Going home; or, I'M ON THE TRAIN

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Northumberland slides past my window. It is very wide and green and stately. At any moment now there will be the first glimpse of the North Sea and I shall know that I am on the last leg.

Excellent sheep in Northumberland, I notice. Really almost as good as Scottish sheep. (I may be chauvinist about this, but I deny anyone to produce sheep as lovely as does my friend and neighbour The Farmer.) The cornfields are high and yellow and there is a faint castle in the distance.

AND THERE IS THE SEA.

Oh, the North Sea; it has such a dull, dour name, and it is such a glorious body of water. The sun is out, for once in its life, and it turns the sea a bright silver blue, with violet streaks and shafts of indigo. The tide is out and there are chestnut cattle grazing by the long brown sands.

When England looks like this there is hardly anywhere in the world more delightful.

I was going to tell you many more things about my week away but my brain is fried like a small cooked thing and is really not working at all. I frown and squint as I try to assemble any thought more than ten seconds long. This may be lucky, as I suspect some of you will have had enough racing stories for one week.


Ah, there is more sea now; all of it, not just a glimpse. White rollers, black Aberdeen Angus cows, fields the colour of greengages, and the sea a bright clear steely blue, the blue of certainty.

We are coming up to Berwick and there is a pretty squat lighthouse and the brown spires of the town and the resident seagulls guarding the harbour and the two arched bridges, and the end of England.

At any moment I shall be home, even though I still have four hours to go. I mean, I shall be back in Scotland, which is the thing that makes me idiotically happy.

I was born in England; I love England; I have English blood. But it is not home to me any more. I'm always interested in how that happens. I like thinking about sense of place, and blood and water, and all the mysteries in between.

But on account of the small, fried brain I really cannot contemplate that now. All I know is that in approximately 240 minutes I shall see my dog and my horse. (I don't mention my humans. I can speak to my humans on the telephone and on the Facebook; the canine and the equine must be seen in person, and so the missing is much, much greater. Also, I am clearly a freak. I miss my mare so badly that I am going to go up and see her tonight at ten o'clock, which is when I shall be at home, even though it will be quite dark, because I my idiot heart cannot wait until tomorrow. I attempted to assuage my withdrawal symptoms with The Auld Fella's polo ponies, but it was not the same.)

Really am stopping now, because I am aware I am making no sense at all. (I sometimes think I regard the Dear Readers a bit like my mum. I am convinced that I must write a blog or you shall think I am dead in a ditch.)

But oh oh oh, I wish you could see this sea. There is not a word for the blueness of it, or what it does to the spirit. Even tired as I am, I smile all over my face like a loon just at the sight of that magnificent water.

Edinburgh next. And then the sleek inter-city 125 turns into a milk train and stops at every damn station between there and Aberdeen, as I get more and more impatient and count the minutes go by.

Sunday: quick Black Caviar thoughts

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

As one of the Dear Readers so astutely diagnosed, there was a massive post-racing crash. I was incapable of anything other than drinking the restorative claret which the Beloved Cousin cracked open. (I am in her house for a day and two nights before I go back to Scotland tomorrow.)

There is so much to say about the great Australian mare, and I want to do her justice, and my brain is not yet back to full order, so I'll write about her on the train home, when I have seven lovely leisurely hours to get the right adjectives in the right order. And she does need adjectives.

In the meantime, some very quick thoughts. There is a big fuss about the jockey and the level of the performance and the tight finish. I say: nothing that happened yesterday diminished her brilliance one iota. She was on a strange track, in a strange country, in a strange hemisphere. I hate piling on jockeys; their lives are shatteringly hard, and they are the first to get the blame when something goes wrong. Poor Luke Nolen did make a mistake; he immediately admitted it, very bravely and publicly, I thought.

Almost all great horses get beat. That is what is so extraordinary about Frankel, or, his nearest equivalent over obstacles, Big Buck's, who is currently on seventeen consecutive victories. Dancing Brave, still officially the best horse since ratings began, lost the Derby. Nijinsky was done by the narrowest of margins in the Arc. People blamed Greville Starkey and Lester Piggott bitterly for those defeats.

Quite apart from keeping them sound, a trainer has to face the mystery of the thoroughbred. There are days when they do not run their race, and no one knows why. There are days when horses which have so far been ordinary suddenly find something extraordinary. The miracle of the really great ones is consistency, but they are not machines. The reason some people call Frankel a freak, even though I rather hate that description, is that it is freakish to be at the crest and peak of brilliance every time he hits a racetrack. Yet even he had a scare at Ascot last year, when people argue Tom Queally hit the front too soon and the mighty machine almost got caught close home.

Yesterday was not a parade. The lovely mare did not destroy her field. Her jockey did make an error, when he dropped his hands too early. I think she was feeling the effects of her long journey and the strangeness of everything. Yet she still won. She looked like she won on fumes. I think she does not know how to lose and that heart and instinct and greatness of spirit carried her over the line.

And in some ways that is even more marvellous, even more thrilling, and even more touching than an imperial display of excellence. Yesterday, she showed that she was not only talented, but that she was brave and tough. I love her for it.

Black Caviar Day

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Today is the glory day. The kind Australians have sent us their finest mare; the best filly in the world, not on hyperbole, but on official ratings. She is only a shade behind Frankel, on the book.

She is a beauty, and all I want is to see her streak up that emerald straight.

But she has flown an awful long way. She is in a different hemisphere, for heaven's sake. On the other hand, when I saw her do some gentle work the other day, she was cantering along the Heath like a dressage horse.

If you can, turn on your television sets at 3.45 this afternoon. I hope you will see something really special. If she does maintain her unbeaten run, it really will be against all the odds. She has come from the other side of the world and everything here is strange for her. But Blighty will take her to its heart forever if she can do it, and I suspect that half the country will be cheering her on as if she were our own. Racing people respond to greatness, and she is one of the greatest we've seen for a long time.

Win, or lose, I shall love her anyway, because she is so bonny and fine.

Look out for John Gosden's two today: Aiken and Camborne. He could madly have another double. And I'll be having a massive shout for the lovely Mac's Power in the Wokingham. He's a really nice horse and he's value at 14-1.

More later. Running for the train now. But just wanted to lift my hat to Black Caviar, on her magnificent day.

The glory of Gatewood, and other animals

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

There are lots of different kinds of glory in racing. There is the perfect, untouchable, up on the high plains kind, which we saw on Tuesday, with the immaculate run of Frankel. There are the great weight-carrying performances, and the brilliant tactical rides. There are the wild surprise outsiders, who come up the rails, laughing at the pundits and the tipsters and the punters. There is the dear old dog who finally has his day. (I saw a horse who had lost something like 28 races finally have his first win at a small track a couple of weeks ago, and I felt as happy for him as if he were mine.)

Today, it was the glory of guts.

One of my favourite horses, Gatewood, was running in the Wolferton Handicap. The Wolferton is not the most glamorous or richest race at the royal meeting, but like all the handicaps at Ascot, it is tough to win. I had completely lost my heart to Gatewood when he won three weeks ago at Epsom, coming from last to first, encountering some trouble in running, but refusing to lie down. He stuck his head out and would not give up and prevailed. It's lovely watching a mighty champion streak away on the bridle, with many lengths in hand, but it's just as thrilling, perhaps in some ways even more so, to see those really gutsy animals who dig deep and give all they've got, and win by a neck.

Gatewood is one of the most genuine horses I've seen in training. But he had a hard race at Epsom, and had not had that long to recover. As I watched him, down in the pre-parade ring, he looked well, but slightly subdued. He is a neat, beautifully put together horse, but not a flashy type. He was not preening or giving out looks of eagles, or even on his toes. I could not tell whether this is because he has a lovely temperament, or whether that recent battle had left its scars. Some horses thrive on pressure; they are those flinty types who improve with constant demands and running. Others need to be nurtured and wrapped in cotton wool, and must have plenty of recuperation time.

Certainly, in the paddock, there were others who looked in more obviously fine fettle, but I stuck with dear Gatewood, out of sheer love. The form was all there, it was just a question of what that last race had taken out of him. No one would know until he was out there on the green turf.

Off they set. It was a mile and two, sweeping out of the round course and into the straight. Gatewood was well positioned in fourth. A wall of horses thundered down to the two furlong pole. My fella was asked for his effort. For a moment, I thought that he would not, could not, respond. I started shouting, slightly to the surprise of the venerable lady to my left. Then the horse picked up, and game and glorious and gutsy as he is, put every last ounce of effort into it, and flashed past the winning post by a head.

I erupted in joy. The beauty turned, and cantered back past me, his fine legs stretching out in a daisy cutter action, his head lifted in triumph, his ears pricked. His young jockey, the marvellous William Buick, was bright red in the face, from happiness, from exhaustion. The horse gazed at the stands, applauding him, and there, even though he is not a famous group one champion, was the look of eagles in his dear old eyes.

