price of well into six figures.
But even with the simpler projects, there is always opportunity for artistic expression in the company's final products.
"A lot of the time, the aesthetic of it is just as important as the function," Thornton said.
Clients often bring their own logos and symbols into the mix, but the designers also draw their own inspiration from other elements of their lives, including people, places and everyday objects, Thornton said.
"Everybody is different, and when you can work with somebody and make their thoughts and ideas come to life, you've made somebody happy," he said.
Like so many local companies that have carved their niche in equine specialties, Lucas Equine Equipment has quietly built a reputation for itself within the industry without attracting a lot of local attention from those outside the horse community. With the World Equestrian Games coming to the Kentucky Horse Park in 2010, Thornton expects the global exposure will help to highlight the work of those businesses.
"There are so many resources here that I think are untapped outside of this state," Thornton said. "A lot of people not in the horse world may not realize what a big event this is. It really gives this area a great deal of exposure to the world. For the individuals in this area who are great horsemen, I think it's going to be a great thing."