At the helm of Laiterie de Montaigu and Team LM, Caroline Sablereau is not your typical sponsor posing for VIP photos. For her, horses are something deeper, personal, foundational, almost instinctive. What began with a forgotten Welsh pony has evolved into a fully-fledged business, human and sporting project. Portrait of a leader who talks business, but above all, connection, team spirit, and respect for the horse.
It started with a pony
For some, it all begins with a big win. For Caroline Sablereau, it started much earlier, and much simpler. With a pony. A Welsh. And a spark that never faded.
« I think I was around ten years old when I met a small Welsh pony near my grandparents’ house. It was abandoned at the back of a field. I built a bond with it, a real passion. That was the trigger for everything. »
The rest is almost self-explanatory:
« It never stopped. Thanks to him, I met incredible people, and one connection led to another. That’s how I got here today. »
And “today” is no small detail. Caroline Sablereau is the director of Laiterie de Montaigu, a family business founded in 1932, now in its fourth generation. But her passion for horses didn’t stay in a private corner—it entered the company through the front door.
Team LM: More Than a Logo on a Saddle Pad
That’s where the difference lies. Many see horses as branding tools. Sablereau sees a long-term project.
« En tant que passionnée de jumping, j’ai eu la joie, le grand plaisir de réussir à intégrer le cheval au sein de notre entreprise. On a créé donc cette Team LM. »
Founded in 2012, Team LM is no marketing whim. It’s a structured, sport-driven project. Today, it includes Philippe Rozier, Julien Gonin, and Camille Condé-Ferreira in show jumping », et pour l’attelage, « Benjamin Aillaud ».
Their circuit reads like a tour of elite French events: The Jumping de Bordeaux, the Printemps des Sports Équestres in Fontainebleau, and the Jumping de La Baule—which, of course, is very close to home, almost like a home event. Chantilly as well, mainly, along with the Jumping de Dinard. And we wrap up the year at Équita Lyon. »
Said like that, it could sound like a perfectly oiled partner agenda. But here, the engine lies elsewhere.
In This House, They Want “Horsemen and Horsewomen”
When asked how she selects riders, Caroline Sablereau doesn’t start with rankings or results.
« At LM, there is something that is absolutely essential: of course, we want horsemen and horsewomen. People who, before loving the sport, love the animal. That is the number one condition. »
Only then do the other criteria come in:
« They must be capable of competing at the level we support, but above all, they must want to share their passion. »
The word that keeps coming back is not “performance.” It is “ambassadors.”
« Sport is great, it’s wonderful. There are incredible champions. But we need ambassadors—people who carry our colors, who are proud to wear them, and above all proud to share them with our clients and our employees. »
Not advertising boards on horseback. Not results without faces. People capable of creating a link.
Her story about Camille Condé-Ferreira says a lot:
« I’ve followed Camille for over ten years. She’s an incredible, talented, hardworking young woman. And then it happened by chance two years ago. We asked her: ‘Would you like to ride in the partners’ class in Bordeaux?’ She said yes. We had a fantastic time. And from there, it was obvious, she fit perfectly.” »
The horse as a common language inside the company
Where Caroline Sablereau truly stands out is that she doesn’t stop at sports sponsorship. Horses also circulate within the company itself, among teams and everyday life.
« We know that the horse is a very unifying element. »
Concretely, employees are invited several times a year to partner events. But for the past three years, the connection has gone much further.
« We also have Benjamin Aillaud coming to the company every month. We work through equicoaching with our employees, across all teams, either on group cohesion or emotional management. »
This is not a trendy add-on. It is deeply intentional.
« It’s something very important to me because I know what horses can bring to humans. I’m very happy we can now truly share that with all our teams. »
Sessions take place at the stables, just ten minutes from the dairy, where « our retired champions ” also live. A detail that says a lot: horses are not forgotten once the spotlight fades.
« Employees regularly come to see them, to spend time with them. “And so we run these sessions at the stables, with the dairy’s own horses. It’s something really nice.” »
At first, people wondered:
“Why are we doing this?”
« Au début, ils se demandaient : “Mais pourquoi ? Pourquoi on fait ça ?” »
Then came the feedback:
« They tell us: ‘I didn’t think this was possible with a horse, but it came to me on its own.’ These are truly magical moments.” »
Sport, business, and multiple layers of meaning
Caroline Sablereau is not naïve. Yes, there is business. Yes, there is client relationship. Yes, there is strategy—but not disconnected from reality.
« For business, it’s about the link we create with our clients at these events. And the caterers use our products, so there’s a direct connection. We tell them: ‘Here, you’re tasting our butter, our crème brûlée, our ice creams.’ »
Everything lies in connecting worlds rather than opposing them.
« These are moments where we activate several levels of collaboration and relationships. Today, it is truly a global company project. »
Global.” The word matters. Because LM is not just a butter brand strolling around showgrounds. It’s a company of 230 employees, based in Montaigu, south of Nantes, producing high-end dairy products, PDO butter, creams, ice creams In 2025, we surpassed 5,000 tonnes of ice cream—so that’s quite a few cones,” she adds with a smile. …as well as a premium infant milk business produced for private-label clients.
Upstream, sourcing remains local:
« 95% of our ingredients come from within 200 kilometers. We focus on premium quality and short supply chains. »
A Family Business, A Family Team
There’s a common thread running through this entire story: family. Not as a line printed on a corporate brochure, but as a way of living the company, and the sport.
« In our company, it’s obvious, because we are a family business. There are three women at the helm—my mother, Isabelle Sablereau, who is the president, my aunt, Sophie Sabourin, who is a director alongside me, and myself. »
And the rest follows:
« I believe the average length of service at the dairy is over fifteen years. So, you see, that’s pretty special. »
Then comes this simple, yet loaded sentence:
« We know our employees, we know their families. There’s a very strong bond. »
Benjamin Aillaud, for his part, confirms that atmosphere from the inside:
« That’s how we feel it, that’s how we try to bring our own touch to it. That’s how we build it—and that’s how we live it, fully, as a collective. »
And he sums it all up in a line that fits Caroline Sablereau perfectly:
« Caroline and horses, that’s a long story. (…) She is deeply passionate about horses and the relationship we can build with them. »
His take on the LM adventure is crystal clear:
« It’s an adventure that is at once sporting, human, and deeply rooted in family. »
Ethics: Non-Negotiable
At a time when the relationship with the horse is under scrutiny from all sides, Caroline Sablereau doesn’t shy away from the subject, quite the opposite.
« When it comes to ethics in sport, for us, that’s non-negotiable. »
She even ties that standard back to her own personal story:
« I was telling the story of Ulysse, that little pony at the beginning, who was there with laminitis and various issues. I was introduced to these questions from a very young age. »
Her position is clear:
« For us, it’s not about putting sport first—it’s really about the bond with the animal, about respect for the horse. Of course, they are athletes, so yes, it’s sport, they need to train. But the goal is also to create the best possible conditions so they can live as horses, so they feel good and everything runs as smoothly as possible. »
That same logic is reflected in the way she approaches ownership. No question of locking riders in or trying to control everything.
« We absolutely don’t want to be exclusive owners for our riders. (…) What we want is to act as facilitators. »
And she goes further:
« The entire team, the grooms, of course, the owners, even their medical staff, everyone is warmly welcomed in our hospitality areas. And we believe it’s this kind of collaboration that makes it sustainable and ensures it works for everyone. »
One word keeps coming back when she speaks: team. No wonder it holds together.
Driving: the discipline close to her heart
You might think show jumping has taken center stage. That would be to misread the character. Caroline Sablereau’s most personal discipline is driving.
« As a bit of background, driving is my discipline of the heart. It’s the one I’ve practiced all my life, since I was very young. »
If Team LM initially focused on show jumping, it was also because the discipline offered greater visibility. But the meeting with Benjamin Aillaud reshuffled the deck.
« At Equita Lyon, I had the opportunity to meet Benjamin Aillaud (…) and it was an instant, genuine connection, with Benjamin and with Magali, his wife. »
She tells what happened next the way you tell the obvious:
« They came to the house, we worked together, I did a training session with them. And of course, the horse side of things was incredible. In the end, our vision of the horse just clicked. »
The detail that sealed it?
« What I loved most was their vision of the human alongside the horse. And from there, things started to take shape, ideas began to flow, and we told ourselves, ‘Right, we absolutely have to bring Benjamin and driving into the team.’ »
Benjamin, for his part, puts it perfectly when describing this bridge between horses and management:
« We do a whole range of work within the company itself, focused on human resources and the development of people—drawing directly on what we learn every day from working with horses. »
And along the way, he drops a line that hits the mark:
« The etymology of the word ‘manager,’ for example, comes from Latin… manus (the hand) and maneggiare (to handle), meaning to lead a horse in the riding arena, to train and educate the horse. »
Memories, champions, and contracts signed at dawn
In Caroline Sablereau’s journey, there are of course standout horses, those that leave their mark on a team, and on a life.
She first mentions Cristallo A LM:
« Our brilliant Cristallo A LM, who won so much with Julien Epaillard at the time, and later with Philippe, is still at home with us. He’s in great shape. They’re incredible gifts. »
Then comes the anecdote, brilliant, almost too good to be true, yet told exactly that way:
« We took him to Hong Kong, and he won a class there. The next morning, our Chinese partners were signing contracts—because, in their view, if the horse had won, it meant we must be doing something right. »
There is alsoQuatrin de la Roque LM , winner of the Bordeaux World Cup in 2017, Shériff de la Nutria LM , and the shared emotions surrounding Benjamin Aillaud’s driving team, particularly in Lyon.
« In 2024, he finished second in the Lyon leg, and it was incredible, there was so much emotion, and it was a real moment of shared experience. »
That’s probably the real fuel behind the LM project: results, yes, but above all, what they create around them.
What’s next? Opening the doors a little wider.
When asked what comes next, Caroline Sablereau doesn’t start by talking about signing another star or ticking off a new date on the calendar. She talks about exchange.
« The next step is to keep expanding these moments of exchange between horse and human. What we’re developing with Benjamin within the company, we want to keep pushing that further, and why not, at the stables as well, opening these moments up to a wider audience. »
Why? Because, in the end, everything comes back to this core belief:
« We’ve come to realize that, for the vast majority of people involved in the sport and around horses, it’s first and foremost about the animal. And that’s something we really want to highlight and bring back to the forefront. »
Even breeding, approached “in small steps,” fits into this idea of continuity. With Verbena Z LM, with Shériff, and with a broodmare coming from the world of the late Jean-Maurice Bonneau, Caroline Sablereau is already looking a little further ahead. Without fanfare, without theatrics—but with a clear desire to make meaningful stories last.
Caroline Sablereau doesn’t quite fit the usual box of the horse-loving CEO. Too simple. Too narrow. She leads, she builds, she decides, she invests. But above all, she connects. Sport to business. Clients to riders. Employees to horses. Performance to ethics. All without ever forgetting where it started: a small Welsh pony, abandoned in a field. Proof that the biggest stories sometimes begin with the smallest encounters, and with the loyalty we choose to give them.
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(Photo cover ©Laiterie de Montaigu/ Jessica Rodriges)
