Sarah Todd: Children know the best prizes are those you win by yourself

It was one night this week, about bedtime, when she reappeared at the back doorstep.

Last weekend we ventured up to Dalby Forest for a sponsored ride in aid of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance. The children were keen to take part as they'd seen the helicopter in action at a show earlier in the year.

Their smiling faces say it all. It's no exaggeration to say they enjoyed it more than anything else they did this summer. Although we gave the ponies a brush over, there was no faffing about plaiting and preening. No hairnet for The Daughter and no tie to make her brother hot under the collar.

They got a really genuine sense of achievement. The paths were so narrow that our son had to ride by himself; there was no room for me to stand next to him with the leadrope. He couldn't have been prouder.

Their mother is now wondering how she's going to get a horsebox without The Husband noticing. If we had one, it would be brilliant to take my mare on these things and us all ride together. He goes on about the practical, like the cost of taxing and insuring such a vehicle. Mind you, it's not that we'd be after something you'd see Zara Phillips in. A humble box van would do. It's not like Velvet, our son's Thelwell, takes up much room.

Looking back over the year, there were two other rosettes that have made it on to the mantelpiece rather than joining the others up in our daughter's bedroom. The first was for a week-long tack and turnout competition. Apart from me plaiting her pony's forelock – because she just can't reach – she did absolutely everything herself.

When they're little, it doesn't seem to matter how much the youngsters do themselves, it's almost always the child with the show pony, new saddle and mummy that wouldn't dream of letting them within 50 yards of it with a soapy sponge, that seems to win. So it was wonderful for her to have an instructor who didn't mark her down for the golf ball-sized plaits and hit-and-miss hoof oil application. It was all down to the fact she'd done it herself; as it should be. The other was for "stylish showjumping", which our Pony Club should be commended for. It wasn't about who jumped the highest or fastest, but who rode with aplomb; without whoops, shrieks or flapping elbows. It just shows, in our namby-pamby prizes-for-all world, that children aren't daft. They still rate much higher the things they've actually achieved.

Yorkshire Air Ambulance, www.yorkshireairambulance.org.uk or call 01422 237900.

CW 11/9/10