TO ride at liberty across an open landscape on a fit, willing horse is the dream of anyone who read pony books as a child and covered their walls with pictures of top riders. To ride across Dartmoor with one of those top riders is an unimagined delight, especially when they are as friendly as Mary King. I had a poster of her riding King William in the first of her two Badminton wins on my wall growing up, yet, within moments of meeting her, I felt as if I had known her personally for years, such is her warmth.
The dream came true thanks to Liberty Trails, a guided riding-holiday company founded by Elaine Prior in 2012. Liberty is, indeed, the watchword, with no set routes and no restrictions on where to roam except for the need to avoid bogs (if you see white cotton flowers waving invitingly, turn around and go the other way). We were riding in high summer, so there was little danger, but whole teams of horses have been lost in those infamous moorland quagmires.
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