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"Jogging is just jogging..," I was listening to János Lóska's philosophy on how to ride to the very best of ones ability, "...but to win the Olympics you must die a little every day." This 'no compromise' stance was János' approach to schooling his horses, to running his business, to living his life and to leading his riding trips. "On my rides i want to provide the best horses for the best riders. Not less." János looked off towards the horizon.

On the Hungarian Plains, unless you're actually lying face-down on the ground, you're always looking towards the horizon. In any direction the land drifts away until, just before hitting infinity, it tumbles over the edge of the world. A single tree, a grazing bull, even a large bird, can landmark the straight-running skyline like a sudden jump in a flat-drawn line. It makes for Europe's ultimate riding country. You can ride all day - and that's on good horses, covering long distance - and then ride all the next day and the day after that, too, and never see a fence. Not a single strand of wire, nor one post and rail. Nary a hedge, a bank or a wall. Think of the Curragh, but stretched out in every direction until Munster-sized, and you'd have an idea of what it's like crossing just a corner of the Hungarian flatlands.

Five of us were riding across the plains to the east of the Tisza River. The Kisbéri félvér - Half-bred Kisbéri - horses under our saddles were from János' own stud at Vanyarc Alsósarlóspuszta. The Kisbéri félvér's history goes back to the middle of the 19th century, and to the Hungarian's success in creating a horse with the speed and quality of an English Thoroughbred but with the extra stamina needed to carry Austro-Hungarian Hussars in cavalry warfare. The Kisbéri is a breed whose strengths still play well in the 'modern battles' of eventing and other competitive equestrian sports.

János had the same strength and stamina as his horses. He'd been a national judo champion as a teenager, a competitor in international events as a past member of the Hungarian Eventing Team, and a producer of top horses and trainer of winning riders since then. Even as we rode across the plains a young horse from his yard was competing at an international event in Slovakia; János' mobile phone would ring and from the saddle he'd listen to his rider's assessment of the horse's performance after each phase and give quick bursts of advice.

From the 1980s, when Hungary was still behind the Iron Curtain, János had led his own riding trips through Hungary - fast, long distance, off-road rides with good food and comfortable accommodation each night. And, being Magyar, plenty of craic, of course, once the serious horse stuff was sorted out.

Our first day's riding was demanding. Not because the horses were difficult but, on the contrary, because they were so good. Sarah evented in England, and she and I had drawn top-quality competition Kisbéris to ride. Klaus, a German veteran of numerous Hungarian rides, and Márta, János' business partner and our hostess on the trip, were riding excellent horses. As was Alec, a friend of mine who runs long distance riding holidays in Chile and Mexico.

The price for having this calibre - and value - of horse under our riding breeks was that the horses' interests came first in everything. Until János knew how well we really rode - and thus had assessed what damage we might potentially do to his horses - he kept tight discipline on the ride. "Stay in line," he'd raise his hand, "WATCH OUT! CANTER!" and we'd set off on long, collected canters under the blue bowl of sky. Hoopoes and harriers and eagles flew above us. Deer sprang from the long grass and paced our speed. Wide-horned, bad-tempered, white cattle frowned on us as we swept past.

János didn't talk much when we were riding, but what he did say was immediate and to the point. If he had advice to give on the subject of riding his horses, it was worth listening up, because invariably it worked. My grey was still young and János knew its temperament through and through. He was shrewd, too, on picking up my faults. Occasionally he'd drop in to ride beside me and suggest I did - or, just as often, stopped doing - something. I'd do - or stop doing - it and feel an immediate difference in the horse. It was like getting a 50-kilometers-a-day lesson from a master.

Alec start was the hardest. All his life - so for decades and thousands of kilometres of rough-country horsemanship - he'd ridden South American cowboy fashion, and, now, was suddenly faced with a crash-course in English style. The eventing saddles, the shortened leathers, the reins-in-two-hands, the three-point canter position; everything was at odds with the cattle-saddle, long-stirrup, one-hand-free, sit-down-at-speed techniques he was expert in. "Puta! How the hell do I sort these reins out," he'd ask riding up beside me, knitting lengths of well-oiled leather around two sets of fingers, "and, hombre, this standing up to canter thing is crazy," he'd add.

But with their shared experience of running riding trips for clients in their different horse worlds, Alec and János had a shared respect for each others abilities. So much so, that Alec suggested to János that he pull out of the riding for the next day, "because I don't want to ruin your horse." But the Magyar wouldn't hear of it. "Igen, Alec, you ride the 'closed door' way - like you're sitting on a toilet when there's no lock on the door, with your legs pushed forward to keep it closed - but you know what you're doing with a horse, so you have to keep going." Alec wasn't going to be allowed to 'jog' but was going to have 'to die a bit.'

