WHEN I WAS TAUGHT to ride as a child, all my instructors were female, so from an early age I had the impression that the best riders were women rather than men. Riding is one of the few sports where men and women compete on equal terms — the list of past winners of Badminton Horse Trials, for example, proves that women can beat men in one of the most exacting and dangerous of sports.
Many of the most gifted dog handlers I’ve met have been female, too., was bred and owned by a woman — the Duchess of Hamilton and Brandon. I suspect that it wasn’t the done thing for a woman, and especially a duchess, to handle a dog in competitions in those days, so the Duchess employed a professional to run her dog for her, a Mr J Alexander. I wonder if the Duchess handled Phoebe on ordinary shoot days? I suspect that she may well have done.
