THERE'S a very peaceful atmosphere at Buckstone Equestrian Centre high on the hills above South Craven close to Cowling Pinnacle. Even the two ex-racehorses are laid-back; so it's really no surprise that when owner and chief instructor Sue Houlker broke her leg badly in a fall in May, she took it all in her stride, and soldiered on - albeit for several weeks with the help of a mobility scooter.

Nearly four months after falling from one of the racehorses - when the horse spooked suddenly while she was long-reining at the end of a schooling session - she still walks with the help of a crutch, but is about to get back on board again, and has already been teaching.

Sue is a big fan of racehorses - her two favourite breeds are the Connemara and Thoroughbreds, and she has successfully shown, and competed on both. Now 64, Sue has been riding since she was four, had her own pony by the time she was 11, and grew up helping with race horses and eventers, across the border, in her native Ribble Valley. She has been a familiar face competing at agricultural and horse shows across the north, including Skipton Horse Trials, achieving national success with her horse, Metric Mystere.

She has also trained with leading names in British dressage, as well as three-day eventing teams from Britain, Norway and Germany, and even with showjumper, Harvey Smith. She has also tutored at Myerscough College, and at Crow Wood Equestrian Centre, Burnley, and hunted with the Pendle Hunt, including on the notoriously difficult, Pendle Hill.

When she took over Buckstone five years ago, there was an indoor school, stabling, and just two horses in livery. Now, she has 20 horses at livery, a further 34 for the riding school, and has around 70 riders every week coming for lessons. The first thing she did at Buckstone was to build a 60ft by 30ft outdoor arena, big enough to do a full dressage test.

She is particularly proud of her two former racehorses - Den's Gift and Electrolizer. Den's Gift was originally a present, and when the man died, his wife wanted the horse to go to a good home, so he ended up with Sue. "Denis" is now successfully competing at dressage and has taken part in racehorse to ridehorse competitions at Aintree.

Electrolizer, or Eric, as he is known around the stables, was a winner at Dubai, and is now also successfully competing at dressage. Both horses are used by the more advanced riders who visit the stables, and have been successfully retrained, something Sue says is completely achievable, with patience and time.

Racehorses start training to race at just 18 months old and are psychologically different from other horses and with a whole range of different muscles, but with patience and understanding, they can do anything, and are increasingly seen in cross country, dressage and showjumping, even side-saddle. "Of course, there will always be bad ones, as with any horse, but I've always found them to be fine," says Sue.

Around 70 riders have lessons at Buckstone every week, and interestingly, it is adult riders who are on the increase. "I think it's because there are so many more things children can do now that we are seeing less of them. It's people in their 30s up to their 50s who we're seeing more of. Some of them are riding for the first time, some because their children ride and others are coming back to riding after doing it when they were younger," she says. The youngest they will take is four years old, while at the other end of the scale is a 67 year old woman.

In more than 60 years of riding, Sue has seen riding change enormously, gone are the days when young girls and boys would work from dawn til dusk mucking out stables in exchange for a free ride, or when instructors habitually taught bareback or without stirrups as a way of establishing a good, deep seat. What horses are fed has changed, and we have come around to learning horses are just like any athlete, they need to be warmed up and stretched before undertaking serious exercise.

But for all the changes, Sue says she finds teaching someone to ride enormously rewarding. "Seeing someone achieve rising trot for the first time is one of my favourite things," she says. Buckstone is an outreach centre for Craven College, which means equine students are often there, riding under the tuition of their tutors. There are five people who work part time at the stables, which in the winter weeks can be a bit of a challenge to get to. But once there, the views and peace are difficult to beat- and it does have world famous Bronte country as its backdrop.

To find out more, visit the website buckstone-equestrian. co. uk