I was Britain’s youngest horse trainer – now I live through assassination attempts and take on Donald Trump

A TEXT message saved Iona Craig’s life.

The former horse trainer and jockey who worked alongside Nicky Henderson was in the back of a taxi in war-torn Yemen when an assassin opened fire through the window.

With guns in the corner of living rooms and assassination attempts on her, Craig’s life as a warzone reporter couldn’t be more different to when she was a horse trainer

She was the target.

When you hear this harrowing story it might seem a mystery why Craig, who was Britain’s youngest horse trainer, gave up mucking out and riding out for reporting in the world’s most dangerous countries.

Or for taking on Donald Trump.

It makes finding a race for a handicap plot job seem like an absolute doddle.

And of course, in reality, it is.

You want pressure? Try shielding from a barrage of bullets all meant for your face.

That’s what Craig did during that attempt on her life in the Middle Eastern country in 2013.

She recently told RTE she laid down in the foot well of the taxi and played dead as it sped off.

Craig said: “I was probably saved by the fact that I had my head down as I was sending a text message to a colleague.

“The taxi driver was very quick-thinking.

“He saw that I was all right, swung the vehicle round and took off down the road.

“He didn’t know I was a journalist. When I told him he put his head in his hands and said, ‘what were you doing getting my taxi?’

“So, I said, ‘don’t worry, I won’t call you again for a ride’.”

Craig started her racing journey in 1994 – a time when, she said, even then, racing was 25 years behind the time.

She fought to make a breakthrough in a ‘male-thinking, male-dominated climate’.

She found a path with Henderson and even went out on her own as a trainer in her mid-20s, recording her first winner with 20-1 Nellie Melba at Leicester in 2003.

It wasn’t her true calling, though, and, after her father’s death she followed his lead and pursued a totally different way of life in the Middle East.

Craig moved to Yemen in 2010, survived the assassination attempt in 2013, became a reporter for The Times in 2014 and that same year was ‘harassed’ out of the country along with other Western reporters as warring factions fought for control.

Ironically, when she returned by boat the next year she was put under house arrest, had her passport seized and was told she couldn’t leave.

Years of ducking, diving and filing reports fraught with danger followed – when in 2017 she landed her biggest story.

Almost by lucky, she found herself writing about the botched US Navy SEAL raid on the Yakla region of Yemen.

The mission was authorised by Trump nine days after becoming president and sought to gather intelligence on terrorist group Al Qaeda and target leader Qasim al-Raymi.

It turned out to be a disaster, leaving one US soldier dead, but was promoted as ‘highly successful’ by the Trump administration.

Craig, who is now in her late 40s, won an award for her coverage of the raid, where she said US forces ‘razed an entire village’, leading to the deaths of 25 civilians.

Forced to watch her every move and cover tracks for fear of who could be watching her, Craig’s life is a million miles away from the sleepy gallops upon which she carved her first career.

But she knew as a trainer she wouldn’t want to be doing that same job in ten years’ time.

She’s now a decade into her life as a reporter.

The awards prove she made the right move.

AP

Craig’s report into Trump’s botched US Navy SEAL raid in Yemen won her an award[/caption]