Gatewood is a talented horse, he is beautifully bred (related to Red the Mare, of course, of course, through Northern Dancer, their common great-grandsire), he is not a mug. But I swear he won that race on heart alone.

It had been a lovely day for me. I had an excellent punt on the dancing filly Newfangled, who romped home in the first. Then, another of my favourites, Astrology, could not quite do it in the second, but I love him so I forgive him everything. The Derby took it out of him, I think. Then, there was the big race, which I could not untangle. I did something I never do. I went on my pick of the paddock. Often, when you see the horses before a race, there are three or four who stand out. It can be a mug's game, because there are some horses which are slow as tractors but look gorgeous. My dear Red is a perfect example of this. She is physically glorious, has a beautiful action, and, in racing terms, is the most sluggish of slow coaches.

But before the Coronation Stakes, I fell completely in love with a John Gosden filly called Fallen for You. I had fallen for her in ten seconds. She stood out by a country mile. She had so much presence, and such character, and she gleamed and glowed with health. She was one of the most bonny fillies I have seen this week. She was 16-1 on the Tote and I put a fiver on each way, again, for sheer love.

She bolted up. I actually stopped shouting for a moment because I was so speechless with amazement. I've never done that before in my life. Pick of the paddock, baby.

Gatewood was also trained by John Gosden, and it was particularly lovely seeing him have such mighty victories today, because he suffered a horrible tragedy when his delightful horse, The Nile, broke its leg on the first day in a hideous incident, and had to be put down. It's pretty rare to see flat horses do this, but it reminds one how fragile they are, as well as how brave and tough. Those brilliant legs can go, from the mere fact of a wrong angle.

Then, an even more lovely thing happened. In the Queen's Vase, the Queen herself had a nice filly called Estimate. She'd won well at Salisbury last time out but this was a big step up in class and trip. She went off favourite, mostly I think because of sentimental Jubilee year bets. I had thought she might have the right stuff, but then I saw her in the ring, and she was a small mare, narrow in the neck, with a sweet but plain face. It was two miles, and the other horses looked so big and muscled and powerful by comparison.

And, I thought, it really would be too good to be true, on this Diamond Jubilee.

The ordinary little brown mare galloped to the front and did not stop and won as she liked. The crowd went mad. Posh gentlemen took their hats off and waved them in the air as if they were at a football match.

I rushed to the winner's enclosure. There was Estimate, suddenly looking rather beautiful, flushed with her great victory. 'Where is she? Is she there?' said people in the crowd, looking around for the Queen. Would her Majesty descend from the Royal box? Yes, she would. There she was, walking across the grass, and cheers and whoops and roars rang out.

Suddenly, everyone realised it was the Queen's Vase, which meant the cup would be presented by a member of the royal family. 'I suppose she can't really present it to herself,' said the lady next to me, laughing happily. 'Your Majesty, here is your cup, well done. Oh, thank you Your Majesty.' Everyone was very excited by this stage. The Queen, serene in lilac, was smiling all over her face, and giving Estimate a regal pat.

Then, the ramrod nautical figure of Prince Philip appeared, and picked up the trophy, and gave it to his wife. I know it's silly to get soft about the Queen, but I am quite silly, and I have to say I had a tear in my eye. There was something so touching about the two old people and the young filly and the cup and the delirious crowd. The lady next to me was wiping her eyes.

My mother, when I rang an hour later, was still misty with emotion. 'You know,' I said, 'there really was nothing to her, that filly, but she ran like a titan.'

'Oh, she was glorious,' said my mother.

'But then,' I said, 'it's sometimes the way with those great mares. Dunfermline wasn't much to look at; Quevega is just an ordinary brown mare.'

'Yes,' said my mother. 'Sometimes, if they look too much like flashy colts, they are not much good.'

I told her the story of the Queen and the crowd in the winning enclosure, and the whoops and the cheers and the clapping.

I walked away with a big fat smile on my face, even though I had not a penny on that filly. I probably should be a grouchy old republican, but I can't help it, I love the Queen. Her untrammelled delight when her brave little horse won her that shiny cup really was one of the sweetest things I've seen in racing.

So, it was a great day.

Ascot: Day Three

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

The thing I had completely forgotten about Ascot is the exhaustion. I feel as if I have run in the Gold Cup myself. Canter, canter, canter I go, from the stands to the ring, to the rails, and back again. Even in my ruthlessly practical flat patent boots, my poor calves feel as if someone has been battering them with hammers. I do not know how the women in heels do it. I take my hat off to the women in heels.

