A bad workwoman blames her tools.

Or so I thought.

In fact, it turns out that the tools make all the difference.

I take a secret pride in putting up reasonably decent photographs, although I know nothing about the technical side of photography. I have tried reading those special magazines but my brain just goes phhhtt. It’s something about the acronyms and the clinical language and the thicketty prose. I get lost and then I get cross. I hurl the thing aside and think: sod it, I’m just going to point and shoot.

For many years, I’ve had a delightful Olympus PEN. It has seen me straight and seen me curly, and it has put up with an awful lot. It’s been dropped in the mud so many times and tumbled from the back of the horse so often that it is all cracked and scratched and little threads of Scottish earth are ingrained in it. I lost the lens cap some time before the Old Queen died, and so the lens is always a tiny bit smeary. Some of the functions frankly no longer work.

But I hate the notion of disposable things, and I’ve never been one of those crazed people who always has to upgrade to a new model. I have one bog-standard mobile telephone, nothing smart about it, which I hope will last for years, and I’m cherishing this dear old computer, so it, too, might stay the distance. I quite liked that my camera was a bit bashed and battered, as if it and I had been in combat together. After all, Cartier-Bresson did not need any bells and whistles. He shot pictures for the ages with his trusty old Leica. But then, he was Cartier-Bresson. I am no Henri, nor was meant to be.

In the end, the camera made up my mind for me. The crucial battery charger went mysteriously missing. It’s probably in a field somewhere. (I carry it around with me, in case I have a battery emergency, which I thought was a good plan until I could not find the thing.) Ah well, I thought; it’s time.

Because I love taking photographs, and because I am in charge of the HorseBack Facebook page, where I must make an effort to produce something reasonably professional, I had thought I might grade up to a proper SLR. The Olympus is one of those three-quarter cameras, not quite as posh.

But I’d tried out my stepfather’s Nikon, and had not got on with it at all. I looked about on the internet, and all the high-end cameras were so expensive and so foreign to me. I decided to stick with the one I knew and loved, even though it felt a little unadventurous. I would effectively be getting a replacement, not something new.

I had not taken in the fact that the good people at Olympus have been very, very busy in the six years since I last bought a camera. The new PEN is a completely different beast to the clunky old thing I had before. It is ravishingly beautiful, small, tight, light, pleasingly retro, and neat as a pin. The shutter makes the loveliest sound I have heard any piece of equipment ever make. I found myself snapping away just to hear the delightful old-fashioned clunky click.

And, oh, oh, the pictures. Suddenly, everything is sharp again. There is depth of field and all sorts. I can do everything on automatic, which is good for a dolt like me. I really can point and shoot. The camera does it all for me, in the most charming and helpful way. It almost feels like cheating but I don’t care, because the results are so lovely. I feel like I’m back in the hunt.

I do love recording this beautiful place, and my beautiful animals, and my beautiful hills. Now, instead of struggling with old and creaking equipment, I can see every gleaming detail of the moss and the lichen, so that I look at them anew, and remember why I love them so. I suddenly realise that I had lost some of my joy in photographing things, because I was always having to edit and delete to produce a half-decent result. Now, I have my mojo again, thanks to my little Bobby Dazzler. I almost want to send a thank you letter to the brilliant boffins at Olympus, and the kind people at Curry’s, who put the marvellous article in their sale so that I got a raging bargain, and sent it out to me post haste. I am rejuvenated. Snap, snap, snap, eh Mr Gibbon. I am so happy I feel like doing a little dance. I may, in fact, do a little dance. Perhaps for the red duchess, as entertainment while she eats her tea. She’ll like that.

 

Today’s pictures:

Never were those two words typed with so much joy. Just look:

And, as if all that joy were not enough, THE FIRST SNOWDROPS ARRIVED. Too, too much:

The only thing about the dear PEN is that it can’t quite deal with very dense colours. I noticed that with my old one, and this is the same. I imagine that is where the SLR might beat it. You can see that the intense whiteness of the snowdrops is almost too much for it. But it’s such a tiny drop in the sea of loveliness that it seems almost churlish to mention it.

Down at the field, the duchess was sweetly and gently and politely waiting for her tea, and graciously posed without complaint whilst I faffed about with my new toy instead of mixing up her Thunderbrook’s:

That’s her sweetest, softest face, the one she wears when she is utterly at peace and all is well in her world.

And this is her I’VE GOT MY HAY face. There’s no special filter or effect on this picture. That really was the colour of the Scottish light at 4pm:

And one more of Captain Handsome, because one can’t have enough handsomeness:

And one last one before I really must stop -

Is there tea yet?:

Oh, and as if that was not enough happiness for one day, Teaforthree, one of the horses I love the most, won the Hunter Chase at Bangor with a glorious combination of composure, enthusiasm, strength and diamond-sharp jumping. He was given a beautiful ride by Jamie Codd, as quiet as a tranquil sky, trusting the clever old fellow to see his own stride at each fence, seeing him to the line with hands and heels. It was a shining sight, man and equine in perfect harmony, and it made me smile and smile and smile.

The dark and light of the internet. Or, in which I salute Rebecca Curtis.

