I was lucky enough to be an only child in a family that had horses. My mother had met my father when she was employed as a groom from the same stable that he bought his best eventer!

Being with horses and riding was how I spent my childhood. When I wasn’t with them, and sometimes when I was, I would be reading a ‘horse’ book. These came in many forms, from talking horses to short stories about heroes on horses.

I didn’t like reading when I was first taught. I have to assume it was the subjects that came in ‘my first reader’ nearly half a century ago. From what I recall, I was capable, but disliked it and saw no point in making the effort.

My parents were avid readers, and thoroughly disappointed that their little girl wouldn’t do it. Until Mum had an idea. She bought a child’s book with lovely and expressive pictures, of a black pony and a chestnut horse with a young boy. And both of my parents categorically refused to read it to me.

The book was “Little Black, a pony” by Walter Farley (1961) who also wrote the “Black Stallion” series. I believe it was solely responsible for my capitulation to agree to read and, ultimately, my understanding that to read was to enter whole new worlds: of horses!

“The Horsemasters” by Don Stanford, published in 1958, had the most influence on my life with horses. The mere smell of its pages brings back so many memories of hours spent with my beloved ponies; or dreaming of a stable with steeds of all colours, adept at all disciplines and producing multiple blue ribbons!

The Horsemasters is a novel about a group of youngsters preparing for the “Horsemastership Certificate”, a British Horse Society examination that was a precursor to one that I took myself at age 15 (which made me the youngest from my area to attempt it). Our Chairman of Pony Club initially refused and only relented after my coach gave testimony of my standard.

There were six of us in our exams, I was the youngest by at least two years and was the only one to pass. I put that pass down partially to the learning I received from The Horsemasters.

I emulated my imaginary friends. I studied beforehand, just as the Horsemasters had in the book. In particular, just like the heroine Dinah, I studied a veterinary journal, but what I remembered most vividly, both in my exam and now, is the description of thrush, “characterised by an offensive smelling discharge and a ragged appearance of the frog”.

This was announced gleefully by one character to the heroine of the book when her horse was found to have it because “it is usually caused by dirty stabling”. This then resulted in a mock argument which taught the reader that this is not the only reason a horse would get the disease and caused the whole exchange to stick in my memory. This is fortunate because the Adelaide Hills are wet, and thrush starts easily here.

As I said, my Mother worked as a groom and I knew she had worked for a chap called “Frenchblake”. Whilst I would have identified with the main character anyway because she was female, I mostly identified with her because her situation had many similarities to Mum.

In my imagination, I went through this book with a young version of my Mother. It was Mum’s trials and tribulations and ultimate success and enjoyment that I was living. For me, the book’s horse characters were those in the black and white photos in Mum’s ‘horses’ album, with names as familiar to me as those of my own ponies.

The human characters too were from her time at “Frenchblake’s” yard, all carefully catalogued in her album. The main character is not the best rider or necessarily the most popular, but she is a worker and a fighter: that was what I looked up to and empathised with.

Dinah was not fond of early rising, with which I identified. However, she was responsible and not only would she get herself out to her morning horse duties, but she would ensure her friend was looked after in the process – the friend being worse than she was.

I think that these older books taught me that honour and helping others is the correct way to be. That responsibility is necessary around animals and that anything less than these is punished. Of course this was then reinforced by the behaviour of my real animals!

And it’s a book about Horsemanship. I read about how to keep a yard full of horses and that it’s very hard work if you do it properly.

I understood that there are standards to uphold and that I didn’t want to be sloppy. To a strong extent it was from this book I decided that whilst I wanted horses as a hobby, I did not want horses as a career and that this is actually ok.

I learnt that the love of horses surpasses race and gender. I noted that although there were youthful boys and girls of multiple nationalities all working alongside each other, there was no time or need for romance and no quarter was given for the ‘weaker’ sex.

Whilst there was some rivalry between the really good riders, this was based on that ability not on their gender. They all muck in together, form strong friendships, laugh at each other, tease each other and help each other out when it’s needed.