I've come all this way for the horses, so today I shrugged off all social engagements and concentrated entirely on the horseflesh. The best thing of all is to go early to the pre-parade ring. This is a smooth asphalt circle, gentled with venerable green trees, lined with the saddling boxes, where the horses come out before the paddock. They walk round, their newly shod hoofs wonderfully silent on the soft black surface, naked except for their halters. It is the time that you can really see them; it is not where the crowds go. You look for the condition of their coats, the ease of their walk, the gleam in their eye.

Some are old hands, gloriously relaxed, looking at the observers with sage eyes. Some are dancing like cats on hot tin roofs, on their toes, feeling the atmosphere. Some give great bucks of nerves and good health. 'Steady, steady,' I say, out loud.

I think of my lovely Red, back at home in her field, dreaming of the way her grandfather won The Derby. Many of her relations are here; in some of them I can see the family resemblance. The bloodlines of Northern Dancer and Nijinksy still run strong. I think: if she were here it would be like a reunion of cousins. This thought gives me idiotic satisfaction.

I love everything about it. I love watching the trainers, their faces set with concentration. I love the lads, gentling their charges. I love seeing the jockeys come out of the tunnel, all their energy focussed on the task ahead. If they sense their ride is getting a bit fired up, they run a soothing hand up the neck, gentling the withers, absolutely sensitive to the horse's mood.

I love the moment when they turn onto the course, and the horses go from walk to bucketing canter in one stride. I love the stir and shift of the crowd as the field races into the final furlong. I love the thunder of the hooves on the turf, which you can feel run through you, if you go and stand right by the rails.

I had absolutely no luck today. I remember now why my old dad used to take himself abroad during Ascot week; he always said going on holiday was cheaper. He lost too much money, year after year, at the royal meeting. It's because all the best horses come, and there are often maximum fields, and raiders fly in from America, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany. Not to mention the Irish. It has been a very international festival so far: America, the Antipodes and Germany have all scored. Aiden O'Brien, the brilliant Irish trainer, has had a fine time.

But I don't care I lost money today, although I was sad to see two of my favourite horses, the lovely filly Vow, and the fine colt Wortham Heath, get beat. I saw so much beauty. The thoroughbred really is one of the most glorious sights in the world. It is grace and power, delicacy and intelligence, courage and an ancient desire to win. It is at once the most civilised of human creations - bred over centuries for this very specific purpose - and the most untamed of wild beasts - harking back to its ancestral past, in the Arabian sands.

It's enchanting being able to watch them on television, as I do, week after week, but to come and see them in the flesh, and to hear the roar as the best of them puts its lovely head in front, is something quite else. I feel the luck and the privilege keenly,

The ephemera is fun. The betting is fun, the watching of the hats is amusing, the presence of the Queen, rolling up the straight mile in her open carriage is a stirring piece of tradition. The green course is one of the finest in Britain, the men in morning coats tipping their hats to each other is vastly diverting.

I even made some new friends, most especially a rather grand military fellow from America.

'I do like your uniform,' I said, boldly, as we were standing upsides by the Shergar bar.

'Thank you,' he said.

'Nothing I like better than a good bit of gold braid,' I said.

We chatted for a bit and I'm afraid I may have said 'Welcome to Britain,' as if Britain belonged to me. I sometimes just open my mouth and nutty things come out of it. But I love the thought of American visitors coming to one of our oldest race meetings, and seeing all this, and the least I can do is a little cultural ambassadorship.

All this is lovely, but the real loveliness, the point of it all, the thing that makes my heart lift like almost nothing else, is the equine beauty. Watching Frankel on Tuesday was the best thing I ever saw; it was on another level altogether. But every moment throws up its joys, because of the sheer gloriousness of the horses. Win or lose; triumphant or hopelessly outpaced, they all try their brave, beating hearts out, they all carry dreams and hopes. They are so lovely to look at, so honest and true, so very fine. That is why I don't care so much about the hats, or the lost bets, or anything really. I am spending five days in the presence of greatness, not in money won, or contests gained, or ratings rated, but in the simple fact of the most extraordinary breed of horse in world.

FRANKEL

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Writing this in great haste as I have just got off the race train and I have a dinner.

At 1.55pm, Frankel walked into the pre-parade ring. I had a good spot, right on the rail. That was worth it, right there. The five hundred miles were worth it. He lifted his noble head, and he had, as my mother always says about the great ones, the look of eagles.

He was tight, fit, compact; nothing on him wasted. It was all class and muscle and power.