One of the things I find curious about the internet is how so many people seem to accept that the rules are different. Of course, they say sagely, people are rude or inappropriate or pushy or blatantly offensive, because it’s the internet.

I see no logical reason for this. One of the basic marks of character is that one behaves in exactly the same way when unobserved. A decent person does not snoop or pinch or cheat, just because there is no one there to watch. In the same way, there is no reason why a human should fall to ranting or rudeness just because they can type in an empty room under the folding cloak of anonymity. It seems perfectly obvious to me that one would not say anything to anyone in the virtual world that one would not say in the real world.

One of the things that puzzles me most is the element of bossiness that creeps into internet life. Complete strangers instruct other complete strangers in what they should or should not say, how they should live, what they should think, how they should proceed. I would not march up to someone in the street and say: ‘You know, your work-life balance is clearly all wrong.’ Or, your opinion on this thing is absurd, or your obsession with that thing is nuts, or you are clearly in need of some kind of serious retrenching.

I would no more tell a sentient human how to life their life than I would walk into their house and start rearranging the pictures. Yet people do this online all the time. I do not get it. I am not being disingenuous; I am genuinely perplexed.

I also find there is an odd sense of entitlement, as if these strangers have some kind of right over the lives of anyone who ever ventures into any form of social media. It’s as if there is an odd insistence that the moment a human says something in any public forum, they grant permission for other people to tell them what to do.

I loathe bossiness and prescription. I find it startling and claustrophobic. I don’t do it in real life, and I don’t do it virtual life. Grown-ups are grown-ups, and may make their own decisions. They have brains and agency and hopes and dreams; they do not need to be told.

On the flip side of this, there is a lot of gentleness and politeness and sweetness, out there in the ether. This does not make headlines, because, rather like happiness, it writes white. People console on the loss of beloved animals, or send congratulations on a grand success; they share comparable experiences and give generous encouragement. There is a lot of the lovely balm of Me Too.

I was thinking of all this because a very charming thing happened to me this week. There is a chaser I really love called Teaforthree. He’s just my kind of horse: big and bonny and handsome; brave and bold; honest and genuine as the day is long. I fell in love with him last year and followed him all season. He ran a blinder in the Grand National to finish third, and I was there, cheering him on in the glittering Aintree sunshine.

He is trained in Wales by Rebecca Curtis. She is young for a trainer, only 33, and she does a hard job in a thoughtful and imaginative way. Her horses are out a lot, instead of confined always to boxes, and encouraged to play and express their horsey selves. In a game increasingly dominated by the giant yards, she is having a great success.

I know, from watching my father, how tough the job is. The work is endless, the emotional demands are acute, and there are never enough hours in the day. Yet Curtis maintains an excellent Facebook page, where she generously takes the time to update people on the progress of her horses. Tentatively, because I don’t like to be a bore and take up precious moments in a packed life, I posted a couple of comments about the glorious Teaforthree and my admiration for him. To my delight and amazement, she sent a kind message back.

I’ve had a really good week this week, but I have to say that getting that message was a shining highlight. Lucinda Russell once did the same thing, when I sent her a note of consolation about the loss of her lovely young hurdler, Brindisi Breeze. How elegant these women are, I think. They are the diametrical opposite of the shouty voices, the raucous opinionators, the unasked-for advisors. They behave just as beautifully online as off. They are pursuing a profoundly difficult profession, in an arena still largely dominated by men, and they still manage to be incredibly polite and thoughtful.

Often, when I write here, I like to have a shining note of optimism. The weather may be buggery bollocks, the news may be dark, the existential bafflements may multiply. Yet there is always a lovely light somewhere, if only one will look for it. My lovely light was that moment of human generosity, in the rush and scramble of the online world.

I raise an actual and metaphorical glass to Rebecca Curtis, and all who sail in her. And to put my money where my mouth is, I’ve had a tiny little punt on Teaforthree in next year’s National. Wherever he goes next, the bonny fella stays in pride of place in the notebook, number one in my Horses to Follow. And, if I ever manage to write a best-selling book, I shall buy two chasers in the same stamp and send them to be trained in Scotland and Wales.

 

Today’s pictures:

Lovely morning at HorseBack UK:

Very happy herd, feeling the first spring sun on their backs:

Red the Mare doing her Minnie the Moocher:

General spring:

Mr Stanley the Dog:

Hill:

Cheltenham, Day Three. In which it all gets too much.

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Here is the thing I forget, every damn year: the agony. For something that is supposed to give so much pleasure, a thing I anticipate with so much impatience and excitement, Cheltenham is curiously painful. It’s not just when horses take brutes of falls, which I find harder and harder to watch as I get older and softer, it’s actually more that the ones I love, I love so much. I want them to win not because I have had a tenner on, or because it will fulfil some double or treble, but for sheer, undilute love.

This is perfectly ridiculous. I am forty-five years old. I spent my early years with a rough, tough old racing father. He wept like a baby over horses, but he would be out booting them over fences the next day. When he was betting, he was flinty as a Russian oil billionaire. He had no sentiment at all when it came to his wallet.

