I had spent most of my childhood thinking I was a dog & suspect I had aged in dog years. By the time I was ten I had discovered the pain of unbearable loss. I had felt joy & jealousy. Most important of all I knew how to love & how to let myself be loved. All these things I learnt through animals. Horses & dogs were my family & my friends. This is their story as much as it is mine. Clare Balding grew up in a rather unusual household. Her father a champion trainer she shared her life with more than 100 thoroughbred racehorses mares foals & ponies as well as an ever-present pack of boxers & lurchers. As a toddler she would happily ride the legendary Mill Reef & take breakfast with the Queen. She & her younger brother came very low down the pecking order. Left to their own devices they had to learn lifes toughest lessons through the animals & through their adventures in the stables & the idyllic Hampshire Downs. From the protective Candy to the pot-bellied Valkyrie & the frisky Hattie each horse & each dog had their own character & their own special part to play. The running family joke was that women aint people". Clare has to prove them wrong to make her voice heard
- but first she had to make sure she had something to say. " My Animals & Other Family" is a funny brave tender story of self-discovery."