The horse sports are the only ones where men and women compete on a level playing field and I think this book started my education in understanding this.

Partway through the book, The Horsemasters are divided into two teams, each team working for the opportunity to go to a special event.

Now I learnt about team work and the importance of a catalyst and a common goal to promote team work. The teams are working for their goal, but they all have one common enemy which unites them and that is the Head Groom with the inapt name of Mercy. We learn to dislike Mercy, but when she has a fall, we are concerned. Then, at the end, when the twist comes, we understand that sometimes it’s a very lonely role to lead others to be their best.

Often, when I am hot, tired and thirsty having worked hard to get everything correct for my animals, I recall a late chapter passage. In it, the Horsemasters are released late on their exam day and realise that they have been so busy they have not looked after their horses. This had been their task every day for thirteen weeks. They race to the stables only to find that Mercy has single-handed completed the work that was usually done by the 14 Horsemasters!

Dinah is doing the certificate in order to realise her dream, not to ride horses, but to attend a particular college with her best friend. The college will take her on if she pays her way through working as assistant riding mistress. To be accepted, she must pass the certificate.

I went to a paid for school and whilst I didn’t have to work my way through, my parents gave me choices. I could either have horses or have all the pretty things my friends had, such as the latest in toys, shoes or whatever fad there was at the time. I never felt that I was left out though, I loved my life with the horses and to be fair, Mum made sure I was never completely without anything.

I had to work with my current pony to improve his schooling in order to better him for sale for when I outgrew him – so I could buy the next sized horse. From the  book, I got a sense of what in adulthood we all learn: that we must sacrifice in order to get what we think important. This value driven thread reinforced that bravery and doing what is morally right, is not just necessary but normal.

My father was a solicitor by profession and has published multiple second world war history books. As a child, I was taught that honesty and responsibility are essential to how I conduct myself. The real life heroes about whom Dad writes are often characters of outstanding bravery, with strong leadership skills, but they retain empathy for others. Luck also plays its part.

In The Horsemasters, the characters that stand out for me are those who display some of these traits. Dinah the main character of course, but also David, who was bucked off his horse and bravely remounted until he was able to get it right. Mercy I have already discussed, and the Polish Captain Pinski who was cheated in his riding ambitions by the war but has settled into his role of Instructor with a cheerful heart.

My personal beliefs include being fair; hard work can expect reward; and hope for the element of good luck. My career successes have been influenced by my values. As a successful leader I am told I am ‘firm but fair’, as an employee I am rewarded because I am honest and forthright, but will still toe the line.

I have remained with one company for 25 years, through three distinct career paths. I hope to remain with the company for as long as it has clear values which are in tune with my own. When I review this book I can see that much of the influence it had on me was as a reinforcement of what I hold to be important.

In this book I learnt about some of the basic horse husbandry requirements. The disease colic was discussed because the Horsemasters had lessons with Mr Ffolliott a retired vet. Colic is a horrid disease and quite common in horses, I have dealt with it myself since and having an introduction was very useful.

Often, when I make hay nets for my horses, I have a vivid picture of a passage in the book where two of the boys made a wisp out of hay. The girls watch the twisting of hay into a rope and the weaving of the wisp and then decide to have a go for themselves: without great success. I myself tried years ago to replicate this using baling twine, also without success, and these days I can’t remember the last time I saw, let alone used one.

In the book we meet all the different types of instructors that one meets in the course of a lifetime with horses. There’s the furious, then the calm and knowledgeable; the one that makes you feel like a disappointment and the one who makes you feel like you are gifted.

And we learn that each has something useful to impart, that we can take parts from each to make our own truth bound together by a single thread. That horses are “all such individuals” and we must ride in a way suitable to the individual we are on, and with empathy and kindness. I learnt some of the subtleties of riding with these imaginary instructors on the imaginary horses in the book. I learnt that my horse would listen to the instructor’s command rather than my own if I did not keep her engaged, and that my heel may lift in rising trot.

