Ruth McMullen

Ruth McMullen's sympathetic and effective way with horses, and her skill as a trainer, are held in high esteem. Martha Terry meets her and hears about an equestrian life well lived

- Martha Terry

“I’M always learning; that’s my main enjoyment,” says Ruth McMullen MBE, whose appetite for the sport is undiminished at the age of 90. It’s a characteristic of many a top horseman; they believe, like the first Duke of Westminster, a four-time Derby winner: “It takes two lifetimes to learn to ride a horse.”

Best known today as the catalyst behind Pippa Funnell’s eventing career, Ruth was a successful rider in her own right, one of the finest showing riders of her generation.

Although she stopped riding in her late eighties – “I’m not as balanced as I was and that’s not fair on the horse” – her love of horses runs so richly through her veins that she goes about her daily chores in her Norfolk home as if she were still riding.

“I keep my posture good by slipping a whip between my elbows, and as I walk I remind myself, ‘rhythm, supple and through the movement’,” she says. “When I change direction, I feel like I’m changing the rein. Horse terms are so infused in me.”

WAS ever thus. Born in 1932, Ruth was always desperate to ride. As a child, she used to sit astride a wall in her garden, with string on either side serving as stirrups, and pretend to ride. The neighbour’s daughter had a pony, which Ruth coveted in vain: “There was a fallen log between our fields and I used to sit for hours watching her ride, and I never, ever got a go on that pony,” she remembers.

Eventually, during the war, Ruth rode a horse for the first time.