My life: Francesca Cumani

J I love being with horses - even if I see a police horse on the street I've got to go and cuddle it. I grew up in Newmarket, which is the home of horse racing in England - there are 3,000 or 4,000 racehorses in the town itself. My dad (Luca Cumani) is a trainer and my parents still live there. I went to a little primary school in Newmarket and, on special occasions, my mum would come and pick me up on my pony, which was exciting. At home there are over 100 horses and when I woke up, looked out my window, there were horses. There is a funny picture of me out hunting with my mum. She is on a big horse and is leading me on a pony - apparently I was aged three. My brother is two years older than me and we did pony club together. My mum used to ride out every morning and still does. I used to see them all going out and was desperate to join in. I pestered my dad to let me ride a racehorse. Eventually he relented when I was about 11. I started riding and would fall off most days - or there was some drama - but I was so determined to stick at it that I used to dust myself off and get going again.

When I was 18 I got my licence as an amateur jockey. I've ridden about 25 or 30 races and won four. There is a really good race at York Racecourse and the winning jockey gets their weight in champagne; they literally put you in the scales in the winner's enclosure and match your weight with champagne. And it's nice champagne, too. My mum won it one year and I won it the following two years.

My father is Italian and I grew up speaking Italian and found languages easy, so when it came time to pick a degree, I did French and Spanish at Bristol University. As soon as that was finished I was right back at home working with the horses. I used to ride in the mornings and then write reports on the horses for the owners, and I did quite a lot of travelling with the horses, especially long distance. In 2006, I took two horses to the Melbourne Cup (in Australia) and then decided to take eight months and get to know the industry over there. I worked with a trainer called David Hayes, then a bloodstock agent and then on a stud farm in New Zealand. And then I went back to England and did another year or two with my dad.

After the 2008 Melbourne Cup, an executive at (Australia's) Channel Seven asked me if I'd join a panel for its coverage. I thought, "Let's give it a go" and I've been doing the Spring (Racing) Carnival for Channel Seven ever since. I put a lot of time and effort into studying and spend up to eight hours the day before a race day going through the form for all the horses that are running. If you're doing live TV you've got to know your stuff. In the summer of 2011 a friend from university said CNN was looking for someone to present a show about racing and was I interested? It sounded too good to be true. I enjoy the challenge of planning stories - you are talking to a wide audience that might not know a lot about racing, so you have to find stories that people can relate to. The racing world is a small community and, if I need to interview someone, it's a couple of phone calls and normally they say yes.

I feel like I'm just doing my job but some people see it as me breaking into a man's world. I do enjoy redressing the balance because, in the past, especially in Australia, it's always been the men in suits on the panel who sit there and bang on about the horses and the pretty girls talk about the fashion and the social side of things - to mix that up is quite fun. At the beginning I was quite nervous about not talking over anyone and not disagreeing with anyone, but now I have built my confidence I quite enjoy winding up the guys on the panel.