It's not quite "man bites dog", but it is "girl rides cow". Teenager Regina Mayer, from southern Germany, is able to ride her cow, Luna. She has even trained her bovine pet to soar over a beer-crate hurdle like a regular show jumper. Why, you may well ask, when most cow-owners are surely content to let the creatures chew and lactate and sit down to indicate the imminent arrival of rain? Well, Regina's parents wouldn't let her have a horse.
Of course Regina could have chosen to ride a tried-and-tested elephant, camel, or even ostrich. In the Galapagos islands children can ride giant tortoises and turtles; in Vietnam, you can hop on a water buffalo; in China, you can trek astride a yak; and some native peoples in Mongolia and northern Russia ride reindeer. Zebras, however horse-like, are generally unresponsive to training – though in 1891 a certain Captain Horace Hayes apparently broke a mountain zebra stallion for his wife to ride.
But is it cruel to ride a cow? Possibly, says the RSPCA. "Regina's cow looks quite docile," a spokeswoman said, adding that this is the first time in 10 years that she's encountered a show-jumping cow. "But we'd be worried about any potential damage to her udders. Riding a cow is definitely not something we'd recommend."
