Over the stable door: Pink toe-nails make farrier a shoe-in for a charity marathon

After jumping a fence, my horse had unexpectedly veered left to follow the huntsman. I went straight on and landed on my head. The large whisky I’d taken at the meet did nothing to aid my constitution (or my balance) as I lay staring at a sky which spun like a kaleidoscope above me.

I was swiftly back aboard to enjoy a brilliant day as hounds hunted at Heslaker, near Skipton. My pointers enjoyed it, a sweetener before they run tomorrow at the Holderness.

I plan to visit the Middleton on Monday. Their ex-Huntsman and Master, Frank Houghton-Brown, is bringing the Tynedale hounds from Northumberland to hunt his old country, making it a memorable end to my season.

A friend of mine is doing rather well in the national results table at the moment. Point-to-point jockey Sam Drake, from Guiseley, is in second place with five winners, behind Cambridgeshire’s Gina Andrews, who has ridden nine winners this season.

Sam hopes to fulfil her ambition of riding in the Cheltenham Foxhunters on Friday, when partnering Optimistic Harry. Other Yorkshire entries include the Easterby-trained Jaunty Flight, Jo Mason’s Poppy Day and Jacqueline Coward’s Amicelli, winner of the 2008 race.

I like an Irish contender. Enda Bolger’s six-year-old, ‘On The Fringe’, has won easily on extremes of ground despite making the odd mistake.

If he jumps a clear round, he should go close, and he will be well supported by the large Irish contingency, who are already warming up their vocal chords as they descend on the Chiltern hills.

Next week, a neighbour of Miss Drakes, local farrier Richard Tate, is planning to row 26 miles in aid of breast cancer.

After losing a client last year and seeing two ex-girlfriends battle through the disease, he felt moved to assist the cause and has been in training for 20 weeks.

During this time, his only hindrance has been a bout of man flu, which, of course, confined him to bed for five days.

I sincerely hope he has more luck fulfilling this challenge than his last attempt at charity fund-raising.

Richard is not one to shirk an extreme test (and some of my horses have certainly been that). Two summers ago, he trained vigorously for six months in order to complete the Haute Route – an intense 100-mile climb through the Alps – in under seven days.

Two weeks from the outset he had gone for a casual hike up Whernside when he tripped over a stone and broke his ankle. He was airlifted to hospital with a BBC Helicopter Heroes camera in his face, every whimper and tearful sob was filmed while his ankle bone was screwed together.

To our intrepid hero, the prospect of being laid up on the couch for six weeks was a most unwelcome ordeal.

Richard’s wife, Carolyn, is a beautician and she had plans of her own. The immobile patient gave her the ideal guinea pig on which to test new nail-polish colours and try out experimental waxing treatments.

After a week of persecution, Richard could stand no more and talked an invalid friend into lending him his mobility scooter, enabling the tormented farrier to escape his torture.

With his cerise pink toe-nails and partially-waxed legs, Richard trundled round the streets of Guiseley. Like a regular OAP, he would stop to chat to everyone, attend coffee mornings at the library and was regularly spotted in his favourite lunchtime haunt – Morrisons cafeteria.

Richard’s marathon row is set for March 19 outside the Ings Pub in Guiseley between 5-8.30pm. Spectators are welcome.

Please make any donation you can at www.breastcancercampaign.org