The Royal Meeting.

In the end, because I gave myself permission not to write the blog, I wanted to write the blog. I am stupidly cussed.

I was thinking, as I rode this morning, getting the mare to do her dowager duchess dressage diva schtick, which she eventually did after some persuasion, about the things about Ascot that I shall miss and those I shan’t.

In the very old days, I used to see my father in the Irish Bar, usually with a tall elegant gentleman whom he would introduce as ‘my friend Bill.’ My friend Bill, charming, very funny, dry as a bone, and so self-deprecating it was as if he had done a course, turned out to be a man of some distinction. I only discovered much later that he had fought with the Royal Hussars in the Second World War.

Eventually Dad turned against Ascot. He grew tired of the hats and the heels and the cocktail party crowds, and he lost so much money there each year that he said it was cheaper to go on holiday, so he would firmly take himself off abroad.

For a long time, I agreed with him. Pushing through crowds who are all looking the wrong way (at each other rather than at the horses) became rather dispiriting. There is a yahoo element that is a little bit sad. But however crowded it becomes, however many absurd tottery shoes there are, and self-parodying braying hoorahs, and people who don’t know a pastern from a hock, through it all runs the enduring element: the finest thoroughbreds in the world. So I went back.

I had forgotten how beautiful Ascot was. The new stand is perfectly hideous, but it is well-laid out and convenient, and it cannot take away from that ravishing emerald sward that opens up in front of it like a history book. The history lives, out on that storied course. It was Queen Anne who started the Royal Meeting, because she wanted something nice and close to Windsor, and it is from Windsor that our own dear Queen comes, trotting down the straight mile in her open carriage with her match greys, an elegant echo of her ancestress. A band, usually someone like the Welsh Guards, strikes up, and all the gentlemen take their top hats off and wave them, with old school courtesy, at their monarch. I understand perfectly well all the arguments against a hereditary monarchy, in this day and age, but when I see that, I get chills up my spine, and I love the Queen and all who sail in her. No race meeting in the world has such a beginning.

Up where the old paddock was, there is now the pre-parade ring, a gentle calm before the storm, with ancient trees and quiet grass, and a perfect hidden place right at the end where one can observe the dazzling athletes, walking round like old dressage horses, before they are saddled. It’s as hushed as a church service, and the only time I’ve seen it mobbed was when Black Caviar flew over from Australia, and every single trainer, even the jumps boys, poured into the place to catch a glimpse of the super-mare. In my secret spot, away from the crowds, there is usually just me and another reminder of the old Ascot, a lady of venerable age and immense chic (and sensible shoes), with whom I made friends, both of us being wild about the fillies.

I can’t go this year, and I shall miss that moment of communion in the pre-parade ring, the extraordinary privilege of getting up close to that much equine beauty and talent. Television can’t quite capture the full majesty of the thoroughbred; it’s as if half a dimension is missing. Frankel, who brought me back to Ascot for his rampaging Queen Anne victory, was much more fine and delicate and handsome in life than he was in front of the cameras. It sounds odd, but there’s something too about getting the smell of them, and seeing the relationship they have with their lads and lasses, and being able to look into their deep eyes.

I’ll miss the wild roar that starts when a favourite hits the front and starts to motor, a soaring, swelling sound, so visceral that it runs right through your body, so overwhelming that it brings on magical thinking. In that Frankel Queen Anne, I quite genuinely wondered whether the roof would come off the stands.

I’ll miss running into my racing friends. I like seeing George Baker, with whom I used to go and watch Desert Orchid when we were in our raw twenties. He loved racing so much that he chucked in a perfectly respectable job and took out a training licence. When I see him, he twinkles at me, all those old memories still alive, and says, with some amazement: ‘I’m living the dream.’ I’ll miss going to see the horses with James and Jacko Fanshawe. James Fanshawe is not a trainer that many people outside racing have ever heard of, he is so modest and low-key, but he’s a flat specialist who has won two Champion Hurdles. Most National Hunt trainers have not won one Champion Hurdle, so for a flat trainer to win two is something out of the common. He’s a horseman to his bones, and watching him assess a young sprinter is one of my all-time great pleasures. (His brother sold me the red mare, so the Fanshawe family is very, very high in my hall of fame.)

I won’t miss the frantic dash to the train and the panicky picking up of the tickets and the failure to find a seat and the rather tiring uphill walk to the course. I won’t miss the crowds and the queuing and having to canter my way through the throng in my sensible boots to see my equine heroines and heroes, and getting stuck with a dead bore just when I want to go and see a Best Beloved in the paddock. I’ll miss my sneaky half pints of ice-cold Guinness and making friends with the random American military gentlemen who seem to favour the Guinness bar. (I love a bit of gold braid.) I’ll miss the august old gents in their special uniforms who guard the entrance to the Royal Enclosure. I’ll miss the atmosphere.

But the television is a good show. Channel Four Racing, after a rocky start with its new team, have settled down into harness now, and Nick Luck with his sharp tailoring and his sense of humour and his enthusiasm has grown into an outstanding broadcaster. I can watch the replays and see clearly the pattern of each race. I don’t get that on the course, because my race glasses are usually shaking too much. I’ll still have a great shout, and Stanley the Dog will bark and jump up and down, and I’ve even shipped it in a bit of Guinness, which is very, very naughty on a school day.

It’s all power and glory. The best in the world, up against the best in the world. They are flying in from Australia, America, France, Ireland, Hong Kong and Japan. All those hopes and dreams, all that thought and care, all that breeding and brilliance will be out there, where the flying hooves thunder down the track. It really is like Christmas and Easter.
 
Here is the old lady, many of whose cousins will be running today, very happy that she is no longer required to do all that galloping at top speed nonsense:



I’m hoping that the cream will rise to the top today, and that Solow and Gleneagles do the business. If my old friend Sole Power can weave his way through the field with his thrilling late run, I shall cry tears of joy. And my each-way bet is the very lovely Buratino , a juvenile who is more exposed than his rivals, but with such a turn of foot that I hope he might see them off.
Be lucky, my darlings.

Thanks, AP. The Last Day.

They cheered him on the way out of the weighing room. They clapped him into the paddock, and out again. They cheered him onto the course, down to the start, and round the first circuit. The fairytale didn’t happen, but it didn’t matter. In some ways, perhaps it was better that way. Racing is not really about fairy tales. It’s too real for that. He finished third each time, giving it all the old drive and verve and knuckle, but just, as on so many occasions, having a horse under him who wasn’t quite good enough on the day. Nobody really cared. The crowd went wild as he came back into the enclosure, and young Box Office, who had never heard such a noise in his life, lifted his dear, honest ears to the throng and must have thought he’d won the Gold Cup.

A seventeen-year-old conditional jockey called Sean Bowen won the first race in style. He was not even born when AP took his first championship. The future, with its flags flying, had arrived. Just in case anyone was in any doubt, Bowen won the big race too, the last great chase of the season, the one that will always be the Whitbread to me, the race that still recalls that glittering sunny day many years ago when the bright white figure of Desert Orchid danced over that emerald turf with his head held high, putting them all to the sword. McCoy’s last ever race was won by Richard Johnson, another great horseman and true gentleman, who has run second to him for almost all of those twenty years of triumph.

All the jockeys came out and formed a guard of honour, clapping the slender figure in the green and gold as he went past. When he was awarded his twentieth Champion Jockey trophy, he was hoisted up onto laughing shoulders, holding his cup aloft, a smile of achievement and regret on his wistful face. The cup was decommissioned on the spot. Nobody else has ever won it, and it was right that AP should take it home. They’ll make another one for next year.

