YOU MUST BUY a medal cabinet, a friend told Jemima Green recently. The friend wasn't joking, but Jemima laughed because, despite a life spent with horses, she hadn't been banking on netting a raft of trophies or medals to fill such a cabinet any time soon. She certainly wasn't thinking about trophies or medals, or even rosettes, when she piloted the chestnut Fantabulous for the first time into the sand arena in Ermelo, the venue for this year's European Para Dressage Championships.
Fantabulous, you see, is a mere seven years old. And how many seven-year-old horses win medals or trophies, or even rosettes, at championship level? The answer, of course, is very few. Why would they? Seven-year-olds can be immature. Overawed by atmosphere. Tense. Skittish. Deaf eared to their rider's…