I learned that to fall is a part of riding and whilst preferably avoided, it is inevitable.

This book taught me about using a “grid” for inexperienced horses and/ or riders. I gather from a retired mounted policeman friend that he was put through a grid just as described in the book.

I myself have used a less intimidating version when training children on ponies, or my own young horses. With the former so they can feel the rhythm of the horse’s movement through a jump and with the latter to teach them to go forward and to ‘see the stride’ for themselves.

With the benefit of hindsight, possibly the most influential passages for my later life decisions were the two descriptions of Hunter Trials.

In the first, Dinah rides a fair sized course on the horse she has been responsible for grooming throughout her study. He’s an old and clumsy fellow and she has wondered aloud more than once why he is kept by such a prestigious school. When she takes him around the course she discovers why! He was born to hounds and cross country is what he loves and knows best.

Many years later when I re-read the book, my imagination swapped my own dear eventer into the frame of ‘Cornish Pasty’ and we were at Mt Gambier charging around the course there. Such memories are triggered by the vivid writing of each fence and the feelings of Dinah, which mirror real life.

Next we go to a big local event and watch the instructors ride the horses there with aplomb. We learn how to follow a class in such a way as to see as much as possible. Now I see my parents and I walking around Badminton in the United Kingdom or my husband and I walking around Adelaide International, the description is vivid and realistic.

Growing up I was only very rarely allowed to take on the fixed fences of cross country as Mum said she couldn’t bear to watch another family member take on the danger as Dad had. Instead, I competed in higher level affiliated show jumping. But my imagination was fired by the realistic descriptions in the book.

I had the knowledge, from the rare occasions I had been allowed to try, that the descriptions, whilst excellent, were still outstripped by the real thing. Had I not read the book (and read it repeatedly) would I have evented anyway? Given that was what my Dad did very successfully on horseback, maybe. But I lost interest in riding horses whilst still in the UK after a couple of serious accidents.

Several years later in Australia, when the opportunity arose to spend time with horses, the bug bit me again: ultimately leading me past my familiar show jumping discipline into the three phase competition because I desperately wanted to do the cross country!

Eventing is now my sport, it is why I get up early and work late, what I train my horses for and spend my money on. This is my raison d’etre and The Horsemasters inspired that passion in me which was nurtured through real life until it became my life. It wasn’t about gender or romance, it was about working hard for a goal, enjoying the journey, relishing the teamwork and the friendships that are forged within the sport and realising that living life with horses can make it as idyllic as a thoroughly splendid novel.

“High up on the long hill they called the Saddle Back, behind the ranch and the country road, the boy sat his horse, facing east, his eyes dazzled by the rising sun.”

So begins My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara, the story of a boy and his desire to have a horse of his own. The boy, Ken McLaughlin, lives on a ranch in Wyoming, USA, where his father breeds polo ponies. Ken has any number of horses he can ride when he is home from boarding school, but he longs for a horse of his own. His father resists giving him one because Ken is a daydreamer and doing badly at school.

My copy of My Friend Flicka came via a book order through a school book club in 1975. Once a term we would get the brochure and order form. Each term, Mum would let me select two books to buy and I would take the order form back to school in an envelope with the cash, then eagerly wait for the books to arrive.

The book club order forms were my major source of books as a child. There wasn’t a book shop in the small Western Australian wheatbelt town where I grew up. There was a small newsagency that occasionally had a few interesting books on the shelf in the corner and, in a larger town nearby, a larger newsagency with a bigger selection.

‘Interesting books’ to me were defined as those that were about horses. On monthly shopping trips to the ‘big town’ to get things we couldn’t get in our home town – school shoes, electrical appliances, and the like – I would scour the shelves for anything ‘interesting’, my saved pocket money at the ready and, just in case it wasn’t enough, promises in mind to make up the few extra coins that I may need to beg from my parents.