Twitter went insane. Everyone, from the humblest punter to the greatest trainer, wanted to say #ThanksAP. At one point, I thought The Champ had broken the internet. Nick Luck, natty in very sharp suiting, led the Channel Four team, who captured the occasion with perfect pitch. Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson and Jonjo O’Neill and JP McManus and Ruby Walsh gave eloquent tributes. Everyone was crying. Chanelle McCoy, who, with quiet grace, has watched the man she loves risk his very life, was in tears; Richard Johnson was in tears; AP himself, the toughest competitor I ever saw, a man they carved out of granite and then threw away the mould, was in tears.

I, as you may imagine, was in pieces. At one point, a lone voice of dissent piped up. Don’t be so pathetic, said one cross gent on Twitter; he hasn’t died.

No, thank the racing angels, he has not died, although there was one dark day in an ambulance when they thought his heart was going to stop.

It did make me think, though, as I heard that rather British crossness, why there was this great outpouring. I’m not sure I ever saw it for any other sportsman in any other discipline. In some ways, I think it’s very simple. AP McCoy has taken being the best to unprecedented heights. He’s smashed every record, put every other competitor in the shade, set benchmarks which shall probably never be surpassed. That deserves applause. Along with that there is another very, very simple thing. It’s that everyone loves him. He’s a really, really nice man. Sure, people say he can be occasionally grumpy, and he admits to being obsessive, and he has said he had to teach himself to get better at losing because he really did not take it well in the early days. In recent interviews, with a wry grin, he has said his one regret is that he wished he had smiled more. But he is a proper human being and everyone likes him. He embodies quiet, unfashionable virtues – he is humble, and stoical, and industrious. He does not showboat, or save it for the big occasions. He’ll give a novice at Stratford the same ride he’ll give to a superstar at Cheltenham.

I thought too about the nature of racing. Great sporting stars are often unreachable. They perform in an arena, away from their public. They are paid huge salaries and live in gated mansions. Jockeys walk through the crowds on the racecourse, every day. If you get to the Festival early, as I do, you’ll run into Barry Geraghty or Ruby Walsh or Tom Scu in their overcoats, with their Racing Posts under their arms. There’s a democratic element in racing which you don’t see in other sports. You can be an ordinary owner, who has scrimped and saved to join a syndicate, and you can get AP McCoy up on your horse just as if you were a mighty tycoon.

The racing world itself is a tight world. They see each other a lot, because racing goes on every day. The champion trainer will bump into someone who has ten horses in training on a dour day at Plumpton, and might be beaten by her, too. They are levelled by the marvellous and mysterious nature of the thoroughbred. No matter how much money they pay for their equine stars, how many facilities they have, how many vets and physiotherapists and jumping coaches they employ, they are still prey to the stone fact that even the most brilliant horse will sometimes have a bad day. They all know the risks, the disappointments, the disasters. They know that what goes up will, literally and metaphorically, come down. That’s why they stood tall and saluted their Champ, because they know what he’s been through and they know what it takes.

Through this gaudy carnival, as the sun beamed down on Sandown, and it seemed that the whole racing tribe was united in love and admiration, stalked the ravishing thoroughbred beauties who make it all possible. They have come in their coats now spring is here, and they blossom and bloom with the sun on their backs. They have given joy to thousands since the fine weather of October, through the rain and mud and dreich of the hard winter months, and are still galloping in a bright April. Now, they will go out to grass for their summer holidays, and get to be just horses again, in a field.

AP has said it’s all about the horses. I love the horses, he has said; I could not do it without the horses. I’ve heard him state, with quiet indignation in his voice, when he’s been congratulated on one of those improbable, last-gasp victorious rides, ‘I don’t think the horse ever got the credit he deserved.’ In some ways, I suspect he would rather that it was the equine stars who got the laurel wreaths, not him. His great friend, Mick Fitzgerald, said yesterday, laughing: ‘I think he’s probably a bit embarrassed by all this.’

Watching AP, I thought that he was surprised, too. He is the professional’s professional, and he has had his head down for so long that I’m not sure he knew how much he was appreciated.

Yesterday, at last, he got to feel the love.
 
Here he is at Aintree, on Jezki, one of his last winning rides. I’m so glad I can say – I was there:

The Champ.

Imagine, for a moment, that this is what your job involves.

You get up every morning at the crack of dawn. Some days, you eat a piece of toast, some days you do not. You may sit for an hour in a boiling hot bath to get the flesh off your bones. You may go out to the gallops, on a frigid November morning, and ride a piece of work on a raw novice, who does not yet know her job. You may school an old friend, or you may have your first sit on one of those young horses who feels like he might be one of the great ones, get the electric crack of talent and promise, and dream a dream of how high he might one day fly.

You get in a car and drive sometimes hundreds of miles. You arrive at the racecourse and perhaps allow yourself a cup of tea. You put on your gaudy silks and go out and get up on a half-ton flight animal. This may be a horse you know well. You might have educated her since she was a baby, showing her how to find a stride, how to contain her excitement, how to harness her wild herd instinct. You may have taught him balance, and maturity, and trust. You may have nurtured her will to win. He might be a best beloved, a loyal compadre, or she might be a horse you have never met in your wide life.

That horse could be a shining star, a top class athlete who glitters at the highest level. Or it could be a mundane selling plater, whose owners clubbed together and got it on the cheap, and hoped, against all the odds, that they might live the dream.

The horse might have been beautifully schooled, by a storied trainer, so that it knows its job better than you do. Or it might come from one of those now rare sorts who think that schooling at home is for sissies and that horses should learn their job out on the racetrack. And you think bitter thoughts as it puts its feet into the bottom of the open ditch.

You set off, at around thirty miles an hour. You face anything from nine flights of whippy hurdles to twenty-two fences of stiff birch, five foot high, with a twelve foot stretch. There are other horses around you. One may veer off course and cannon into you, squeeze you up the rails, do you out of running room. Loose horses are the great unknown unknown. Your fella may miss his stride; your brave girl may take a false step on the flat. The hot favourite you are riding might have got out of the wrong side of the bed that morning, and the crowd will boo and hiss as you labour into an undistinguished fourth and disgusted punters tear up their betting slips. Now, in the new age of the internet, people will break out the slanders, say that the race was fixed, that the bookies greased your palm, that you can’t ride a rocking horse. All those armchair jocks, who have never so much as sat on a fighting fit thoroughbred, will tell you exactly where you went wrong.

There are tactics to think of. Your bosom friends, the ones you laugh with and cry with and go on holiday with, are fierce competitors out there on the green track. If one of them can force the pace, or keep you off the rail, or suddenly kick for home off the last bend, leaving you flat-footed, they will. But even as they are trying to sink you, and you are trying to sink them, you love them still. Theirs are the first hands that are held out to you when you pass the finishing line. You might watch one of them go down, and lie still, and even as the giddy shouts of the racegoers die in your ears, you think – what happened to Ruby, is Dickie all right?

Some of the horses you love, and some you admire, and some you don’t especially get on with. You understand they are individuals, with characters and hopes and quirks and minds of their own. Some of them show pride when they win; some are shy of the crowd; some bask in the glory. You admire them all, because you know what it takes. Some of them don’t come home. You know, with the stern rational part of your mind, that when they go, they go quickly, with adrenaline stopping the pain. You know, better than anyone, that you can’t make them race if they don’t want to. You know that they lead a better life than half the horses in the land, that they get the incomparable feeling of being gloriously fit, cherished, honed, attended to. You know that a horse can die on the road, in the field, in the box. You know that there are poor, misunderstood, shut-down equines out there, whose twilight existence is worse than death. But all the same, where there was flashing speed, mighty power, a fighting heart and a bright eye, there is now nothing. You can never hear the names Synchronised or Darlan without regret.

