Fearless, invincible Lucinda

BEING born in 1964, my earliest memories are of riding and following horses in the 1970s. Coming from a non-horsey background, I had to satisfy my interest with a weekly hack or lesson (costing 50p for an hour).

One of my favourite activities on the lesson was a round-the-world race with no horses being held and no hats being worn! For the rest of the week I read horse books.

Jill’s Gymkhana and Jill Has Two Ponies were good, but my favourite was Four Square by Lucinda Green (Prior-Palmer then).

I looked forward to watching Lucinda on the television every year at Badminton as she seemed so fearless and always seemed to win. I can still picture her doing her lap of honour with Wide Awake in 1976 before the horse collapsed.

None of my friends were horsey, so I was never able to chat about horses with anyone. Imagine my excitement a few years ago to find only myself and Lucinda standing at a cross-country fence at Barbury Castle as the cross-country was held while a fence was repaired. Now was my chance to chat to Lucinda herself – and she was very gracious talking about the book and Wide Awake. I couldn’t have imagined that would happen 40 years ago.

Liz Bywaters