Expecting to control an 800kg flight animal is mad — but a lifelong love of horses and riding keeps me climbing back on board

Since the age of 4, horses have been essential to me — put aside when life was challenging but taken up again whenever possible. In the summer of 2022, I fulfilled a childhood ambition to ride beautiful horses in Spain.

Tormenta — my mount for a week in Andalusia.

Money was very tight when I was a child. I was the only one of five children to love riding — which was probably a relief to my broke parents. I was inspired by my intrepid grandmother, Eva Keyes, who was short-sighted but cleared five-bar gates, sidesaddle and without glasses, until she was in her seventies and her thoroughbred died.

My grandmother Eva Keyes riding near Rome before WW1.

I adore riding, but there was no possibility of expensive ponies, plush boxes to gymkhanas, Pony Club, or any of the other fun stuff my wealthy schoolfriends enjoyed (or loathed in some cases where a horse-mad mother bullied them into it). I had riding lessons from 4 years old and was always confident and happy on a pony.