For twenty years, you have lived with pain. You know that every fall could be your last. Your body is a battlefield, scarred and broken. Yours is one of the very few jobs in the world where you go out to work followed by an ambulance. Some of your friends and colleagues don’t come back. You will always be haunted by the day when you saw the clothes of JT McNamara hanging on his peg and you knew he would not be coming to get them.

On some dazzling days, they will roar you up the hill at Cheltenham and you will know elation as fierce as arrows to the heart. On other days, you will be riding some dear, slow old plug on a wet Friday at Fontwell in front of four men and a dog. You ride in the wind and the weather, the sleet and the murk. You win, you lose, you fall, you fail, and sometimes, when you think all is lost, you ask that great animal under you for one, impossible, galvanic effort and even though the tank is empty and the legs are tired, it somehow finds something more, giving you every last drop of courage and determination and sheer, bloody-minded refusal to be beat, and you flash past that cherished winning post, in front by a short head.

You drive home. Sometimes you have dinner, sometimes you do not. Tomorrow, you will get up in the indigo dawn, and do it all over again.

Congratulations. You are AP McCoy.

When I write that hard life down, I wonder for a moment why anyone would do that to themselves. The pain, the risk, the hunger, even, sometimes, the boredom, when you are stuck in traffic on your way back from a blank day at Huntingdon – where does the mental and physical strength to deal with all those come from? AP has said that winning is everything. It is what drives him, and he is one of the most driven humans I have ever seen. You can pick him out in a shifting field of jockeys, teeth gritted, body crouched in wild determination. But, oddly, I think he is not quite right. I think he really does it for love. When he won on Uxizandre, at his last ever Cheltenham Festival, he did not speak of the winning, although it was a big race at the greatest jumps meeting in the world. He spoke of the thrill of riding a horse like that, who tears off in front and jumps for fun. He spoke of the exhilaration of those mighty leaps, the joy of flying over that famous turf.

I understand that love. The thoroughbred is one of the most beautiful, graceful, brave and powerful creatures on this green earth. The moment you get on their backs, you can feel the purring power under the bonnet, the Aston Martin hum, the extraordinary result of three hundred years of breeding, going back to the day when Captain Byerley brought his Turk back from the wars and put him to stud. As well as being magnificent physical specimens, they are intelligent and kind and honest. I swear that some of them even have a sense of humour. Of course the winning is the thing, but it would mean nothing without the love.

There are many extraordinary things about AP McCoy, and they’ve all been written in the last few weeks. No sportsman or woman has remained an unbeaten champion for twenty years. Just think of that for a moment. Twenty years. It’s one of the hardest sports in the world, the most unpredictable, the most demanding. But, like clockwork, there is The Champ. His guts, his talent, his stoicism, his brilliance, his determination, his horsemanship, his never-say-die are beyond compare. But perhaps even more extraordinary is that in this keenly competitive discipline, there is not one person who has a bad word to say about him. He’s had the same agent for those twenty years, and they’ve never had an argument. He is, famously, the first person in the weighing room to offer to take someone to hospital. All the young jockeys look up to him, not just because he is so damn good at his job, but because he is a gentleman. He is tough as teak, and yet he is a gentle man. To be the best and to remain a proper human being is an achievement for the ages.

I love AP McCoy. I’ve never so much as shaken his hand, but I love him like he was a brother. When I’m feeling beaten and doleful, I ask myself ‘What would AP do?’ The answer always is: pick himself up and ride another winner.

It’s been a rare privilege to watch him, over these glory years. Today, he rides his last race and thousands of racing fans will salute him as he goes. We shall not see his like again.

A different day.

The unsaddling enclosure at Cheltenham is one of the loneliest places in the world. It is here that the broken shards of hopes and dreams quietly swept away.
In that little square of green grass, as the cheers for Dodging Bullets and Sam Twiston-Davies rumbled from the winner's enclosure, a big black horse walked round whilst a small, huddled group of humans gazed at him in puzzlement and worry. The vet was there, smart in his tweed suit, but there did not seem to be anything wrong with the horse. He looked quite calm, not bothered by anything, just a little muted perhaps.

Sprinter Sacre was once a dancing, dazzling, gleaming champion, who could set sixty thousand people on a roar without moving out of second gear. And now, here he was, pulled up in the race he used to win by seventeen lengths.

In the pre-parade ring, he had looked magnificent. He was the same gleaming physical specimen that has delighted so many people for so long. Oddly, it was Dodging Bullets who would not knock your eye out, a little tucked up, a tiny bit starey in his coat. People said he was not a spring horse, and I thought he looked a little out of sorts. So much I know: he flew up the hill, whilst Sprinter laboured behind, and Barry Geraghty, who would never let anything happen to that horse, called it a day.

I had braced myself for the fact that the great champion had gone, but it's a melancholy thing to see. Of course a secret part of me hoped he would lift his head, hear the roar, and romp back to his rightful place. Yesterday was the day of fairy tales; today, under a surly sky, with Cleeve Hill doleful in the gloom, was the day of reality.

I hope they retire Sprinter.  I hope they find him something useful to do, because he's an active intelligent horse who needs a job; something not too taxing for the old ticker; something that will make him prick his ears and feel pride in himself. He always had a swagger about him, a hint of peacock preen. He'd need a little acclamation and applause from time to time.

Sire de Grugy also had to cede his crown, but I think he will be back. The ground was a bit quick and his preparation has been unorthodox and he's still got the fire in his belly.

Perhaps the most bittersweet of all was watching dear old Sizing Europe. He really was the pick of the paddock, looking more like seven than fourteen, gazing up at the gathered crowd with bright interest, lighting up the gloomy day. He bowled along for a while, reminding me of glory days past, and then it all got a bit fast for his old legs and he faded. But in that unsaddling enclosure, in contrast to the sadly shaking heads of the Sprinter connections, Sizing Europe's lad was wreathed in smiles, and Henry De Bromhead was giving him affectionate congratulatory pats. 'Ah,' said the lad, 'he's had a grand day out.'

One lady had come especially to see him, and was taking pictures, ruthlessly igoring the Nicholls victory party going on only fifty yards away. She obviously loved Sizing Europe and that was who she had come to see. She was allowed to pat the glorious old fella on the neck and her smile was that of a child who has been granted an unprecedented treat. The travelling head lass smiled too, as Sizing Europe skittered about, his ears pricked towards the applause that once was his: 'I'm afraid he's not very good at standing still,' she said. He was once very, very good at running fast, and he's still full of the joys and entirely undismayed by defeat, so perhaps they'll find him a race or two yet.

In contrast to Ruby Tuesday, when I could not back a loser, it was a day of defeats. My lovely Kings Palace looked his usual ravishing self, and went off with dash and purpose and I thought he would delight as he has all season, but he folded tamely, in the mysterious way that thoroughbreds sometimes do. It was a day of different pleasures to the first day. Just seeing dear Kings Palace had to be enough; the soaring victory I had hoped for was not to be. I really, really wanted the Champ to have a winner, so I could roar him up the hill, and the crowd could go crazy nuts in the head, and the valedictory cries of AP could ring round the Cotwsold hills. But he rode no winners, and seeing that familiar determined figure in real life for the last time, trying to imprint him on my memory so I could bore the great-nieces and nephews, making mental snapshots that I could bring out on a rainy day, also had to be enough.

