Skijoring champion

Susan Oakes on breaking records and tractor training

- Martha Terry

I say I was born on a horse. My mother and father hunted every week and were involved in racehorses. By the age of four, I was riding side-saddle on our donkey, Rosie. I found my grandaunt’s side-saddle in the tack room and I was fascinated by it. From then on I rode everything side-saddle, including our showing Connemaras, and hunted side-saddle aged eight.

I organised the world record number of ladies to hunt side-saddle, with the Meath Foxhounds and the Tara Harriers. The first year we had 15, the second year we had 50, and the third year we had 62 from all over the world.

I hold another world record. In 2011, I saw a picture of Esther Stace jumping 6ft 6in sidesaddle in Australia in 1915. It was captioned, “Are you brave enough?” I took it as a personal challenge. I told the media I’d do it in eight weeks. I thought, “How hard can it be?”

It took me two and a half years. Esther Stace’s family contacted me to say she’d actually cantered up a ramp to the bar and it was just that drop that was 6ft 6in, but by then I was too heavily invested in it. So I set the record for sidesaddle puissance at 6ft 8in.