Para charity trustee

Henrietta Cheetham on her mission to provide Britain's top para riders with medal-winning horsepower

- Leslie Bliss

I was a London child. When I was five, I was in the car with my mother driving round Belgrave Square when I spotted some riders. I said, "That's what I want to do."

I started going to a riding school on Hyde Park Corner, riding around the sand track in Hyde Park. When I was seven, my parents bought a house in Kent. I began riding there with Lady Spens, the mother of showjumper Mallory Spens, at weekends.

I did a bit of Pony Club, lots of hunting and just wanted to go as fast as possible. I thought dressage was for sissies.

When I lost my nerve jumping, flatwork became more interesting. I went to Molly Sivewright at the Talland School of Equitation and rode her grand prix schoolmaster - and that was it. I was hooked. Molly went with me to Germany when I was pregnant with my second child to buy my first dressage horse, a four-year-old chestnut mare.

With a lot of help from my trainers, initially Emile Faurie, followed by years of help from Ferdi Eilberg, she got to grand prix. It took 15 years to get another one to that level, but I have since trained four horses to grand prix.