Despite the fact that I bang on about ignoring the humans and going to see the horses, I did run into two of my favourite humans in the world. Both were huge racing fans in their teens and early twenties. I used to go with one of them to Sandown and Kempton and Newbury; we watched Desert Orchid together on his high days and holidays, when people would throw hats, newspapers, scarves, anything, in the air, and commentators went made with superlatives. The other I would see at every race meeting I attended, his eyes lit with dreams of glory.
Both of them took their passion and decided to make it their job. Doing what you love is great advice but very hard, but they both did it. They both say, with slight amazement, that they are living the dream. One is a trainer, and one a bloodstock agent. One had just come back from Meydan, where his most beloved old handicapper had just won a huge race, and one secretly believes that he might, just might, have bought the winner of this year's Derby. And only ten minutes ago we were all twenty together, wondering whether Desert Orchid could ever shake off his Cheltenham bad luck and finally win the Gold Cup.

They bought me pints of Guinness and the years rolled away and I called them my boys because even though we are all nearly fifty, they will always be boys to me.
The other amazing human thing was that, in a crowd of thousands, I bumped into the equine photographer I most admire after the untouchable Edward Whitaker. Michael Harris is not even a professional; he takes time off from his day job to take photographs of horses for love. Some of them are so beautiful they make me catch my breath. I've followed him on Facebook for a while and suddenly there he was, buying a cup of coffee from the same stall as I.

I've tried to take some pictures this week and I can tell you that catching good shots on a racecourse is one of the hardest things I've ever attempted. It's one thing, getting the red mare looking enchanting in her quiet field; it's quite another in a moving, teeming, crowded place, with the light seeming always to come from the wrong direction and everybody always moving about in a most disobliging way.

I take my hat off to Michael, who has taken his passion for horses and his passion for photography and made them into something very wonderful.

It was not Ruby Tuesday. It was more contemplative and less giddy. There was grit in the oyster. But without the grit, there is no pearl.

And when I got home, after thinking all this, and getting it all sorted out in my mind, I found that the one thing I had been saying all day had in fact happened. David Pipe won the bumper. And I had been on first thing at 8-1.

I laughed and laughed and laughed.

 

Today’s pictures:

A few snaps for you. If you want to see good ones, go to Michael Harris Photography on Facebook:

When I look at that picture, I think of one of the saddest parts in Out of Africa, when Meryl Streep says something like:

He gave us joy; we loved him well. He was not ours. He was not mine.

Shine on, you crazy diamond.

There’s been an awful lot of fuss about Kauto Star in the last few days. You may imagine it is a discussion about which I have thoughts. On several occasions, I sat down to write those thoughts. I grew up in racing, I am in love with the thoroughbred, I’ve been entranced by Kauto Star since he was a wild novice. It had special subject written all over it.

But then the voices rose loud and clamorous and people began taking pot shots at each other and the debate grew personal and ugly. I had a radical idea. It was: sometimes a private opinion is just that, private.

There is nothing either beautiful or useful that I can add to the argument, so I’m going to go all William Morris on your ass. (But not on your ox, obviously.)

Instead of heaping more coals on a roaring fire, I’m going to reproduce a piece I wrote about Kauto in his pomp, in his glory days, when the dancing sight of him, imperiously casting aside all-comers as he romped around Kempton on Boxing Day, galloping himself into legend, stamping that green turf as if it were his very kingdom, made me cry tears of love.

This is how I want to remember him, and this is how he lives on in my heart, and in the hearts of all those who were lucky enough to witness his glory and his grace.

He gave us joy and we remember him well.

 

This is the King George, Boxing Day, 2011:

Half an hour before the start, there is the first glimpse of Kauto Star, walking calmly round in his red rug. He surveys the racecourse with his head held high, as if he owns the place. My mother calls: ‘The look of eagles,’ she says.

Ruby Walsh looks tense. ‘We’re here today with a fighting chance, but we are the underdog, there’s no point pretending that we’re not.’ He smiles, a little rueful, as if he suspects this might be the last spin of the wheel. 'He’s a privilege to ride,' he says.

Long Run is the evens favourite. He looks wonderfully well: fit as a butcher’s dog, his coat gleaming, his ears pricked. The interesting thing about the two horses is that they are completely different physical types. Long Run is long and lean, with a slightly thin neck. Kauto Star is big and bonny, a strong, compact, rounded horse. He carries his head high. He has a great, strolling action, where Long Run has a quick, athletic gallop, a bit on the knee.

Parading in front of the stands, to the applause of the crowd, Kauto nods his old head as if in acknowledgement. He looks as beautiful as any equine I ever saw; he is relaxed and serene. Down at the start, he still has his ears pricked, collected as a show pony. Long Run is chewing at his bit, his ears back, impatient to get on with it. He is young, after all, and at this moment, it shows.

And, off they jump.

Kauto pricks his ears, canters to the front, on the outside. The first fence is always a sign. Kauto Star sails over it. Quickly to the second, he puts in two long strides and stands off a mile, quite effortless. Round the first bend, he starts carrying his tail high, like a flag. Lobbing along on the outside, he takes the next two neatly and easily.

Then comes the open ditch. I have stood in an open ditch, and looked up to the stiff birch towering over my head. They are about six feet across and almost five feet high, fearsome obstacles, especially to take when galloping at thirty miles an hour.

Kauto Star sails over it.

All great champions have their signatures. With Desert Orchid, it was his outrageous standing off, sometimes outside the wings, and his habit of tearing along in front. With Frankel, this season, it is his dancing, raking stride.

With Kauto Star it is this sailing thing. When he meets a fence just right, and arcs high over it, it is as if, for a moment, he defies the laws of physics. There is a split second when it almost appears as if he has gone into slow motion, as if someone has pressed pause. His other brilliance is that he can jump very big and lose no ground in running. He jumps, as the racing people say, out of his stride, and at this moment, the stride is a perfect one.

On he goes, to the next plain fence. Another sail. He is almost in the lead now, and has fallen into a lively, bouncing gallop, something joyful in it. One should not get too anthropomorphic, but at this stage in the race, he looks happy. If horses could smile, he would be smiling.

Round the next bend and into the straight, Kauto puts in another immaculate jump. Ruby is sitting very still on him, with a tight rein. Long Run is three lengths back, doing nothing wrong.

As he approaches the stands for the first time, Kauto Star pricks up his old ears and puts in an exhibition leap, flicking his heels up into the air behind him, as if to say: here is your Christmas present. ‘What a jump,’ says Simon Holt, who is calling the race. Kauto raises his head, and goes to the lead.

At the fence which will be the last next time round, Ruby sees a stride from way out, the horse makes a streaming, flying leap, and the crowd starts to holler and roar. ‘They’re getting a tremendous cheer,’ cries the commentator. ‘Cheers and applause.’ Kauto flicks his left ear back towards the noise. As I have watched the race again and again, I have wondered: can they hear that, the horses, out on the track? Does the auld fella think, in his horsey old head: that’s for me?

Behind him, Long Run has no such sentimental thoughts. His head is down, his ears are back; he looks dogged and determined.

And off they go, out into the country again, with nine huge fences still to jump. Kauto is bouncing along, on the outside of dear old Nacarat, the front-running grey, still looking as if he is having more fun than anyone else.

At the next, he comes as close as he has so far to making a mistake. It’s not really an error, it’s just he gets in a bit tight. This is not a sail; this is just a working jump, no poetry about it. It does not stop him in running though, and he keeps right on with the wonderful rhythmic stride which Ruby has got him into.