He is a more delicate horse in life than he is on the television, and he has much more character. He is a light, gracious, champion, rather than the great, tearing, bulldozer that he looks on the screen.

The observers took in a collective breath. 'Oh,' they said. 'There he is.' He nodded his brilliant head at them, as if to say, yes, here I am.

I lost The Older Brother and his Beloved and ended up watching with a tremendous bunch of Aussies who had come all the way from Melbourne to see Black Caviar. 'Lovely country you've got here,' they said, with gusto.

'Yes,' I said. 'Sorry about the weather.'

And then they were off, and my race glasses shook, and the whole place fell silent.

About three out, there was the beginning of something. It was a murmur, a shift, a shiver. Then it was a low shout, a rumble. And then, then, as the most brilliant of horses shook himself up and let out his full, absurd, beautiful, impossible, unanswerable power, it rose to an almighty roar, a most unBritish rebel yell, as ladies in silk frocks and gentlemen in black toppers forgot their manners and whooped and hollered and paid shouting homage to something that they all knew they would never see again.

He won by eleven lengths, on the bridle.

I burst into tears of joy, in front of all the strange Australians.

There is so much more to write, but I must eat something or I shall fall over.

But really, all I have to say is that it was the best thing I ever saw.

I've been lucky enough to see a few things in my life. But for beauty, grace, glory, and sheer, raging talent, this was the best. It was the most perfect, the most beautiful, the most complete. It was beyond everything I hoped for. It was the champion of champions, the king of kings, in his pomp, laughing at the rest.

Now, for the rest of my life, I shall be able to say: I was there when Frankel destroyed them in the Queen Anne. I shall be able to say, when I am ancient and crabbed and cranky and bent: I was there.

Frankel

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I am going to attempt a little mobile blogging, because there shall be so much to tell you. Sadly, no pictures though. You shall just have to paint mind pictures of Red and the Pigeon until I return to my desk.

I sit in the lovely London flat of a generous relation, hardly able to believe that only fourteen hours ago I was sitting with my mare in her damp Scottish field. In my absurdity, I had to rush up to say goodbye before catching the train south. She was lying down when I arrived, dozing. I know I bang on about it all the time, but horses are flight animals; it is very, very rare for them to lie down in the presence of a human. Often, they do not lie at all, but sleep standing up, their heads lowered, one eye flickering, just in case of predators.

I walked in very softly, not wanting to disturb. She was not disturbed. I sat down next to her in my London kit, and gave her some nuts, and stroked her dear white face. She was still lying there, contemplating the universe, when I left.

Tomorrow, there shall be another wonder horse, of quite another kidney. Frankel is so wild and majestic that he has been known to trash his box, pulling the manger off the wall, turning his rug inside out. Someone has to go and check on him at ten at night, to make sure he has not been up to his emperor's tricks. No dopey lying down for him.

I've written about Frankel so often that I scrape the barrel for superlatives. His bald figures are enough: never beaten, top-rated horse in the entire world. The not being beaten thing is extraordinary enough on its face. Even the best horses have an off day. Sometimes they don't get the luck in running; the ground might not be right; the jockey may make a tactical mistake. The mystery of the thoroughbred is such that racing people have a good, honest expression for it. They say: he just did not run his race. No one knows why.

Frankel always runs his race. He runs it with such power, such exuberance, such glory and joy that he puts himself into a category all his own. His dancing, raking stride eats up the turf, making fine horses look ordinary. He has a singularity, a fired determination, a straightness in running that makes watching him feel like poetry. It is elemental, and beyond mere prose.

Tomorrow is the first time I shall see him in the flesh. It is the first time I shall hear the roar, sense the crack of electricity in the air. Usually, when a horse I love goes out to do his thing, I hedge the race about with caveats. Anything can happen in racing, I say. This time, I have no caveats. If Frankel gets beat tomorrow, I shall eat my hat. Which shall be fatal, since I only have one hat.

He is the reason that I have travelled five hundred miles, even though I hate to travel. He is the reason I have left my dear little Pidge with The Mother, and left my gorgeous mare dozing in her field. He is the reason I shall put on my damned hat.

I am very, very lucky to be alive to see him. He is one of the few we shall all remember, when we are old and crabbed.

If you are near a television at two-thirty tomorrow, switch on BBC1. Unless something very terrible happens, you shall see history. You shall see a king, in all his glory and pomp. Let us hope the hat goes in the air, where it belongs.

Leaving

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I have given myself the greatest treat that any lover of racing could dream of: five days at the Royal Meeting.

And yet my heart lurches and fails in my chest.

