![]() Clare had to prove them wrong, to make her voice heard - but first she had to make sure she had something to say. The running family joke was that "women ain't people". From the protective Candy to the pot-bellied Valkyrie and the frisky Hattie, each horse and each dog had their own character and their own special part to play. Left to their own devices, they had to learn life's toughest lessons through the animals, and through their adventures in the stables and the idyllic Hampshire Downs. She and her younger brother came very low down the pecking order. As a toddler she would happily ride the legendary Mill Reef and take breakfast with the Queen. Her father a champion trainer, she shared her life with more than 100 thoroughbred racehorses, mares, foals and ponies, as well as an ever-present pack of boxers and lurchers. This is their story as much as it is mine'Ĭlare Balding grew up in a rather unusual household. Horses and dogs were my family and my friends. ![]() ![]() All these things I learnt through animals. ![]() Most important of all, I knew how to love and how to let myself be loved. By the time I was ten I had discovered the pain of unbearable loss. ![]() 'I had spent most of my childhood thinking I was a dog, and I suspect I had aged in dog years. ![]()
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