“Claude?” I opened the stable doors and walked inside and from the far corner of the stall I heard him nicker back to me. There was such a tone to that nicker, though! As if he was accusing me of being late!

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” I told him as I grabbed my brushes and began to groom him. He was literally the most handsome horse in the world, I thought. My muse. My forever horse. With his four white socks and his star, the jet-black coat shining like night. On his hind leg the evidence of his injuries would always be there. After the surgery and the three months he spent on box rest the bone had healed better than anyone could have expected. But the proud flesh that had grown on the wound meant that he never grew the hair on that leg back again, and you could still see quite clearly the scars where the van had struck him. To me, that only made him more handsome – it was a symbol of his courage and his sacrifice.

I used the money from the Lucie’s auction and my other sales to buy him from the Célestins and get him here. They had no use for him any more since he could no longer work as a police horse. I worried that Oscar might be upset, but he was delighted when I told him what I’d done. His visit to London was not just to see my show, but to visit the real Claude. At the gallery tonight we’d made plans and tomorrow the two of us were borrowing one of the cobs and were going riding together in Hyde Park.

Yes, riding. They thought Claude was going to die. Then they thought he was too wounded to ever be ridden again. They were wrong. Slowly, carefully, I had nursed him back to health, working a little more each day to strengthen the tendons and muscles in his broken leg. Soon he was walking perfectly soundly, and then trotting and cantering on the lunge. When the vet checked his X-rays and gave me permission to ride him, I cried.