Like keen equestrians losing heart in N London district (6)

I believe the answer is:

horsey

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'london district' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Maybe you can see an association between them that I can't see?

'like keen equestrians losing heart in' is the wordplay.
'like keen' becomes 'hoey' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'equestrians' becomes 'riders' (I've seen this before).
'losing heart' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'riders' with its centre removed is 'rs'.
'hoey' enclosing 'rs' is 'HORSEY'.

'n' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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