Abb Takk News
Abbtakk special News Ticker TRENDING

British Muslim Girl Makes History by Horse Riding Wearing Hijab

LONDON: Tucked away down a side road, between two south-west London housing estates, is an acre of calm.

Against a backdrop of tower blocks and graffiti, this is where teenager Khadijah Mellah learned to ride horses.

In August, the 18-year-old’s smile beamed out from national news bulletins as she became the first British Muslim woman to ride in a horse race, the first jockey to compete wearing a hijab.

Four months earlier, she had not even sat on a racehorse. On Monday, she was the star at her own film premiere.

“There is a stereotype that Muslim women can’t go out there and do certain things,” she says. “Hopefully this will show my religion in a positive light.”

Her remarkable story begins in Millbrook Road, Brixton, at the Ebony Horse Club.

Well versed in preparing bids for funding, Naomi Howgate reels off statistics in her Yorkshire brogue.

She is Ebony’s business manager – working to raise money for a charity that aims to help transform lives in one of Britain’s most deprived areas. Some 90% of the children who come here are from low-income households (earning £22,000 annually or below); one in three live in poverty.