As soon as I realised my lucky whip was missing I should have put the horse back in her stable. But my riding companion was tacked up and ready to go and so in a moment of madness I decided that it was time to stop this superstitious nonsense.
I grabbed a spare whip with no known lucky qualities and mounted the mare. We set off for Effingham Common where all went well until we came to the stretch where the horses know they are going to gallop. They started to snort and jump up and down, my friend shouted out to ask if I was ready, I shouted back that I was and we let them go.
My friend’s horse shot off at a terrific speed but Tara Lee refused to go. She just bounced up and down, snorting and hissing and making the most unfortunate rear end noises.
And then with the most almighty heave she threw herself so far up in the air that it was all I could do to shut my eyes and pray that I would come down somewhere soft.
To my astonishment I came down in the saddle, which was only pleasing for a second because then she did exactly the same thing again. After a few bouts of this she started running round in circles like a startled cat and came to an exhausted, steaming halt. Then she staggered erratically up the hill. I peered round at her and she had on her face a glazed, confused expression that reminded me of the look worn by those unfortunate women who go shoplifting in supermarkets for no reason late at night in their pyjamas.
‘What on earth happened to her?’ said my friend. ‘Hormones,’ I replied, grimly. I have been through this before, always at the beginning of March, when the first whiff of spring is in the air. I can’t blame her really. A girl’s got to express herself somehow.
Things didn’t improve on the road where she took exception, or possibly a liking, to a builder mending a roof. I didn’t fancy hitting the tarmac so I got off. I told my friend to go on while I walked Tara home.
Unfortunately, I then walked for 30 minutes in the wrong direction. I tried to get back on so I could make up time but as soon as I landed in the saddle she started to buck.
With night falling, I called the yard owner to come and get me in the horse lorry. But the lorry wouldn’t start. So she had to come in a Land Rover. After assessing the extent of Tara’s hormonal urges she called for another Land Rover and two girls and a lunge rope.
The system devised was this: the car driven by the yard owner in front, me on the back of the mare, Lucy leading her with the lunge rope tied tightly around her nose, Alice walking alongside, the other car driven by Denis, Alice’s father, bringing up the rear.
The traffic queued patiently behind as the horse pranced insanely along, me pulling the reins, Lucy pulling the rope, Alice coaxing us to stay calm. But there’s always one, isn’t there?
He was, of course, in a bright red Ford, and as he pulled alongside us he wound down his window and shouted, ‘It doesn’t take two cars to escort a horse!’
‘It does with this horse!’ Lucy shouted back.
So he revved his engine and the horse revved her engine and my life flashed in front of me. I shouted at him to go and be creative with himself and gave him a hand signal in case he hadn’t got the idea.
The car stopped. He got out. He marched towards us. The car behind me stopped, Denis got out. We were about to have a horse road-rage incident.
‘Come on then! Come and have a go!’ yelled Lucy and Alice.
The car in front stopped, the yard owner leaned out of the window. ‘Leave it!’ she shouted at us. Denis clenched his fists. Tara Lee pricked her ears.
The driver approached. The excitement reached fever pitch. Who would throw the first punch? The driver? Denis? One of the girls? Me? The horse?
But he minced up and said in a whiney voice: ‘How dare you swear at me. I’ve got my little brother in the car.’
It was a huge anti-climax. Tara Lee deflated. The rest of the walk home passed off without incident.
When we got back I put her to bed and as I lifted a rug off the rail of her stable something fell out of a crack in the wood. It was my lucky whip — broken, but I think I can glue it back together.
Melissa Kite is deputy political editor of the Sunday Telegraph.
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