It does not matter what delight awaits me in the south, I always fall prey to tugging melancholy when I have to leave home. There is the magical thinking that says I shall not come back (dead in a ditch; kidnapped by bandits) and then what shall happen to all the books? Who shall tell the dog? Who will have to sort out the cupboard of doom?

I have, in my grouchy middle-age, turned into a homebug. If you told me I could never leave Scotland again, I should be delighted. The thought of packing and travelling and departing makes me tired and sad. (Of course, once I am on the train, and in the dirty old city, I shall be joyous and delighted; it’s just the night before. It’s the entire concept of leaving.)

Now, there is one more person I have to say goodbye to. The mare seemed to sense my dread this evening; she threw her head about and made furious faces and cow-kicked at imaginary flies. Eventually I got her to settle and she dozed off on my chest and I stroked the velvet part of her muzzle and thought: the next time I have to go away I’m putting her in a horsebox and taking her with. (This is how deranged with love I have become.)

As I left, she put her face over the gate and pricked her ears and whinnied at me. It’s bad enough having the Pigeon doing the Disney face. Now I’ve got Red and her dying fall whinny.

By tomorrow, I shall be settled on the 9.52 with my Racing Post, determined to work out who shall win the Coventry (I have a feeling for a colt called Sir Prancealot) and dreaming of Frankel. I am going to see the two greatest horses in the entire world, according to official ratings: Frankel and Black Caviar. For a racing person, this is like having lunch with Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, or taking tea with the astronomer royal, or being given an hour alone in a room with the Mona Lisa. It’s the tops, in other words. It’s a Bendel bonnet, a Shakespeare sonnet; it’s Mickey Mouse.

But just now, I look out at the green trees in the misty dreich of a Scottish evening and think: what will happen to the hill?

 

Pictures today are entirely self-indulgent. When I am missing home, I may log on to my tiny portable computer and see this:

This is what she looks like when she does her circus act:

Which, it has to be said, does not impress the Pigeon much:

 

A few of tonight’s garden:

And the dear old hill:

My heart may be cracking at the thought of leaving my girls, but they are going to be looked after like queens by the Mother, the Stepfather, the Horse Talker, the Younger Niece, the World Traveller, the Sister, the Young Gentleman, and everyone else on the compound. For Red in particular I have left strict instructions about how she likes her carrots (neatly chopped) and an anatomy of her moods (antic and various and unbelievably, incredibly funny and sweet).

So off I trundle, leaving, it seems, my heart and most of my sanity behind. I did not know that when I hit forty-five I should go animal crackers, but there we are. I suppose it’s better than buying a Lamborghini.

The love

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I know I talk rather a lot about the animal love, but it’s on my mind again. (Non-dog and horse people, and flinty unsentimentalists: move slowly to the exit.)

There is an awful, cruel, sneering cliché about spinsters with cats. Oh, the poor old lady who can’t get a gentleman, with her poor pussy. Ha ha. This never takes into account the Occam’s Razor of the matter, which is that some women don’t fancy fellows, but do really like cats. It’s not pitiable or pathetic. It just is.

I live alone. I regard it as an enormous privilege, although some people, even those who know me quite well, think it frankly odd. I used to get cross about this, as if my lack of desire for husband and children was something which had to be defended all the time. I went about with my fists up, ready to fight the slightest slight, to counter the merest raised eyebrow. Now I am older, I think: everyone must think what they will. Everyone must live the life they want to live.

Despite this new sanguinity, there is the occasional batsqueak of the old judgements, the worn platitudes. Am I like the old ladies with the cats? Are Red and Pigeon my sad feline equivalents?

I think that people get this whole women and creature thing the wrong way round. If you choose to live without someone, you do not need to get some missing love from an animal. It is very nice to have the adoring Pigeon gaze; when she jumps up and down with literal joy when she sees me, of course it makes my heart beat faster. When Red lifts her head and canters from the other side of the field when she sees me, when she gives her lovely low whinny of welcome, of course I feel fired with delight. But it’s not the getting of love that is important. I am practical enough to know that a lot of that comes from the fact that I am The Human with the Food. No, what they give me is somewhere to put the love.

The only disadvantage that I can see of living alone, apart from the fact that there is no one to say, oh don’t worry, I’ll call the plumber, is that sometimes my heart is all dressed up with nowhere to go. It gets filled up with affection, and that adoration needs to come out. I assume that if you have a wife or a girlfriend or a husband or a partner for life, you can fling your arms about them at your whim, and express that fullness of heart. That is the gift my two beautiful creatures give me: I can fling the arms. I can express the love.

