YOUR HORSE MAGAZINE meets
KEEN RIDER AND horse rescuer Gemma Smith spent much of the festive season staring at a white ceiling pondering the “s*** show” fate had dealt her. The ceiling in question was inside Doncaster Royal Infirmary, where she had undergone a hip replacement and was in the recovery ward. But Gemma isn't beyond middle age and crippled with arthritis. She had breast cancer and towards the end of last year her oncologist delivered the unwelcome news that it had spread to her bones. By removing her hip, the doctors have thwarted the scourge in this particular joint, but this tenacious, cunning disease has also migrated to her pelvis, which current techniques cannot treat and so she is on targeted therapy.
“They are hoping to slow the spread,” she says almost matter-of-factly. “The doctors can't cure me, but they can stabilise me and I will move on to other treatments at
