We had a terrible shock as Esme was airlifted to hospital after falling at Sunday’s Coniston Hunter Trials’ Schooling Day. Mrs Horse hit the first fence with her knees, crashed over it and went down, flinging Esme head-first into the ground.

She was knocked out for a few seconds and came round, dazed and confused, her face smeared in mud and blood.

Steve, who was following, was unseated as Daniel span in alarm. Jenny and Jack saw a riderless Daniel running up the hill towards the wagon park and a prone figure being attended to.

Thinking it was Steve, Jenny feared a mortal injury because she is used to him immediately leaping to his feet after being thrown. As she hurried closer, she realised it was her daughter lying motionless. None of us could believe what had happened.

The fence is a plain wooden rail that Esme and Mrs Horse have flown in style many times on their way to winning a highly-prized collection of rosettes.

Paramedics called the air ambulance because Esme had lost consciousness and had undergone major spinal surgery in June 2008. She has always dreaded being responsible for mobilising such a vital – and expensive – resource. She struggled to get up, to try to prove she was all right, but medics restrained her.

Steve, badly shocked but unhurt, took charge of the horses – who were both unhurt – helped by Alison Horton. Alison and husband David were pillars of strength at a very difficult time.

Steve was so traumatised he loaded Daniel into the wrong trailer and was forced to back him out after realising it was hitched to a silver vehicle and not to our red Land Rover.

Soon, the famous yellow air ambulance was circling the lake at Coniston Hall. David waved a blanket and Steve flapped his number bib like a flag to attract the attention of the crew.

The helicopter landed on the other side of the A65, well clear of the dozens of horses at the well-organised event.

People driving past to the Lakes must have thought it was the “Yorkshire way of doing things” as Esme was transported on a spinal board in the back of a white pick-up truck and hefted over a wire fence to the waiting ambulance.

In five minutes she was landing on the roof of Leeds General Infirmary. She was given scans and X-rays, had stitches in a painful tear to her lower jaw and kept in overnight, helped by painkillers.

Sitting around her hospital bed, we realised we had fallen off all three of our horses in one day. Before leaving for the event, Steve had tumbled off Baby when his saddle slipped in the cross-country field at home. We are now considering Esme’s suggestion and taking up potato printing instead …

Steve Wright and Jenny Loweth