Later János took me aside and confided, "he has to keep going, it will take me just two days to fix the horse again afterwards but Alec will learn and will ride this style as well as anybody else, maybe better, in a very short time, and so that's worth it." Meanwhile, Alec took the cowboy approach to adversity and gritted his teeth, absorbed advice, learnt fast and looked forward to the next drink.

Hungary had its own 'cowboys' - the horse herders, or csikósok - of the plains. On our first day's ride into the pasture lands of the national stud at Máta where Nonius horses were bred we could see carriages rumbling across the puszta towards the distant, spindly gantry of a 'sweep-well.' A cloud of dust hung on the horizon and, as we converged with the carriages on an expanse of short grass, a csikos galloped into view, standing on the back of a pair of horses and driving another three out in front of him. He cracked his long decorated whip in sharp detonations around his head. Other csikósok were mounted on their Nonius steeds, riding on the girthless pads that allowed them 'saddle' up in seconds when rounding up straying or stampeding horses.

The 'tricks' they were performing, though a show for the spectators who'd been carriage-ed out from Máta, were based on the old horsemanship skills needed to survive in earlier and harsher times on Hungary's plains. So, their horses lay down on command, whilst whips cracked only inches above their heads, a necessary discipline in the days when the only way to hide a horse in times of trouble in a flat country was to flatten it on the ground. Their horses sat up like dogs on their haunches, and the riders nestled in under their stomachs, between their front legs, a way of gaining protection from the fierce rain storms of the puszta. The modern csikósok, despite the tourist shows, were still authentic, knowledgeable horsemen.

That evening we joined the Máta csikósok at the horse barn for János' birthday. The herd of black Nonius mares and foals had been driven into the big open barn at dusk just as we were pouring the first drinks. We'd developed a taste for Unicum, a thick, black spirit made with some 26 herbs and thus boasting properties that Márta promised were "good for the liver, good for the heart and lungs and good for putting a shine on your boots." Fingers of dry-storm lightning played on the distant horizon as we sat down at an outside table to plates of slumbuk, a thick stew cooked over an open fire.

We'd been joined for the party by László Horváth. 'Laci' was a senator in the Hungarian parliament, a friend of János, and a member of a governmental committee promoting equestrian tourism. As part of this drive, János was in charge of grading - from five 'horseshoes downwards - more than 200 registered riding centres across the nation. In Hungary, to a greater extent even than in Ireland, tourism often revolved around horses. That night, for instance, we were staying in the Epona Lovasklub - 'horseclub' - where each of the self-contained luxury cottages built around a central indoor swimming pool and bar/restaurant complex, had its own two-box stable at the back for visitors' own horses. On the last night of our week's ride we would sleep in comfortable rooms right above the stallion stalls of the National Lippizaner stud in Szilvásvárad. And in between times we would stay, and ride with, one of Hungary's top dressage riders, Gábor Csapó, in the Bükk Mountains, and twice we'd find ourselves being joined for a day's ride by mounted Lord Mayors from towns we were passing near. Horses were the key to Hungary.

Now after decades of mainly selling to riding tourists from Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Sweden, Hungary was looking further west to the English, Irish and - even - the Chilean market. In the horse barn, glasses of palinka brimming, we toasted Hungary, our respective countries and János' years with the one word of the fiendishly difficult Magyar language all we foreigners had learnt: egészségedre - 'cheers.'

Over the following six days we rode an average of 45 kms daily across the puszta, and then on towards Eger and up into the Bükk Mountains. Our group was well matched in ability and János relaxed with the realisation that none of us, least of all Alec as it turned out, were going to knock his horses too far off the straight and narrow. Our canters got longer and speedier. Or became gallops. Ditches got jumped. There was more Unicum and palinka downed. Ever bigger feasts at the picnic lunches, when Márta produced gooseliver pate, home made salamis, fresh bread and cheeses, and we ate whilst the horses stood quietly tied to lines.

There was a mad morning when a sudden and torrential rainstorm swept in, turning the day dusk-dark, and soaking us to the skin in seconds, and we rode on for an hour laughing and drenched, and then dried again within minutes when the sun came out. There was a night when, with glasses of a famed local wine in hand, we bobbed around in the natural hot springs at Egerszalók looking up into an icy clear and starry night sky. There were evening meals of steak cooked in cheese, and roast fish and of venison and wild boar whilst Gypsy violinists played swooping csárdás around our table.

Laci, the senator, rode with us for most of the week. Sometimes he would disappear for half a day or so - I always assumed to vote on some pressing parliamentary question back in Budapest - before reappearing, late at night or early in the morning, to rejoin our daily cavalry charge across Hungary and the nights of heroic feasting, guitar driven singing and wild conversation. I was in a country where politicians rode horses - and well - for the sheer love of horsemanship. A country where one rode a quality of horseflesh that you'd have to mortgage your house to straddle in most other lands. A country where dying 'a little every day' was just fine. And a country where egészségedre seemed like a normal word - at least after a few Unicums.

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