The big ouch

After 15 months on the sidelines, I was finally able to return to the saddle this week. This has not been without the help of very kind friends and family who helped me through back surgery last year and then encouraged me to get back on my lovely retired racehorse-turned-stable hack, Pantomime Prince.

I must admit to more than a few frayed nerves in the weeks when I started thinking I really must get on with it. On Newmarket Heath there's no room for the faint-hearted, and even if you're only riding a hack you have to make sure you're not getting in anyone else's way or looking a complete idiot (managed the first, haven't quite nailed the second). But this is the best time of the year to be out there and to have missed another spring would have been hard to bear.

John's been great in helping to restore my confidence and I know I must have tried his considerable patience on more than one occasion. Gemma's also done lots of proverbial hand-holding and even offered to walk alongside me on my first foray. This, thankfully, wasn't necessary but it was a typically kind thought from a lovely friend.

Most of all, Hugh, Hannah and Adam have put up with me pretending to chaperone them on the two-year-olds when really we all know they need no such thing. The fillies are pretty relaxed and well-behaved thanks to their patient handling and it's been a joy to accompany them on some lovely mornings this week.

One of the nicest things about riding out is watching the young horses grow in confidence and strength on an almost daily basis. I missed this year's batch of two-year-olds when they were just starting out but now they are cantering daily they are really starting to blossom and it's interesting to note different personalities from where they like to be in the string and how they cope when things get a little hot around them (being sandwiched in between two batches of big Godolphin colts wasn't much fun on Saturday morning but they dealt with it well and kept their heads).

The biggest star of the show, however, has to be Panto himself. Were it not for him I probably wouldn't now be riding at all. But to have a beautiful and sensible eight-year-old thoroughbred at my disposal for morning wanders on the Heath is too good an opportunity to pass up. It's good to be back, even though there were moments when I thought my bottle had gone completely and I'd never sit on a horse again. Now that I am, I've remembered that there's no feeling in the world like it. Panto and I will keep plodding on as long as we can and I just hope that I'll stop aching sometime soon.