But the book club order forms remained by best source of books. The two books I ordered each term were inevitably horse books, although occasionally a book of dog stories or something about another kind of animal would sneak in – The Call of the Wild and White Fang by Jack London, My Dog Sunday, another about an orphaned calf and kid called Cinnamon and Nutmeg. But mostly it was horse stories – A Horse of Her Own, The Silver Brumby, Silver Brumby Returns, Phantom Horse, Come Home Phantom Horse, Misty of Chincoteague, Stormy – Misty’s Foal, King of the Wind, and a myriad of titles from the Pullen-Thompson sisters.

But it’s My Friend Flicka that sits on my book shelf to this day, tattered and dog-eared from countless readings, the opening lines committed to memory.

I envied Ken McLaughlin his life on a horse ranch, although not his domineering father. Like Ken, I was a country kid but I lived in town and wasn’t allowed a horse. In retrospect, I realise my parents had neither the time nor the money to indulge my pony passion, but as a child I saw only their resolute refusal.

Ken’s parents did, eventually, let him choose a yearling, although that didn’t initially turn out well, because he chose a wild but beautiful sorrel filly he called Flicka. As the tale goes, it almost ended in disaster, but the thing that gripped me was that in the end Ken had his horse and she loved him. A sorrel filly.

Sorrel wasn’t really a horse colour description much used in the other books that I read, and it took me a time to translate it as chestnut. When I did, I could understand Ken’s fascination; my dream pony was a chestnut, with some white on its face and some white on its feet, perhaps flaxen mane and tail, but I wasn’t so fussy about that.

I had an image in my head of the exact horse I wanted. I had a picture of it as well. My sister gave me a book for Christmas one year – The All Colour Book of Horses – long enough ago that it was important to put the ‘all colour’ description in the title. On the cover was a chestnut mare and her foal, walking across a lush green paddock.

The mare had a white blaze down her face and long white socks. The description inside the book told me that she was an Arab. She was, I thought, the most beautiful horse ever, and she became the epitome of my dream horse. I called her Bella, which I somehow knew was Italian for beautiful. She was the horse I wanted.

Decades before the internet, I scanned the livestock sections of the papers – The Sunday Times was the best for this, although sometimes The Countryman held promise. I cut out or circled the adds that appealed, conjuring their images in my mind, imagining ringing and finding out about them, going to see them, buying them, bringing them home. I walked and ran through the local bush tracks, or rode my bike, imagining always I was on my horse. But it was always childhood fantasies. There was never a pony of my own in my childhood.

There were horses – the local publican kept four or five trotters in a paddock on the edge of town. I saved some pocket money and bought a body brush, dandy brush and curry comb, and I would slip through the fence and groom the publican’s horses.

A few of the girls at school had horses, and I hung around with them, hoping for the chance of a ride. Occasionally I got one but I had no skills. All my knowledge was from the books that stood on my shelf or that I borrowed from the library and read and read and read.

I went to riding school for a week one school holidays, but I was so homesick that it was hard to enjoy being immersed in the horse world, and I felt embarrassed at my incompetence when there were so many kids there so much younger than me who were so much more capable.

In my teen years, one of my older brothers had a girlfriend who rode, and she took me riding whenever family trips took us to Perth. She tried hard to convince my parents that I should have a horse, at one stage even finding a little buckskin pony she thought was suitable. But it never eventuated and I remained ponyless except for the ones that so vividly filled my imagination.

In my early university days, I paid for riding lessons myself, scrimping and saving my meagre earnings to spend on two hours of bliss on Saturday mornings.

Later, I was distracted away from horses by study, work, travel, boys, and later by marriage and children. The years became crowded with other desires, with other things that were possible. Horses were too expensive. Too scary. Too much not of my world.

Yet my head turned to see horses in paddocks. My ears pricked at the sound of hooves. My heart lurched at the sight of pictures of little girls with their ponies. And envy rose on hearing of lives lived with horses. Somehow the idea that one day my life would have horses in it remained inside me.

