“The next season I bought Ray Diamond, and was placed a lot but could never get my nose in front so I retired them both, went to Ireland and bought Annie’s Star. He was never quite good enough to win but he was a lovely schoolmaster. “I picked him up on Christmas Eve, had six rides on him my first season in 2016 and he gave me loads of placings.
When it came to finding a suitable mount for a point-to-point Frost came up trumps with Railway Vic, a schoolmaster not much bigger than a pony. Can you imagine getting on and off? He’d have nearly knelt down for me, he was such a gentleman.” “When I was heavy I had been like an anchor to him. “I had to sell him when I was lighter because I couldn’t hold him,” she says. Hylands was already a good rider, accomplished in the show-ring and a regular hunting across Dartmoor on a strapping 17.2 Irish draught. It wasn’t a great day but the cow and calf survived and the vet, who was foreign, couldn’t quite fathom why I couldn’t speak.” “When I finished (5hr 10 min) Dom said we’d have a takeaway but there was a cow which needed a c-section and I spent two hours, utterly demoralised and exhausted, holding a cow’s uterus. Dom (her fiancee) drove up behind me after four hours and threw some Lucozade and a bag of sweets at me. As with everything in life I didn’t think it through. “What a ridiculous place to do it around the Tamar Valley,” she reflects. Last year she did the virtual London Marathon. She was 12st in June and wanted to get to 10st by October so spent the summer running around Dartmoor. If the first 7st came off relatively easily, she plateaued out at 12st. She was working for Jimmy Frost at the time and asked Bryony to sort out a horse. “When I got to 12st I told her the plan and that I wanted to have a go at pointing. Her sister Louisa noticed after a month and was very supportive. Her target was to get to 12st in 12 months. I never really drank alcohol so cut that out completely although now I work with kids a gin and tonic slips down rather nicely in the evening!” I cut out the carbs, potatoes and bread, and I still don’t really eat them. You can enjoy it but you don’t have to eat to excess all day. “I changed my mindset about food and started seeing it as fuel. It was an hour three mornings a week and a little personal challenge at the weekend - like a long walk.” When I arrived I could barely walk up and down the stairs. “At fit club I was with a group of people who didn’t judge.
Racing’s not an easy place to be a bigger person. You have to have a nice personality, if you’re a bigger person you have to be extra nice. “You have to like yourself because no one else will if you’re that big. I didn’t know what a burpee was and I wanted to quit but I made friends and gained in confidence. Dad knew I was going in plimsolls so bought me a pair of trainers.
“Apart from mum and dad, I didn’t tell anyone, not even Louisa, my sister. She listened and replied very matter of factly that if you want to do it, you have to do it yourself because no one else will do it for you. I had a couple of friends who rode in point-to-points and I knew you had to be 12st with a saddle and kit. “I told her I wanted to lose a lot of weight. “I literally woke up, thought ‘I need to do something about it’ and rang a lady who runs a fit camp in Devon,” she recounts. 'I weighed the same as two jockeys - then I lost 9st and now I’m a winner'Īnna Hylands won her first point-to-point race after six years of trying to complete one of sport’s most remarkable feel-good storiesĪt Marjon University in Plymouth she started getting into racing and her Damascene moment came one morning.
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