At the next, another open ditch, it is as if Kauto thinks to himself: well, that last one wasn’t so pretty; now I shall show you how it is done. He takes off a stride too soon, and lands as far out on the other side. It is the kind of thing that makes you gasp, every time you watch it.

At the next bend, something interesting happens. Ruby has not moved an inch on Kauto Star; the reins are still tight. But old Kauto gathers himself and seems to put an extra spring in his step. I remember watching a film about Desert Orchid once, when Simon Sherwood, his jockey, said something like: ‘I said to him, come on, we’ve done enough poncing about, time for business, mate.’ It is as if, with seven to go, Kauto thinks to himself, without being told, it’s time for business. He pricks his ears, lengthens his stride, and dances past Nacarat.

It’s another perfect, high, sailing jump at the next, and now Kauto is out in the lead. Here is another new thing about the horse in his old age. In his younger days, he used to be covered up a bit; he’d go along in mid division, and Ruby would worry about getting to the front too soon. Sometimes he had to, because the horse was going so well, but it was never considered an ideal tactic.

Apart from the real, instinctive front-runners, like Desert Orchid, who always put his ears back in fury if anything headed him, most horses do not like being out on their own for long. I’ve never heard it actually said, but I assume it’s a ancient herd instinct thing; most of them need something to chase. This bold, prominent style is a new thing for Kauto, and it paid off magnificently in his last win at Haydock. It is also a joy to watch.

But it is a risk. It’s asking an awful lot of a chaser to be up at the sharp end for three long, hard miles. At this stage though, Kauto looks as if it is all he wants; just the clear blue sky and the straight green sward in front of him, and he gallops over it as if it is his spiritual home.

Six out, and a good, efficient jump, nothing showy about it. Ruby has a quick look under his arm, to see the white noseband of Long Run looming up behind him. But Kauto is full of running, and the young champion gets a slap down the neck, to remind him to go about his business. ‘Kauto Star is turning the screw,’ cries Simon Holt, his voice rising with the excitement of the thing.

Five out: a magnificent leap. Long Run is not quite so fluent behind, and Sam Waley-Cohen is having to ride him now. Kauto is now galloping a double handful, well within himself.

Four out: a good, unshowy jump. All business, mate. Kauto runs on, still beautifully balanced, his stride long and true. Long Run, in second now, looks a tiny bit out of kilter, scrabbling a little. Sam Waley-Cohen starts riding him hard, pushing away, the reins flapping.

By contrast, two lengths in front, Ruby still has a tight rein, his hands firm and still on Kauto’s neck. The camera comes in for a close-up, and you can see the hard quality of the gallop. Simon Holt’s voice has risen: ‘It’s familiar territory to the horse in front.’

On the final bend, Kauto eases away from the field. Long Run looks in trouble, three lengths behind. I suddenly think the auld fella is going to win by a mile. He is just not stopping; the farther they go, the farther he gallops. But there are still three fences to go; Long Run has won this race and a Gold Cup, and is no mug; and the eleven-year-old has been out in front for a long time. He could make a mistake, get tired, pack up.

Coming into the straight, Ruby lets out the reins for the first time. I notice what beautiful hands he has. In racing speak, this means not finely shaped fingers, but the kind of hands which are gentle on a horse’s mouth, which can feel the horse, which can send and receive signals down the reins. It’s a bit hard to explain, but it’s a lovely gift, and not something all jump jockeys have.

It’s the first time he has had to ask Kauto any kind of question. It’s a mild question, a little shake-up. The horse responds with a perfect, neat, collected jump. He is running straight, which is always a good sign at this stage of a race. When they get tired, horses can wander about a bit. Kauto still looks full of running.

At the second last, he pricks his ears. ‘Another perfect jump,’ shouts Simon Holt. Behind him, Long Run is a bit ragged, and Sam Waley-Cohen has to concentrate to pull the horse together as they land.

There’s one to go. Everything else is going backwards. Ruby is riding Kauto Star seriously now, with hands and heels. Behind him, three lengths back, Long Run will not go away. Will the years tell? Will Kauto bash the last, as he has sometimes done in the past? The crowd is going nuts. ‘He’s being ROARED on,’ shouts Simon Holt, roaring himself.

They are going flat out now. Anything less than pinpoint accuracy will lead to disaster. Kauto raises his head, collects himself, measures one, two, three strides, takes off at the sweet spot, and soars over the last, Ruby’s head almost on his neck as they take flight together, man and animal in perfect harmony.

In mid air, Kauto stretches out his hind legs, and almost gives the fence a little slap, as if in salute to the obstacle. He lands quite perfectly. Pausing the tape now, as I write this, I see the ideal racehorse, all his muscles stretched and defined, his front legs carving the air like scythes, his tail flying like a flag. Behind him, Long Run, who has made a bit of a bosh of the fence, has put down all wrong, his back legs in a tangle, and his jockey has had to lean right back in the saddle so as not to get unshipped.

But it’s not over yet. That mighty leap at the last should have been enough to seal it; Long Run’s mistake should have cooked his goose. High credit to the young pretender; his wins last year were not flukes. He is talented, and determined, and he has been brought to a peak of fitness. He picks himself up, and gets galloping again. Kauto is still going well, but Long Run is finishing like a freight train. This is an incredibly impressive thing to watch, after three long miles, and 19 fences.

It was at this point, watching the race for the first time, when I still did not know what would happen, that I was shouting and screaming and jumping up and down on the sofa. ‘Come on you beauty,’ I was yelling. ‘Hold on, hold on. Come on, my son.’

‘Kauto Star by two lengths,’ shouts Simon Holt. He is having to yell his head off to be heard over the howls of the crowd. ‘Long Run is getting to him.’

Where is the bloody finishing post? I think. The crowd is sending up a noise I’m not sure I ever heard before. Ruby has his head down; he does not use the whip. He just rides the old beauty out for all he is worth, in complete rhythm with the horse, keeping him straight and true. Long Run is closing all the time.

‘Kauto Star, can he be the king of kings?’ shouts Simon Holt.

And suddenly, I know he can be. He is not just brilliant, he is courageous and genuine. He does not give up. He keeps galloping, all the way to the line, and flashes past in front, with a dogged Long Run only a length and a half behind.

‘Kauto Star, a sporting sensation,’ shouts Simon Holt, his voice hoarse with emotion.

Ruby stands up in his stirrups, punches the air, his face split into a smile of delight, and slight disbelief. The horse, as if knowing what he has done, pricks up his ears, and falls into a relaxed, rolling canter, as the cheers of delight buffet about the grandstand.

The crowd is throwing hats, papers, racecards, into the air. The beaten jockeys crowd around Ruby Walsh, shaking his hand, slapping his back, leaning down to pat Kauto on the neck. They might have lost, but they know what this sport is all about; they know a legend when they see one, and they are gentlemanlike enough to want to salute him.

There is a great sporting tradition in National Hunt racing ; one of the first things Kauto’s trainer, Paul Nicholls, did after the race was to shake the hands of his vanquished rivals, and say, with complete sincerity: ‘Well done.’ He meant it. Long Run and Sam Waley-Cohen made it a magnificent race, and nothing should be taken from them in defeat.

I have had my doubts about how good Long Run really is, but seeing him battle to the line like that, just refusing to admit he was beat, made me tip my hat in respect.

It was not his fault. He came up against one of the best horses of the last fifty years, in his majestic pomp, a horse who was loving his work, who did not put a foot wrong, who was racing on a track he adores, in front of massed crowds cheering him home until their throats were sore.

The rest of the field was seventeen lengths behind, and they were not window dressing. They were good, tough horses. If Kauto had not been there, Long Run would have won that grade one chase by seventeen lengths, in a canter.

There are three things I think about that race, which is one of the best I ever saw. One is that Kauto Star mostly won it with his jumping. When Long Run comes under pressure, his jumping falls apart, just a bit. He does not make catastrophic errors, but he goes flat, bashes through the birch, has to get himself back together. It is to his credit that he can whack a fence and still keep on running.

But Kauto Star was foot perfect. If you are being strict, you can say he was a bit close to the first fence round the back, but that was it. Everything else was right on song. Some of the leaps were prodigious, the kind you don’t forget. It was an amazing privilege to watch the eleven-year-old veteran, literally jumping for joy.

The second is: as John Francome said, he can go over two, he can go over three; he can go on good, he can go on soft; he can go left, he can go right. As someone added, a couple of days later: he can go up, he can go down. Quite frankly, at this stage, you would believe it if someone told you he could fly. The remarkable thing about this horse is his versatility. The remarkable thing about his training team is that they have kept him galloping over all those distances, in all those conditions, for all those years. Just keeping a horse sound over six seasons is a feat of training; to keep him at the top of the game is extraordinary.

The third is: in a way, a length and a half doesn’t do justice to the thing. It was very exciting and thrilling and everything, but what I mean is that the triumph was easier than that margin suggests. Kauto won his last King George by a distance, which basically means so damn far the stewards can’t be fagged to count. Someone later calculated it was thirty-five lengths. I think his last Gold Cup was about fifteen lengths; he cantered away with it, anyway.

This one sounds less imperious, more hard-scrabble. When it’s a length and a half, people can say: oh well, if the winning post had come a few yards later, or if only Long Run had jumped the last, or if Kauto Star had hit it, it would be a different story. The jumping did probably win it, but there was something else too.

Long Run was never going to catch the horse in front. Kauto Star and Ruby Walsh are two canny campaigners; they did just what they needed to. It was a close finish, but it was a definitive one. I think Kauto Star had that race won on the final bend. I think, in the end, it was that joyous, relentless, rhythmic gallop that did it. It never faltered. It was the gallop of a horse with the heart of a lion.

 

So there you are, my darlings. It was absurdly long, but I chose not to edit it down. That horse deserves every damn word. He was a shining star, and I may not see his like again.

I’m going to be good and obey copyright rules and not naughtily pinch one of Edward Whitaker’s majestic photographs. Here is my own shining star instead. She never won anything, except the perpetual challenge cup of my own heart, which she is awarded every day.

A small thought on happiness.

The blog may be a little spotty in the next couple of weeks as I am up against a hard deadline and my brain is about to explode. Forgive me.

Today though, it turns out I do have one small thought.

This weekend I went to the Blair Castle International Horse Trials, as part of my work for HorseBack UK. The team did a mighty demonstration there, and it was my job to record it.

Blair is in one of the most ravishing parts of Scotland. I drove through the indigo and purple glories of Perthshire, with the glancing early morning sun shining ancient and amber over the folded hills. I have not been to a three-day-event since I was a child, and it was rather thrilling to see so many powerful and supremely fit equine athletes.

The worry always in this kind of situation is that I should look at the gleaming stars and think of my scruffy, muddy mare back in her quiet field, and feel inadequate. Why were we not winning silver cups and red rosettes? Why was she not getting the first prizes which she deserves?

I’ve been thinking about happiness lately. I have read quite a lot about the science of happiness (it really appears that such a nebulous concept is now being codified) and I have, you will be amazed to hear, several theories of my own. Most of the theories, you will be even more amazed to hear, revolve around love and trees.

My enduring line is that high expectations are the enemy of happiness. I think what I really mean by this is unrealistic expectations, or wrong expectations. Comparing yourself upwards and wanting what you don’t have both factor in to this equation. Why am I not like this? Why can I not have that? More and more, I come back to the immediate, and the small. Love what you have. Cherish what is, not what might be.

Because I’ve been thinking of all this, I had no batsqueak of longing, when I saw the Blair stars. They do what they do, and the red mare does what she does. She does not need a silver challenge cup, since she is the holder of the perpetual trophy which lives in my heart. She does not need to prove herself with prizes. She is perfect just the way she is.

Instead of wondering why we were not jumping and competing and doing dressage and winning things, I noticed the qualities Red has which those brilliant competitors perhaps do not. She needs no fancy tack. No martingales or drop nosebands or Pelhams for her. She goes sweetly within herself in a rope halter. She will come to a dead stop from a fast canter if I say the word ‘and’. (This has happened by accident. I was teaching her whoa, and I always prefaced it by and, so now ‘and’ is all she needs. She is that clever.) She can free-school with such astonishing precision that she will now do transitions from my body alone. I merely raise my energy for a trot and lower it for a walk. (It is at this point that the crazed voices in my head start shouting MIRACLE HORSE!!!!!)

But actually, even that is not required for happiness. Of course I love that she can do all these things. I am so proud of her on some days that I feel my entire body might just take flight, and soar away over the Scottish hills. Yet, the happiness part is more earthed, more humble, more ordinary than what she can do. It lies in what she is: in her gentle presence, her kind face, her horsey horsiness.

It lies in these pictures. This is what she does when I arrive at the gate each morning. She looks up, thinks, nods, seems quietly pleased, and mooches over, with her eyes bright and her ears pricked. This is not one of the many things I have taught her to do. She just does it. She is a mare at ease with herself and her human. That, that, is the gift; that is what makes my heart sing.

I’m not sure there is a secret to happiness. I’m not sure there is supposed to be. But if ever anyone were to ask me advice on the subject, I would say: think small. It is in the very small that some of the greatest joy is found.

My morning love:

And here are the majestic Perthshire hills, through which I was lucky enough to drive on Saturday, and which also bring me simple joy:

PS. Here is another small story about taking delight in the ordinary things. There is a horse I adore called Beacon Lady. She is not a famous horse, and she will never make the front page of the Racing Post. But she is tough and willing and she has a fabulous quirk: she only likes Brighton and Epsom. Those two courses are where she does all her winning.

Her connections recently put her up in grade, out of the unremarkable handicaps she had been winning, and she had the slight humiliation of trailing round behind  much, much better horses. Today, she was back at her own level. Still, there were good reasons to think she would not win, and the bookmakers reflected this when they priced her up at 10-1 first thing. I whacked a tenner on her out of love and loyalty. If I did not back her, she would of course know, and never forgive me. (You see how well my battle against magical thinking is going.)

It was raining so hard that the cameras could hardly see the start through the gloom. Beacon Lady did her usual thing of loping round right at the back, about twelve lengths off the pace. Even though I am used to her doing this, I did not take it as the most brilliant sign. Then her good jockey switched her to the middle of the track, so she had plenty of room, and sent her for home. The sweet girl lifted her head, as if to say: I’m at EPSOM, my favourite place in the world. She put her sprinting shoes on, and scorched through the mud and murk, leaving the rest flailing in her wake.

I’m not supposed to be watching the racing today. I’m far too busy writing 2332 words. But I stopped the clocks for Beacon Lady, who will never trouble the headline-writers, but who is always above the fold in my heart. A handicap at Epsom in the rain on a Monday is virtually the definition of a small thing. It will have me smiling for the rest of the day.

An afternoon off. Or, York Glory.

Even though I am running up to deadline and my shoulders are around my ears and there are not enough hours in the day, today I am taking the afternoon off. I have written 1060 words, and done some editing, and now my desk is cleared, and I am going to watch the racing at York. Because it is Australia Day.

Australia is a mighty chestnut, as red as my red mare, but twenty times as fast. He has a sprinkle of stardust about him, and he’s coming back from a nice summer rest to, I hope, delight me again with his power and speed and brilliance.

There is also a horse running today who lives in my heart: the charming, compact grey that is Kingston Hill. I fell in love with him last season not because he is so talented, but because he is so nice. It’s an odd thing to say about a top-flight racehorse, but it is true. His good character shines out of him like a sudden shaft of sunshine on a cloudy day. Even when he was a baby, he took the hurly burly of victory with a touching equanimity, a lovely matter-of-fact getting on with it attitude. I suspect he is a stoic. I hope he gets his moment of glory this afternoon.

I’m going to go and sit with my mother, and we shall watch the dazzling equine beauties soar over the Knavesmire, one of the loveliest tracks in Britain. The Yorkshire crowd is famously one of the greatest in the world, warm and enthusiastic and knowledgeable. And the Ebor meeting always gathers a feast and festival of thoroughbred talent. I adore it.

As I watch, I shall think of my sweet girl, bred to win the Oaks, her pedigree packed with storied names, and how she trundled round at the back in her racing days. I think she just never saw the point of it. This morning, she was going so lightly that I offered her a gallop. She thought for a moment of putting her sprinting shoes on. I watched her ears flicker, and felt the mighty engine start to rev up. ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘you can go.’ And then the dowager duchess reasserted herself, and she decided on a nice stately canter instead, bouncing gently over the emerald grass, complete within herself, not needing to prove anything to anyone. At York, her fleeter cousins will be hitting top speeds of forty miles an hour, every sinew stretched, every muscle bunched, every ancestral voice reminding them of their will to win. And my slow old girl will be dreaming happily in her field.

I feel there is almost some kind of parable in that, but I’m not sure what it is. It makes me smile, that is all.

The nicest of them all.

At last, my mother is home from the hospital. I lie on her bed and talk of Michael Scudamore, who has died.

‘I can see him now,’ says my mother. ‘Sitting on the lawn, in a director’s chair, drinking Pimm’s.’

­­­­I think how racy my mother must have been, to have a director’s chair on the lawn in the late fifties.

‘He was a very good jockey,’ she says. ‘He rode with your father. But the real thing about him is that he was so nice. He was the nicest of them all.’

Nice is considered a poor word. Writing manuals strictly instruct you not to use it, not if you want to be taken seriously. I like it. It is a small, humble, unassuming word. It does not show-boat, or take up all the oxygen in a room. And it does, whatever the sneery received wisdom says, mean something.

When I was young and heedless, I suspect I probably agreed with the sneerers. Who wanted to be nice? It was so dull, so safe, so workaday. Much better to be charming or wild or reckless. Now I am older, and chipped around the edges, I crave niceness. How lovely and reassuring to be nice, in a rushing, technological world, where internecine battles break out at the drop of a hat, and trolls stalk the internet, spreading their bile.

He was a nice man, Mr Scudamore, and that is a proper epithet for a gentleman of the turf.

My mother tells me about Dave Dick, who was the joker of the pack, and drove a car like a maniac. ‘He never had his eye on the road,’ says my mother. ‘He was always looking at you to see if you got the joke of the week. Oh, I was so frightened.’

‘Fred Winter was my hero,’ says my mother. ‘Because of how he rode a horse. He was the most beautiful jockey I ever saw over a fence.’

She pauses, remembering. ‘Then Francome came along. And he was beautiful too.’

I remember watching John Francome ride. There was a poetry in it.

‘The one I love watching at the moment,’ I say, ‘on the flat, is Ryan Moore. I watched him educate a two-year-old colt in a race the other day. He took him through the whole thing, very gently, step by step, letting him find his stride, sitting perfectly still, and then picking him up a furlong out and letting him rock into a flying rhythm and showing him his business. He won, and he never picked up his whip, just hands and heels.’

‘So the horse would not know he had a race,’ says my mother, smiling. ‘Scobie Breasley used to do that. He was a genius with two-year-olds.’

We talk of the Hannon two-year-olds, and how beautiful they are. Many trainers have a stamp of a horse. You can often tell, seeing the mighty creatures in the paddock, which yard they come from. The Hannons love big, strong, close-coupled horses, very deep through the girth, with short, powerful necks and finely-carved heads. ‘And Mark Johnston,’ says my mother, ‘likes those honest, long horses, rather old-fashioned types.’

‘Who look as if they might go hurdling,’ I say.

Almost under her breath, almost wistful, my mother says: ‘The most beautiful of them all was Frankel.’

We remember Frankel, as if we are paying homage, which in a way we are.

‘They have a presence,’ I say. ‘Those great ones.’

‘Nijinsky had it,’ says my mother. ‘You could feel it the moment you stepped onto the course. Although he wasn’t much fun to see in the pre-parade ring.’

‘Because he got so lathered up?’ I ask.

‘Oh,’ says my mother, indulgently,as if describing a naughty schoolboy, ‘he got himself in such a state. But it never seemed to make any difference. He just went and won anyway.’

‘Michael Scudamore,’ says my mother, reverting to our point of origin, ‘made a dynasty. Imagine that. His grandson is riding now.’

‘Tom Scu,’ I say. ‘He’s a lovely jockey. And a gentleman too.’

We contemplate the Scudamores, the nicest of them all, a family which knows horses like sailors know the sea. I think of the brothers, who only this week carried the coffins of their grandfather and grandmother into a Norman church. The old lady died, and her husband followed her three days later.

What loss they must be feeling: two blows coming so close together, two mighty oaks felled. I look out at the sunshine. It was sunny like this when my father died, that impossible, improbable sun which is not supposed to shine on dear old Blighty, not on these islands of mist and rain. The Scudamores must have that same feeling of unreality that I remember so well. They must be looking out into the blinding light and waiting for the world to make sense again.

 

Today’s pictures:

The red mare is having a well-deserved day off. Today, she just gets to be a horse, out in the long grass, with her dear friend for company and the sun on her back:

Friday.

All morning I think of the Normandy landings, as the voices of the old soldiers come on the radio, filled with humanity and grace. They are reticent and stoical. There is a sense that, even after seventy years, this is a hard thing for them to speak of. Theirs was a heroism that is impossible to put into words, and the debt they are owed can never be repaid.

Then the present world reasserts itself. The sun shines; the mare gleams and works beautifully, filling me with admiration and love. The Younger Brother is coming, all the way from Bali, where he lives. I see my sister, cycling along the side of the burn, smiling in the brightness. My mother tells an extraordinary story at breakfast about a jockey who kept a badger in the basement of the Ritz. We all ponder this for a moment. There are more questions than answers.

I get my work done at warp speed and give myself the afternoon at Epsom. My heart starts beating as I think of the beautiful, dancing fillies who will shine in The Oaks. Today, one of them will be crowned queen. I hope it is the gleaming, flying girl that is Marvellous. The race is quite soon after her mighty victory in Ireland, and she has never been tried over this distance, and the money is coming for the Dermot Weld filly. But I keep the faith. I would love the bold, bonny Madame Chiang to run her race, and she is my each-way shout. She is honest and taking and may not be quite the highest of the high class, but she will give her best.

Mostly, I shall watch them for the brilliance and the beauty. This is a race that is not for money, but for love.

It is not just for love of the dazzling thoroughbreds. It is because this year the race is run in the name of Sir Henry Cecil, whose loss is still keenly felt. He had a way with fillies, understanding them, bringing out their best. It was an elegant thing for Epsom to do, and at four o’clock this afternoon, everyone who loves racing will remember that great gentleman.

 

Today’s pictures:

Happy Birthday.

Today would have been my father’s 84^th birthday. I sometimes think he should have lived to be a hundred, but the truth is that he hated old age. When he died, he was ready to go. He wasn’t even particularly ill. He was in hospital, but not for anything catastrophic. He sang a song he had just invented specially for the sweet Australian nurse who had taken his fancy – Dahlia from Australia, he sang. Then he drank some Guinness which was smuggled in for him. Then he said he was going to have a little sleep. He did not wake up.

It was a bloody brilliant way to go. There was no drawn-out departure, no beeping machines and snaking wires. For a long time, his bashed old body had been failing him. He was a physical man, strong and hard in his prime. Even when time put weight on him, his arms were still like steel hawsers, from years of holding strong horses. As he went into the twilight of age, all the crashing falls and breaks and dislocations caught up with him. He had, after all, broken his back and his neck twice. The bones protested and cried out. His back stooped and hunched. He could no longer do the things he wanted to do. He grew fretful and melancholy. He would have loathed being a hundred. He had run his race.

I think of him every day. I can hear his ghostly laughter, as the last leg of my 3000-1 accumulator gets beaten a short head. I remember him as I work my mare. I think the sole reason I got a horse after thirty years was to feel closer to the old horseman. The funny thing is that he was not a brilliant rider. He was not the most stylish, or the most technically accomplished. But he had such dash and courage and sheer guts that horses responded to him. They are telepathic creatures, instinctive herd animals. He gritted his teeth and threw his heart over those great birch fences, and the horses, infected by his Corinthian spirit, would have gone with him anywhere.

He never really knew what the internet was. He was the oldest of the old school. But the internet knows him. As I rummage about the Google, I find kind words and happy memories from Brough Scott and Martin Pipe and regular punters and people who lived in the Lambourn valley and the Amateur Jockeys’ Association, of which he was chairman.

There is an old tweet from George Baker, who trained Belle de Fontenay to win a charity race at Newbury run in my father’s name: ‘To win anything named after the legendary Gay Kindersley is a privilege.’ I remember George when he was a young racing fan, devoting every spare moment to rushing off to Sandown and Newbury. Eventually, he chucked in his sensible job and followed his dream, and last season he lived the very pinnacle of that dream, leading the doughty campaigner Belgian Bill into the winner’s enclosure at the Royal Meeting. He is exactly the same person as a professional as he was when he was a fan: smiling, enthusiastic, fired with love for the mighty speed and strength and courage of the thoroughbred. The thought of him remembering Dad is very touching.

More touching still, I discover a photograph on the Amateur Jockeys’ Association website, of the Fegentri World Cup at Goodwood. There is my dear old Fa, aged but still doing what he called his grinny face, having just presented the trophy. To his left is the winning trainer, John Hills. John died last week, at the absurdly young age of 53. His race was not run; it was cruelly cut short. He too was a horseman and a gentleman. He and his brothers were a pulling thread that ran through my childhood. I have snapshots of my head of them flinging their ponies over massive jumps at high speed. They rode like cowboys, with wild élan. In the sadness of John’s death, I find a glitter of light, as I see him smiling next to the auld fella, both of them brought back to vivid life.

Mortality tugs at my sleeve, as I think of the Dear Departed. There are too many of them. They no longer come as single spies, but as battalions.

I think of Dad, and wonder what he would say. He would sing a song, and laugh a rueful, self-mocking laugh, and drink a drink. He would not put it into so many words, but by example he would tell me to live every moment as if it were the last.

He never gave me any advice, except not to back odds-on favourites. Instead, he showed me many good life lessons by example. Be generous, laugh at yourself, never give up, always be the first to buy a round. He judged humans on their true selves, not inessential externals or societal yardsticks. He lived high life and low life and saw no difference between the two. He did not understand any set of rules, but made up his own as he went along. He had the wonderful talent of bringing fun with him, wherever he went. Soon after he died, I ran into a gentleman who had been a steward with him for many years. ‘Oh, your father’ he said, his eyes lit with memories. ‘Every time he walked into the stewards’ room, it was a party.’

I ponder the imponderables of life, and I know exactly what my Dad would say. He would say: ‘What the hell is going to win the 7.30 at Windsor?’

 

Today’s pictures:

Very young and rather serious. Top boot action:

He did a huge amount for the amateur riders, and he loved doing it. The jocks and everyone at the AJA loved him right back:

The old riding style makes me laugh and laugh. Several things about this picture bring me joy. There are the tremendous britches, Dad’s traditional gritted teeth, and the bright face and pricked ears of his horse. I’m not sure which one it was; I’ll have to ask my mum. She remembers them all. She was the one who had to watch him roaring over those obstacles at high speed, sometimes through her fingers:

He would have loved this beautiful girl:

You’ve all seen this one before, but it remains my favourite:

And many, many years later, at Goodwood, with age on his shoulders, but still that blazing grinny grin. Dad is second from the left, then the winning jockey, and then John Hills:

A good day.

The work seemed never-ending today. I wrote 1532 words of secret project, and edited almost to the end of the draft, so that it may not be secret for much longer. The agent may actually set her eyes on it. I went on with my mammoth task of organising the HorseBack photographic archive, which is exhausting and joyful at the same time. In the middle of all this, I took ten minutes to watch two of my favourite horses, one at Epsom and one at Perth. They both won, in fine style. One was the second favourite and not a great surprise, but the other, a sweet handicapping mare called Beacon Lady, whom I had backed from simple love and loyalty at 20-1, because I adored her last season, was a rank outsider, and I shouted with astonished delight as she zoomed from last to first in a matter of strides, and won going away.

I was so busy that I forgot to have lunch and now write this with a swimmy head and squinty eyes. My poor blood sugar.

But there is one more thing I must record before I go.

Last night, someone posted a wonderful video on the internet of two great event riders, doing a demonstration with their horses using no bridles, only a neck rein. The horses were wonderfully relaxed and accurate and responsive, and did dressage moves and jumping as if reading their riders’ minds. Ah, I thought, I’d never be able to do anything like that. I know my limitations. I watched in admiration, with a very faint batsqueak of regret. Never mind; we can’t all be Mozart.

When I got on Red this morning, I thought we would work on softness and balance. Nothing fancy, just getting her into a happy rhythm, at ease with herself. She was at her most calm and bright, moving through the world as if it were all arranged for her own delight. Bugger it, I thought, I’ll give it a go. So I dropped the reins and decided to see what would happen. Round the open set-aside we went, the mare in a beautiful extended walk, her left ear flicking back towards me to see what I wanted, following the route I had chosen as accurately as if we were in a double bridle. I really could not believe it. How can she be so clever?

Sure, it’s not doing dressage in an arena in front of an audience, but it’s pretty damn impressive for one of those crazy, unpredictable thoroughbreds. (Why do people perpetuate these canards? She was about as crazy and unpredictable as a Swiss watch.) I rewarded her with a dashing canter for fun, and she went joyfully on a loose rein. Then we did some accuracy work, just for the hell of it. I do this with her on the ground, asking her to move one foot at a time, but I’ve never tried it in the saddle. I wasn’t even quite sure what cue I would use. I moved my body and used a tiny bit of rein, and there it was – one foot backwards; stop; the other foot backwards; stop. I did it again to check it was not a fluke. It was not. You may imagine the vulgar flinging of self on horse which followed.

Yes, yes, she said, nodding her head, quietly pleased with herself. Of course I can do that.

What has she been doing? Taking secret lessons from dressage squirrels in the night?

I love her so much that love is not a good enough word for it.

 

Too tired for pictures now. Just the glorious all-seeing eye: