Think about the heroes who have shaped your horsey life. You might surprise yourself, says Carolyn Henderson
Can you remember your first hero of the horse world? I thought I’d found mine in 1968 - a 21-year-old showjumper called Marion Coakes.
She won an Olympic medal on a 14.2hh pony called Stroller and I dreamed of doing the same, even though the nearest I got to competitive showjumping was building fences on the lawn and persuading our dog to tackle my course.
What I didn’t realise until I was much older, and saw another generation of starstruck girls idolising Ellen Whitaker, was that horse world heroes come in different guises and play different roles.
At the time, you might not even recognise them. One thing they have in common, though, is that their influence stretches farther than you might think. (image credit: e-venting.co.uk)
The most important is the person who shapes your riding and your attitude to horses when you start out. Marion and her super-pony were dazzling, but in hindsight, my first proper hero was a wonderful woman called Daphne Riggall.
She and her sister ran a small riding school and had a hierarchy of ponies. You knew you were progressing when you graduated to Pinto, who did what you asked him to rather than doing what he knew he was supposed to even when you didn’t ask. You knew you’d made it when you were allowed to ride Banshee, a grey Welsh cob cross Arab who needed the lightest aids and let you know when you’d overdone it.
“Ask nicely and he’ll behave nicely,” she would say. “If you’re rude to him, he’ll be rude to you.”
You can imagine what a great life lesson that was. Many years later, another one came via Jenny Baillie and Yvonne Nelson. They showed me how horses could change lives.
Jenny and Yvonne founded what was to become the Fortune Centre for Riding Therapy. They pioneered the use of riding and horse management to teach life skills to young people with physical and/or behavioural issues.
Silhouettes of horses painted on the walls of their indoor schools showed riders how to keep a safe distance from the horse in front. By learning to respect a horse’s space, they also learned to respect other people’s.
The day I visited, pupils were excited by the prospect of a visit from a former member of staff. That was one Carl Hester, who stayed for two and a half years and gained his British Horse Society Assistant Instructor qualification there.
Carl is high on my list of heroes and, I imagine, on that of most people. It isn’t just his talent and empathy with horses that makes him so special, it’s his selflessness in letting Charlotte Dujardin keep the ride on Valegro.
After all, Carl co-owns the horse (with Roly Luard) after spotting him and buying him as a two-year-old. How selfless and clear-sighted must you be to leave a horse that showed so much potential with another rider, albeit one you trained?
Just look at the number of top class horses he has produced. He doesn’t come from a wealthy background and he’s bought every horse for relatively little and produced it from scratch.
If your 13-year-old wannabe dreams of emulating his success, and has the same natural ability, empathy and determination, who is to say that he or she couldn’t do it? Being realistic is one thing; treading on someone’s dreams is another.
Those are my top three heroes. I haven’t used the word “heroine” because horses are no respecter of gender – or race, or orientation, or looks, or anything else.
There are many more, including the evergreen Mark Todd, Andrew Nicholson and John Whitaker – and not just because I can tell myself that age is a number and as long as they keep riding at top level, so can I, at a much more modest one.
I mustn’t forget Caroline Burt, who as publisher for J A Allen encouraged me to write my first book. You may know her better as Caroline Akrill, author of some of the best horsey books you could read.
I remember ringing her up and wailing that I was halfway through the dreaded book and had got myself into a literary tangle. “We all hit problems, dear,” she said. “Forget about it for a few days and come back to it. It will all seem much clearer.”
So I did – and it did. That advice was a great life lesson, too. Without it, I would have married the wrong person, but that’s a different story!
Who tops your list of heroes, and why? Whether it’s a star rider or an unsung hero, we’d love to hear about them.