A day.

Sunshine. Cook breakfast eggs for The Mother. Groundwork. Riding. (I have lost my trot. It is tense and rushed where it should be smooth and collected. It takes me some time to find it, a process which cannot be hurried, so I am late to the rest of the day.) Members of the extended family are visiting; a lot of sweetness. HorseBack: photographs, notes, many discussions. Talk to my friend The Marine about the time he rounded up cattle in Colorado. Two hundred foot vertical drops up on the narrow mountain trails. I blanch. I am ashamed to say I make girlish shrieks.

Back to the desk, still at least an hour behind. Important emails and telephone calls. A wonderful plan is hatched. Errands.

Work, work, work, work, work.

Forget lunch. Abruptly remember that I have forgotten lunch. Feel suddenly very weak. Attempt to cram all the food groups into one very late tea-time snack. Still quite weak. Where is the iron tonic?

Back two winners at Huntingdon. The second, in particular, is a delightful gentleman of a horse, flowing neatly and enthusiastically over his fences with his ears pricked, occasionally throwing in a mighty, soaring leap just to show he is no mere workman. He is a Venetia Williams horse, and a lot of them are like this: honest and charming as the day is long.

Take huge amounts of stuff to the charity shop. The saintly glow of having a clear-out is slightly marred because the nice paper bags in which the things were neatly packed have been ripped apart by Stanley the Dog when he was in the back of the car this morning. I suppose he was looking for RATS.

Attempt to upload a HorseBack video to YouTube. Fail. ‘There was an error uploading your video.’ Have burst of First World rage. Swear at the computer, fruitlessly. Buggery YouTube will not have me.

Watch the sun change colour over the trees. Give Stanley the Dog a treat to tell him he is forgiven. (He had not even noticed he was in disgrace, and the ladies in the charity shop were very understanding. ‘I have spaniels,’ said one, darkly.)

Think about work done and work still undone. Find myself reading an article about To Do lists, and how they are never finished.

Feel rueful.

Wonder if I should check my emails again.

Think I’ll go and give the duchess her tea instead. There I can breathe and stand still and feel the air on my face and the love in my heart and see the snowdrops and think of spring.

 

Today’s pictures:

Happy girls in the lovely morning light:

Step-sister, step-niece, red mare and me, taken by the Lovely Stepfather. I appear to be having a very, very bad hair day. I try not to mind:

A chicken, for the Dear Reader who likes chickens:

The Marine, with Brook the ex-sprinter who now works with veterans at HorseBack UK. Who says that ex-racehorses have no useful purpose once their race is run? Quite a lot of idiotish people, is the answer. This fella does a very, very useful job indeed:

I know I bang on a little about the prejudices faced by ex-racehorses in particular and thoroughbreds in general. But really, you should read what the ignorant say on the internet. Don’t even get me started on the superstitions about chestnut mares….

In which I put aside weighty matters, and watch the racing instead

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

A small, quiet day. The police came and talked to me of sheep. There actually is a don’t let your dog chase livestock law, from 1953. I gave a witness statement. It’s rather odd, having a couple of coppers sitting on the sofa in all their regalia, taking down your every word. The Pigeon thought it was too much fun, and shamelessly flirted with the long arm of the law. The law laughed, quite a lot. Quite frankly, any policemen who like my dog are all right with me.

I made some minestrone and ate it. It was really quite good.

I watched the racing. My punting has been rather vulgarly successful lately; the last bet I had was a tenner on Celestial Halo, which scooted up at twelve to one. I got a bit swaggery, imagining William Hill cowering in terror before my might.

Today, there was a crash down to earth. My last fancy was actually pulled up, which really is rather shaming. I reminded myself so much of my father, who was a famously hopeless betting man. I always remember him groaning on a Saturday afternoon as his sure thing got stuffed. Although he did once have to be escorted to his car at Cheltenham by two burly minders, some time in the 1960s, because he had won so much money that he carried it away in a suitcase. (This may be one of those family folklore stories which is not strictly true, but I am not going to check with my mother, because I like the mental picture of Dad tottering off the racecourse, with a case full of what he called readies, accompanied by two bookmaker’s bodyguards.)

Here is the funny thing. I started writing this in the advertising break of Channel Four Racing. I was resigned to it being a disastrous betting day. I had one final flutter in the last race, and heard it come on in the other room, and went back to watch. Because my luck was out, I had no hopes. My horse was anchored in third last all the way round. Ah, he’s not going a yard, I thought. I am channelling Dad, and that’s all she wrote.

Then the jockey, Aidan Coleman, with a perfectly timed run, produced the horse, threaded his way through the pack, and hit the front. I started shouting. The Pigeon started barking. Something else was storming up the inside. ‘Come on, my son,’ I yelled. My fella stuck his head in front and would not be denied. William Hill, I wrote on Twitter, I laugh at your puny plan. Now I shall be insufferable.

One interesting side note, on the inexplicable ups and downs of racing. The horse I won on, Ciceron, is trained by a very elegant woman called Venetia Williams. Until a couple of weeks ago, her stable was suffering a catastrophic run of form. This happens sometimes: it doesn’t matter how good you are, nothing goes right. She said, ruefully, to one of the Channel Four fellows: ‘I couldn’t train ivy up a wall.’

Then, in a volte face of fortune, all her horses started trotting up. Just at the moment, she can do nothing wrong. That’s how it goes, in racing. It’s the same with jockeys, too. One moment, you can be covered in glory, the next you are arse up on the turf at Wincanton, trudging back ruefully to the weighing room with grass stains all over your breeches. It’s a very levelling game, like that. It has humility stitched into it.

The light has faded to indigo, and a laughing full moon is sailing high above the trees. I watch it through my office window. I think of all the lovely horses, and how much pleasure they give me. I think of how brave and gallant they are. I think of my father. He had his flaws, but he was gallant, too.

 

Here are some pictures of the day:

My little Pidge, with her serious face on:

Two different views of the hill: