We have to talk about the Pony rider thing. Because, to be honest, I've really only sat on a horse of any description, donkeys included, a handful of times in my life. And I really don't have that kind of co-ordination. I just look rubbish on a horse, like the two things should never be in the same place. Like that special edition Marmite with champagne. Nature didn't design me that way.

But I can dream about looking effortlessly 'at one' with a wild, handsome beast. An image I particularly enjoy is the woman riding bare-backed on some Californian beach, her long hair catching in the wind, her taut, tan thighs gripping the animal's shining, muscular flanks, the waves crashing behind her, lush musical score swelling in the background. If I'm honest, it's probably an aftershave commercial from the seventies, starring someone whose portfolio of work includes modelling for Athena posters.

Somewhere further along the woman-on-horseback continuum is the red-hunting-jacket, trophy-winning, leaning into a terrifying jump kind of image. That's also pretty sexy in its' own way - though, I confess, if you're going to have that fantasy, you might as well go the whole damn hog and be Zara Phillips.

That way, not only do you get a whole wardrobe full of those riding boots that look like the ones German soldiers wear in war movies, but you wear tongue piercings and get to keep a bit of rugby rough on your mother's estate. I'm warming to that one.

Last, but not least of course, is the cowgirl. Let's go for it. We're talking the full Rogers and Hammerstein in Technicolor woman-on-horseback here. Ado Annie in Oklahoma maybe. To be fair, she not so much rides stallion as a Surry with the Fringe On Top, but we'll include her because she gets to see some action in the stables with Will Parker. If you're going to be a cowgirl, you need to be a bit of chap-slapper.

But the greatest cowgirl of all is Dolly. No-one does the look like Dolly in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Again, few horses in sight, but she has the accent we're looking for (that'll be Texan, then), she carries off a cute, little sequinned cowgirl hat at precisely the right jaunty angle, and you just know every time she walks into a scene she's come straight from rolling around in the hay barn with Burt Reynolds.

So, actually, those women on horseback? Most of them haven't been on horseback either. But that's okay. Because actually it's all about the spirit of the thing. The attitude. The thing you have in your heart. [Cue a little fiddle playing in the corner of the bar, please.] And it is this spirit of the Wild West that swept in to town the moment I moved in with, well, we'll call her Cowgirl.

Cowgirls kicks ass. No, really, she does. She kickboxes. She rides waves on a surfboard that she keeps ready waxed in the corner of the lounge, which always referred to as 'she'. She goes out for a jog and comes back in 45 minutes having run a half-marathon. Up a mountain.

She does skinny jeans and Converse in that cool way most of us can only aspire to. She smokes her roll-ups on the kitchen doorstep, with one eyebrow raised, talking about her feelings, looking like the very incarnation of the Marlboro Woman, if there is such a thing. But most inspiring of all, she likes to ride her men like a bucking bronco, knees pressed down, hips gyrating, one arm holding on to his hair and the other swinging a lasso around her head. She can only be Cowgirl.

And I can only be Pony rider. Because there are all kinds of riders in this rodeo. Some of us are star-spangled bronco buckers. And others of us are a little more Pony Club. You know, highly excitable, slightly impatient, a tiny bit sweaty, bobbing up and down like a entrant for a Home Counties point to point. And that's okay. Pony Rider may not have a lasso, but she has a crop with a firm rubber grip, and she knows what to do with it...