Not just for girls. Ethan Roberts

Hello, my name is Ethan and I am 13 years of age. I secretly loved horses but didn’t want to say anything as I always found it was a girl thing and didn’t want to have people laugh at me for it.

One day my mother and father bought me a riding hat because my sister is a horse owner and rider. My sister’s pony is a palomino called Danny and once I had my hat, I then had a riding lesson on him and fell immediately in love with riding - I wanted to learn more!

Our livery yard is full of girls, so this was a bit hard at first, but I stuck with it there. It helps that there is an inspiring man there who is an experienced jockey of 30 plus years and has ridden horses on TV shows such as the Vikings!

Our yard is a close, encouraging, happy and friendly place and our yard manager runs a fun day every 1 or 2 months where all the horses and owners get together for child and adult friendly competitions including jumping, mounted games, sack races & best fancy dress! I decided I would give it a go even though all the girls laughed because I was going to enter, I still had the support of the yard, so I entered anyway because I am so excited to be riding and learning every day. On the fun day they all had a shock as I rocked up around the corner on a beautiful black Friesian!

I did have my first ever fall when I was jumping, but I loved every second of it, jumped straight back on and kept going with everyone cheering me on. As you can see on this day, I came away with some rosettes, even bagging some firsts.