The Pidge is a very cuddly, affectionate sort of girl. She loves nothing more than the flinging; she can take all the love I have. Red, at the beginning, was not particularly interested. She was much too posh, for starters. Also, she weighs half a ton and hears the call of the ancestral voices much more keenly. I have a theory that dogs have pretty much forgotten their wolfish past, but that horses are alert to the siren call of the wild things from which they descend.

Now, my grand thoroughbred has turned into a teddy bear. Because of the cold, her coat has even fluffed up, so instead of being sleek and hard, she is soft and velvety. She rests, sleepily, on my arm, angles her head up so I can scratch her favourite place below her right ear, stands stock still at my side as I rub her white blaze and chat quietly to her. She has started to appreciate the love. It is why my greatest pleasure now is just hanging out with her. We do work and have wild rides, but the highest joy for me is being with her; sentient human beside instinctive, mysterious animal.

They give me rewards and affection and attention. I get great pride out of them. Today, when the farrier finally arrived, I felt ridiculously proud that Red stood like a rock as he cut and pared and rasped her poor hooves; she was so relaxed that she even dozed off for a bit. She must be the best horse to shoe in Scotland. She was number one top of the class, and I puffed out my chest with admiration.

But really what they do, these animals, the most important thing, the greatest, most generous present, is they act as receptacles for the love. They don’t argue or equivocate; I do not have to read between the lines. They are fine and steady and true. Although they both have their animal mysteries, they are much simpler than humans. At the same time, they have that creature touch of the wild, which puts them on another plane. I think that is their other great gift: they are not of my world, but they consent to live happily in it with me. It is consent, and as a human, you have to earn it. So, along with all the other loveliness, there is the underlying hum of achievement.

As with all my theories, this one is still a bit half-baked. It needs a bit more work. Whatever the truth is, I feel incredibly lucky that I have these precious things in my life, who keep me straight and bring me joy.

And now I am going to see if I can work out who will win the 2.50 at Sandown. (Hoping for a brilliant Richard Hughes ride on the lovely Prince of Sorrento, who loves the mud.)

 

Another gloomy old day, so no I did not take the camera out. Here are a few shots of my lovely creatures:

And of course, there is little Myfanwy. I love her too, but she is a family pony, so it is not the same undilute passion that I have for my very own girls. All the same, I have been working with her lately, and we are making great strides together, and she steals, hoof by hoof, into my heart:

And, specially for the Dear Reader who loves the hens – The Hens:

Hill, under the stormy June sky:

Oh, and I meant to say: The Playwright had his first night last night. It is not the official first night, just the initial preview. But still, he will have seen the play  he wrote, up on the London stage, with one of our very finest actresses in it. I doff my hat in awe and wonder to him. He is so wise and works so hard and makes me laugh so much; no one deserves such a thing more than he.

In which, amazingly, I talk of something other than horses; or, Martha Payne makes my day

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Two rather lovely things happened today.

I went up to the mare quite late, and stayed with her until almost lunchtime. I am giving myself some days off after finishing the book, and it tends to be mare in the morning, and racing in the afternoon. The delightful thing about not always being in a rush is that I can just hang out, in the field, with my horse. She is excellent company.

Red seems to be on some kind of quantum sweetness drive at the moment. She can be grumpy, and sometimes stubborn, and on occasion extremely haughty. (Of course, I adore all these traits, because they remind me of her stellar breeding.) But just lately, she has been going for sheer adorableness. She whickers at me when I arrive, and has invented a new habit of resting her head in the crook of my arm, and going to sleep there. I cannot express in words the feelings of joy and pride and love this induces in me.

When I think that she was a racing thoroughbred, who arrived in this very strange place only two months ago, spooky and alarmed, quite highly strung, and now she walks at my shoulder without a headcollar and moves to left and right at the mere flick of my index finger, I can’t quite believe it. I love her so much it goes beyond words and into the realms of the inexpressible.

Anyway, to the lovely things.

The first lovely thing came about from a farrier panic. My dear farrier has gone AWOL, and Red has a loose shoe and a crack in her hoof. In desperation, after trying the numbers of twenty-five Scottish farriers, with twenty-three no answers and two unable to helps, I turned to the Horse and Hound forum. Joining a new forum is always rather alarming. It’s like going to a new school. There will be gangs, and etiquette, and ways of doing things. But the lovely horse people there rallied around the new girl, and I got many helpful suggestions, including one brilliant link to a woman who actually lives in my village. She is an expert in barefoot horses, and I think this is what I am going to do. Goodbye to shoes; hello to the all-natural horse.

