I recall watching an interview with Michael Flatley during which he spoke about his sacking from Riverdance. He admitted that while he was in a very dark place at the time, he was determined to bounce back. “I was down but I was not out,” he said. Those words stuck with me and, following recent events in my own life, they now hold even greater significance.

My introduction to horses came about in the form of an old pony that my friend and I used to pass on the way home from school every afternoon, so that eventually we began climbing over the gate and using our school jumpers as reins to ride him.