I think he greatly admired a really good horse; I remember watching Moscow Flyer with him, and seeing the pleasure light up his face, but I could not tell whether it was because he really loved the horse, or whether he had had a huge punt. Perhaps he knew that, after a lifetime spent watching horses, he could not allow himself to get emotionally involved with animals that were not his responsibility.

I, on the other hand, am a Saturday afternoon observer. I know and understand racing because it’s where I came from, but I also carry the fan-like tendency of the outsider. When I see a really good horse, jumping round for fun, I see aesthetics, and emotion, and high narrative. I get carried away by the guts and the glory. There are some horses that are really, really brave. They are the ones that will go for the gap, that will give their jockey that extra, magical something on the run-in, when it seems there is nothing left to give, when they are running on fumes. You sometimes see a horse win a race through sheer heart.

Even hardened racing people will say, with admiration, of one of those, ‘he’s a real trier’. On the excellent Channel Four, you will often hear John Francome, who is not a sentimentalist at all, say: ‘he runs his heart out, every time'.

Sheer talent is very thrilling too, in quite another way. When Sprinter Sacre won on Tuesday, it was because he was so stellar that he could simply stroll over his fences, never getting out of second gear. He has not yet had to show his heart, because he is so much better than his cohort. Watching him is like observing some freakish natural phenomenon; you can see the wild in him, his ancestral herd heritage. He was meant to run, very, very fast, and that is what he does.

In the first race yesterday, quite another kind of horse gave me a different kind of thrill. Teaforthree is a lovely, old-fashioned kind of chaser, a big, bonny, bold staying horse. He is honest as the day is long. He does not have that blinding brilliance of the really top class, but he is very, very good at what he does. Most of all, he seems to love it. He hunts round, with his ears pricked, absolutely at home on the racecourse.

He was running in a four mile chase, which is absurdly long, jumping twenty-four of those vast Cheltenham fences. He went off in the lead, leaping over the obstacles with a delightful combination of poetry and accuracy. I wanted him to win for love, because he is such a fine gentleman, and because he comes from a small yard which deserves its day in the sun, and for money too, because I had a tenner on him at 8-1.

He can’t stay in front the whole way round, I thought, not for four miles. He can’t go on jumping like that.

But you know what? He just did. He never put a foot wrong, and when his smiling Irish amateur rider asked him the question after the last, he lengthened his stride like the good old fella he is, and cantered gloriously up the hill. I shouted and roared and danced for joy. It was all jubilee, for that moment, in my house.

But the problem with all this is that I care far, far too much. When the bright novice Grand Crus got beat, I took it personally. When the brilliant and brave Sizing Europe could only finish second, after a very messy Champion Chase, I felt a raging fury. This was only compounded by a horrid cavalry charge of a hurdle race where there were three hideous falls. I suddenly felt disgusted with the whole business.

This idiot level of caring makes the beautiful victories much keener and sweeter. The other side of the coin is that when the one I love gets beat, or has no luck in running, or just does not run his race, as horses sometimes do not, I have a crushing, crashing sense of disappointment, which can linger for the rest of the day.

Today, Big Buck’s lines up for the World Hurdle. I want him to win so much that I can hardly speak. The wanting is so acute it is actually making me grumpy. I think: I’m not sure I can even watch the race. It will be too terrifying, too much agony. This is supposed to be a lovely afternoon at the races. Yet I shall be pacing about, literally or metaphorically hiding behind the sofa. I shall be quite tempted to leave the house altogether, and go for a nice walk with the Pigeon until the race is over.

The whole thing is too absurd for words. I cannot explain it. A shrink would probably have a field day with it. I sometimes wonder what it must be like to be one of those sanguine, calm people, who can let life roll off them. I know they exist. (It’s like the Organised People, whom I also observe with awe and wonder.)

On days like this, I rather yearn to know how they do it. A shrug of the shoulders, a wry smile, a philosophical sigh, and the thing is done. How very, very lovely that must be.

 

The wonderfully collected Teaforthree, on the far side, by Mark Cranham for the Racing Post:

And with a very happy JT McNamara, coming into the winning enclosure, by Getty Images:

The power and the glory that is Big Buck's, photograph uncredited:

If you are new to the blog, and have no idea about that mighty horse, and would like to know more, I have written about him before, here and here.

And now I really am stopping.

I should not give you any tips at all, after the drubbing I took yesterday, and today is such a difficult betting day that I am mostly going to keep my cash in my pocket. But I really do like Noble Prince for the very competitive Ryanair at 2.40. Although you could make a really good case for any one of eight of them. I'd love to see Somersby run a big race for Henrietta Knight too.

I have a tiny feeling for Cristal Bonus in the Jewson, but only a five quid at 5-1 feeling. Donald McCain's horses are on fire, and the favourite, Peddler's Cross, will run well.

Big Buck's is not a betting thing. He is 2-1 on. This means you have to put two pounds on to win one. Also, this is the toughest opposition he has faced yet, strength and depth. The Willie Mullins' horses are fancied, and Oscar Whisky, trained by the on fire Nicky Henderson, who had FOUR winners yesterday, is a terrifying danger. Just hope, and watch, and enjoy the brilliance.

If he does win, I shall cry shameless tears of joy.