It was my daughter who brought horses back into my life. Just before her third birthday she said she wanted a pony. My sister, remembering me asking for the same thing at the same age and knowing it was still an unfulfilled dream, asked me what I was going to do about that. “Get back on a horse,” I replied. I was determined that I was going to live my own dream; that I wasn’t going to get my daughter a pony and live vicariously through her.

I found a riding school near to where we lived in the city and started very traditional riding lessons. I loved being among horses and quickly the dream of my own horse, and of fulfilling my daughter’s dream of a childhood pony, came alive. It fed my desire for land – a place with room for a pony or two. By the time my daughter was approaching her seventh birthday, our little family had moved to a country property. I was approaching my forty-fifth birthday. Finally, the time had come for me to seriously look for a horse for myself and a pony for my daughter.

We found Timmy first. A little grey Welsh Mountain Pony, with dark eyes that looked as if they’d been outlined in kohl, the lashes painted with white mascara. The perfect child’s pony, although for twice as much money as I’d anticipated spending. We bought him anyway, me not really serious when I complained that my daughter was getting her pony before I had mine. Timmy came to live in our paddock and we ‘borrowed’ a little yearling filly from his previous owner to keep him company so he didn’t have to be alone in the big paddock. Then the hunt was really on for my pony.

Floss was one of the first horses I went to look at, with a semi-serious intent to buy. She was standing in the rain, a western style saddle on her back; just standing there, while all around her confusion crowded. A huge dog, a tiny dog, an overly-friendly deer (of all things!), half a dozen people, one of them a child with a brightly coloured golf umbrella. Floss’ owner wasn’t there, but had deputised these people – her mother, brother, cousins, to check out the prospective new owner and to show Floss to me.

Floss wasn’t officially for sale, but a friend of a friend had heard I was looking for a horse and had mentioned it to another friend of hers, and she was Floss’ owner. This woman had two other horses and Floss was hanging around in the paddock doing nothing; well, eating grass and being a horse, but not being used for any human-inspired purpose. She’d been doing that for two years and her owner was beginning to think that maybe she should move her on to a new home.

I looked at this horse and could hardly bare to touch her, more for fear that she would dissipate into thin air, than that she might hurt me in any way. I wasn’t thinking about my mythical Bella or Ken McLaughlin’s Flicka. I was looking instead at this real horse before me with the improbable name of Floss. I was trying to be sensible. To be realistic and logical. To be thinking and asking the right questions. To do this the right way.

All the time, my head pounding, my inner voice saying, no screaming, she is real, you could buy her, she’s not expensive, she comes highly recommended, look how quiet and calm she is. And yet, she hadn’t been ridden in years, she could be wild under saddle. Be sensible. Don’t judge a horse by its colour.

How could I not judge this horse by her colour? How could I not judge her by her stunning good looks? She was a little part-Arab (but mostly Quarter Horse) mare – chestnut, with lighter mane and tail, white blaze down her face, four white socks. I ran my hand down the warm reality of her neck, while my friend Judy picked up her feet and said, quietly, so only I could hear, “She has fantastic feet.”

“She’s a bit on the fat side,” I said to the owner’s deputies.

“Yes, she’s certainly a good doer.”

“Will someone ride her?” I asked.

The cousin got on. “I’ll only ride her a bit. She hasn’t been worked much in a while and she’s always been very forward.”

The cousin rode Floss around in a small paddock. She walked out briskly, moved into a speedy trot. Floss was definitely forward, probably too forward for me. But then, I could just call that willing, couldn’t I?

“I won’t canter her,” the cousin called. “She quite hot. She’ll calm down with more work.”

“Thanks, I’ll think about it and call you in a couple of days,” I said, sensibility to the fore, and we left.

“She’s a lovely animal,” Judy said as we drove away. “I’m tempted to buy her myself. But of course, she’s yours if you want her.”

“Are you going to buy her Mum?” my daughter asked from where she sat in the back of the car. “She’s so beautiful.”

At home, I pulled the All Colour Book of Horses from my shelf, the picture of ‘Bella’ there on the cover, looking just as she always had, in my mind and on the page. “Look at this,” I said, holding the book up to my daughter.

“Oh wow!” she exclaimed. “It’s Floss. That horse looks exactly like Floss.”

“Doesn’t she?” I said. “She was the horse I always dreamed of when I was your age.”

“Mum, you have to buy her.”

“I don’t think that you should buy a horse because it looks like one you dreamt of as a child. I don’t think that’s a good reason.”

“But she’s a good horse. She’s lovely.”

“Yes, she is.”

And so she became mine. My dream pony came to life, came to my life, 42 years after I first asked for a pony.

I borrowed Judy’s float and towed it behind my inadequately powered car to go and pick Floss up. Judy came with me. The idea was that I would take Floss on a two-week trial and buy her for a thousand dollars if I thought she was okay after that time. I planned to have a vet check done and to have a horse trainer I had been having some lessons with come and check her out. Floss was reluctant to get on the float and had worked up a nervous sweat by the time we got her home. We unloaded her down on the road. She was high headed and fiery. ‘I can send her back if she’s too much for me,’ I kept telling myself. Judy led her along the driveway as I was too nervous to lead her.

But I loved having the horses in the paddock. It was literally a dream come true. I watched them from the house when I should have been working. Timmy’s little friend Lacey went home and our two horses remained in the paddock; two horses grazing on the pasture beneath the towering karri trees. It was a scene of fantasy. I watched the interactions between them and learnt things books had never taught me.

I was on a steep learning curve with the horses. I worried about them getting sick. I worried about not being able to handle them properly. I enlisted an army of supporters from among my horsey friends and spent a small fortune on local horse professionals. Elissa came and gave Lauren weekly lessons. Judy and Lisa were just a phone call away. Justin came for two hours every Wednesday morning for two months and we worked Floss together. Justin is quiet and gentle, a hippy cowboy horse whisperer, with a scraggly tangly pony tail, and a bandana around his neck. He wears a cowboy hat with a feather tucked in the band. I liked him and learned from his every move. Sometimes I would watch Floss as she responded to him and was left wondering how he made her move like that. Then a friend gave me the tip to watch Justin as well as Floss, to see how he moved, to watch his body language. I did so and my horsemanship improved dramatically.

After five weeks Justin got on Floss for the first time. She tossed her head in protest but didn’t buck. She threatened to bolt and he calmly circled her. I was in awe of his skill; terrified that he would dismount and tell me it was my turn. He didn’t. I stayed on the ground, learning skills that somehow made me a better person as well as some sort of a horseman.

But the next week it was my turn. Justin had a short ride first then told me he thought it time I got on her. My knees were shaking as I lifted my foot to the stirrup. Justin stood by Floss’ head, steadying us both with his voice and his calm presence. I had reins but he kept the training lead on her as well. I walked and trotted circles around him, elated. I was riding my horse. I was riding MY HORSE. I couldn’t have been happier. I giggled like a little school girl and Justin smiled wryly. I wondered if he was laughing at me but didn’t really care and think his spirit is generous enough that he shared my joy. I talked incessantly, overflowing with enthusiasm.

Two weeks later I cantered Floss for the first time. Her body moved effortlessly beneath me. I swayed to the rhythm of it. Her mane flew before me. I could hear her hooves on the grassy paddock. It was so real. It was physical and emotional. Being with my horses brings me to myself in a way that I cannot properly describe.

At the end of My Friend Flicka, Ken, having recovered from a terrible illness, runs out to see Flicka. She has been waiting for his return and “…the neigh that (rings) out on the cold air was a sound the filly had never made before.” Floss isn’t Flicka and the best I can hope for when I turn up at her paddock is a head raised from the grass and a ‘have you brought carrots?’ look. I’m happy with that. I’m happy to step into the paddock, into horse time and just be in the moment. This deep contentment with the moment is an aspect of horsemanship that I hadn’t anticipated but which, over the years since Floss and Timmy first came to me, has become the essence of it for me.

The wait was worth it.