The founder of the UK’s only hobby horse club, Zoe Brown, watches on as members enjoy the activity on July 14, 2025. Brown began running competitions to help her own daughter, 11, feel less shame around her pastime. (Photo by South West News Service)

An Asian elephant swims in a pool with transparent sides at Fuji Safari Park in Susono city of Shizuoka Prefecture on August 8, 2024. Paddling with chunky legs and using their trunks as a snorkel, the elephants at Fuji Safari Park in Japan are taking a dip in their summer swimming pool – with each graceful movement visible thanks to a special see-through tank. (Photo by Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP Photo)

Hounds of The Cheshire Forest Hunt push their snouts through the bars of their kennels as they eagerly await their morning walk in preparation for the start of the new hunting season, in Knutsford, England, on Oktober 31, 2013. The hunting season traditionally starts around November 1st. Although a ban on hunting has been in force since February 2005, many supporters of fox hunting are continuing to call for a repeal of the ban, saying the current law is hard to interpret and enforce. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Passengers brave the strong winds as they wait for a bus, in Hong Kong, Monday, September 15, 2014. The Hong Kong Observatory issued the number 8 southeast storm signal, as Typhoon Kalmaegi edges closer to Hong Kong. (Photo by Kin Cheung/AP Photo)

A man is seen wrapped with pythons, some which include the Albino Burmese Python, as part of a show celebrating the coming Year of the Snake in the Chinese calendar, while spectators look on, in Malabon city, north of Manila, Philippines, December 28, 2012. (Photo by Romeo Ranoco/Reuters)

A 15-year-old girl denied a horse from her parents has turned to a cow to fulfil her riding dreams. 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.

A hummingbird feeds on the nectar from a Mimosa tree in Saugus, Massachusetts on July 30, 2020. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso/ZUMA Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Girls wearing protective face masks wait to pray inside temple premises on the occasion of the annual harvest festival of Onam on the outskirts of Kochi, India, August 31, 2020. (Photo by Sivaram V/Reuters)