Like rings in a tree, your life will be marked with special events. Your first day at big school, a stolen kiss behind the bike sheds and learning the inadvisability of drinking luke warm Cinzano (possibly all in the same week) amongst some of the most memorable.

I worked out a long time ago that to compete in France, you have to try everything - often at short notice. So when a friend found there was a dressage competition just a week away, she asked if I wanted to go. 'Of course' I said – 'it's just Sunny I'm not so sure about!' So intense training needs to start straight away - and instead of being slightly "hippy" and riding him bitless, step one involves popping his snaffle bit in his mouth.

Decades past, it’s likely you took for granted the benefits of youth, free bed and board and the advantages of a robust bladder. Blissfully unaware that your adult life would be perpetually impoverished (your bank balance a victim of fast women, slow horses and school fees), instead - and in between worrying about your supply of Clearasil and getting served at the pub - you’d have stared enviously from the seat of your Mini as some exotic two door soft top blasted by. One day, you thought, that’ll be me.