I am reluctant to awake from pleasant dreams, but I don’t feel regret. Because our dreams come true in practice.

This is what a woman horse rider of Chosan County said after winning a 1 600-metre race of female amateurs at a horse race held in Pyongyang in March in celebration of March 8 International Women’s Day 2022.

She is Kim Ok Mi in her early thirties. Growing in the county that has long been called Chosan as it is rich in trees, Ok Mi liked to play various sports such as running, basketball and volleyball.

It was during her military service that she was attached to horse riding.

Seeing men riding horses, she got interested in riding. So, in her spare time, she would feed a horse carrots and give it a bath to get intimate with it and gradually came to know how to ride.

But, as she began to work as a nurse at the clinic of the Chosan County Sericulture Farm after graduating from the then Kanggye Medical College following her demob, horse riding only remained as her girlhood memory.

“I merely imagined myself riding a horse along the mountain ranges that could be seen through the windows,” she recalled.

One day she heard that the Mirim Riding Club was built in Pyongyang and later she saw on TV ordinary working people having a good time as they rode there.

Now the time was gone when riding was alive only in her memory.

She began to practise riding again along the mountain ranges. And at the news that there would take place a horse race in celebration of March 8 International Women’s Day, she applied to take part in the horse race before anyone else.

“In those days I had sleepless nights worrying that my application might be turned down. But after receiving a letter of approval, I worried that I might fail to be among the winners,” she said.

Many people were quite pleased to know she would participate in the horse race, encouraging her to demonstrate her skills, and her anxiety grew further.

With such feeling she left for Pyongyang. At last she returned home with delight in having won the 1 600-metre race of female amateurs at the horse race by fully displaying her techniques practised in ordinary days.

Her villagers rejoiced at her success, referring to it as another pride of their county, and she said, “But for this land, this social system, my dream would have remained merely a dream forever. Cherish your dreams, and they will surely come true.”

She now works at the Kanggye Riding Club and many people visit her to learn riding.

To them she is wont to say, “Only when you know about the benefit of the socialist system can you know about the true merit of riding.”