They bite, they kick, they buck, they rear. They leave trails of green slobber on your best show jacket, and layers of hair on your jodhpurs. They throw you off into gorse bushes or into muddy ditches, then go high-tailing off down the road, leaving you with a walk home that’s not only long, but also panic-stricken. Panic-stricken because you'll be having visions of the most lurid sort centering on all the havoc and destruction a horse on the loose can cause.

They give you sleepless nights and empty bank accounts. They regularly embarrass and downright humiliate you, usually in the most public arena they can possibly find. They force you out into all weathers when you'd far, far rather be snuggling down into a big cozy armchair, with a glass of something soothingly alcoholic and a big box of chocolates to hand.

They make you trudge round fields after them for hours on end when they don't want to be caught. Then, there is the joy of brushing caked in mud and dirt from their coats, the bulk of which generally transfers to your own person, where it works its way into every crease in your skin and refuses to budge for anything less than a sandblaster.

Personally I've gone sailing over the heads of horses who would think nothing of jumping three feet six, but stop dead in bug-eyed astonishment when confronted with the totally alien concept of a one foot high cross pole. I've gazed in despair at the remains of a ludicrously expensive and supposedly indestructible rug hanging in tattered strips from my totally unrepentant horse.

I’ve turned counsellor when the sight of a solitary sheep, escaped from its field and taking an innocent amble along the road, has reduced my brave steed to a snorting, quivering wreck. The sheep couldn’t understand it either, but I swear it had an extra degree of swagger as it obligingly turned off down a side road. Probably couldn’t wait to get back to the field to tell the rest of the flock.