Bestselling author Jojo Moyes reflects in her own words on her childhood riding in London, being chased by park-keepers, and why horses are her oxygen mask
Judy Harvey was one of my first role models. She had just taken over Lee Valley Riding School in London, where I started riding, when I joined. We’d work 20 hours for one hour’s riding and we thought that was great. I will always be grateful to Judy because she took us all seriously in a way that, given her own talents, she absolutely didn’t need to.
My first horse of my own was Bombardier. At the time there were lots of funny little yards around East London tucked away in side streets. You’d open a garage door and there would be four stables behind it in a small cobbled yard.
A man called Danny had found Bombardier chained to a lamp post, a section C stallion. Danny nursed him back to health, but had no idea what to do with him. And so I sort of took over some of his training.
I would ride in London Fields, which wasn’t well received by the park-keepers. I couldn’t afford a saddle and so rode bareback much of the time. One time, I was lying on Bombardier’s back listening to my Sony Walkman – which felt like the coolest thing – and was then royally bucked off when someone hit a tennis ball at him and he farted off across London Fields, with me – and the park-keeper – giving chase.
I had to sell Bombardier when I had A-levels coming and couldn’t spare the time to work to pay for him. I could never discover what happened to him after that – it broke my heart. No animal has ever left me since; they’re with me for life.
Joey the warmblood’s party trick is to “pick up the broom and start sweeping”. Credit: John Willie Hopkins Esq
Jojo Moyes on competing: “Carl Hester doesn’t have to worry yet”
Now I have Joey, a warmblood. He’s a confidence-giver. He can be a bit complicated but he’s not sharp; he’s never made me think, “I might die now”.
I absolutely love him. He’s a bit like a large dog in that he likes to chew everything. If you’re mucking out, he’ll pick up a broom and start sweeping.
His favorite thing is to stick out his tongue and have you waggle it; he goes into a sort of reverie.
I took up classical dressage about three years ago. We’d moved to London and to a livery yard, and one day the owner barked at me, “Do you know anything about the outside rein?” I’d spent 20 years “hacking and yakking”! So I’ve had to unlearn everything, learn to ride off the outside rein and use my seat properly. I love it – even though it made me cry repeatedly for the first few months.
Joey and I have been out competing a few times and he’s often in the ribbons. We’ve got as far as elementary – Carl Hester doesn’t have to worry just yet!
“I don’t know who I would be without horses – all horse people I’ve ever met are the same, it’s who we are,” says Jojo Moyes. Credit: John Willie Hopkins Esq
“I don’t know who I’d be without horses”
Horses are so important to me because they fulfil so many of our needs in life. You can pour unconditional love into them, and riding is an intellectual challenge – you have to think about what you’re doing. Plus there’s a community and it’s great for you physically. It makes me happier than almost anything else that I do.
I draw something so deep and visceral from the company of horses. I couldn’t even explain it. I just need to be near them, and I don’t know who I would be without them; how I would navigate the world. Every horse person I’ve ever met is the same. It’s who we are.
I really notice the difference in my mood when I ride. I suffered from depression when my mum was dying, my marriage was ending and I’d overworked myself. I would struggle in the mornings, so would go out on my horse or walk the dogs.
And then I went to ride in Portugal for the first time and after a few days realised that I was waking up cheerful. I think it was being allowed to be “a horse-mad 14-year-old girl” with zero responsibilities, a lot of curiosity and room to learn, in an extraordinary landscape with beautiful horses.
It taught me an important lesson, especially in terms of being a woman and feeling like I’m always responsible for everything, which is that it’s vital to have periods when you get to just be an old horse girl. I don’t think it’s selfish; it’s putting your oxygen mask on first.
Jojo Moyes on the parallels between writing and riding
For both writing and riding, I believe, you have to love learning. My favourite thing with both is to lose myself in it to the point when I stop thinking and I’m just in it. You just have to go with it. I love not being in my head, and both riding and writing give me that.
Horses have been the biggest gift in my relationship with my daughter. All through her teens we would ride side-by-side at the weekend, and that was how we talked about stuff.
It taught her the discipline of doing your horse before you do anything else and she’s now this astonishing, hard-working, very capable 28-year-old. I think horse girls carry an air of capability that almost no other sports discipline gives.
I really feel like I had the best relationship with my daughter because of horses. We still ride together; it’s my favourite part of the weekend.
There are some really interesting questions being asked at the moment about our relationship with horses. I think it’s about actually observing what the horses are telling us and working with it rather than subduing them. I hope that we’re moving as a horse society towards something that’s a little more collaborative rather than dominant.
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- Jojo Moyes’ latest book, We All Live Here, is out now in paperback
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