So there was the internet, at work, at its best: kind, helpful, filled with utility.

Then, as if to show that this new technology really was a force for good instead of evil, the internet stretched itself, scratched its head, and made the life of one nine-year-old girl, and many, many hungry children halfway across the world a little better.

When I got back from the mare, I had a look at Twitter. Argyll and Bute was trending. I generally ignore trending topics, as they are often about things I do not know or understand, like Justin Bieber. But Argyll and Bute sounded interesting, so I clicked on it.

It turned out that there was a charming girl called Martha Payne, who had come up with the very clever idea of writing a blog about her school dinners. She took pictures of them, and graded them, and wrote extremely well of them, and other children in other countries sent her pictures of their school lunches, and it was all merry as a marriage bell. Considering school food is such a hot potato, it was very topical of her too, and public-spirited, since it is in the interest of everyone that the children eat well.

Argyll and Bute council did not like it. They forbade the taking of photographs in the school canteen, effectively ending Martha’s blogging experiment. They put out an almost illiterate statement on the subject, which eschewed commas, indulged in horrid bureaucratic language, and muddled up refutes with rejects. (Huge black mark from me. These people are responsible for schools, and they do not know what refute means.)

This then started getting passed about Twitter like a rugby ball. The mighty Twitterati pulled themselves up to their full height, like a gaggle of tremendous maiden aunts, and went into battle. Everyone was outraged. As usual, the criticism mostly took the form of ironical jokes, so that Argyll and Bute council ended up looking like an egg-faced loon. Martha Payne was trending, Never Seconds, the name of her blog, was trending. Jamie Oliver got in on the action, sending out a tweet saying something like Go, Martha, go.

It turned out that nine-year-old Martha was not only bright as a drawer full of buttons, but she was a really nice person. She was using her blog to raise money for Mary’s Meals, a charity which makes sure children in poor countries do not have to go to school hungry. Her target was a very ambitious £7,000. (Just imagine that, for a moment; a girl of nine aiming such a huge sum.)

As the Twitter storm blew its benevolent way through the ether, donations to Martha’s cause topped £31,000. Far away, in some tiny town of which we know nothing, a little girl or a small boy who has never heard of Twitter will be getting something to eat thanks to Martha and the Twitterers.

As if in perfect synchronicity, I backed three winners at the races this afternoon. It seems only right that I send my forty quid winnings to Mary’s Meals. In an even more labyrinthine snake of connectedness, Ryan Moore, the jockey who doggedly persuaded the mulish Valiant to go from last to first in the 2.30 at York, providing me with my big win of the day, will have added something to the gaiety of nations. His skilful and determined efforts put the money in my pocket which shall go to a school meal for that little girl or that small boy. I love this kind of thing. I love the fact that Moore is getting ready for the 4.45 and knows nothing of this. I love the fact that the schoolchildren helped by Mary’s Meals will never have heard his name. I love the fact that they are now connected by the merest shimmer of chance.

Argyll and Bute had at least the sense to know when they were beaten. After only two hours of Twitter fury, they gave in, reversed their foolish decision, and Martha Payne’s blog lives to fight another day.

Isn’t that properly lovely?

I have a tendency to believe that most people are mostly good. Sometimes, when the news goes very dark, I find this belief hard to sustain. Today, it got a real shot in the arm, and I smile as I write.

 

Raining today, so here are some pictures from yesterday evening, when there was a glimmer of sun:

Today my girls are in stately black and white:

The hill:

 

If you should be interested, there is a link to Martha Payne’s Just Giving page here:

http://www.justgiving.com/neverseconds

Not many words

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Feeling very achy and old-ladyish today. If I were back in my old life, I should have taken, groaning, to my bed, with an official dose of post-book stress. The thing about having a horse is that you can’t be ill. You can’t have a hangover, either. I mean, I can, and sometimes do, but I still have to get up and go and see to her. I can’t ring her up and call in sick.

The other interesting thing is that whilst I was with her, the aches and pains were forgotten. I even went for a ride, and she was on her toes today, so I let her gallop to get the twinkles out of her toes. She went bloody fast. I’m amazed she was such a useless racehorse. She felt like an Oaks winner to me.

Then, she was so dopey and dear on the ground that I think I got a massive shot of endorphins. Once I got home, I was all grumpy and groany again.

I diverted myself by backing four winners at the afternoon races. This is my special finishing manuscript treat: I watch the ponies on William Hill TV. It is a quite absurd indulgence, and I adore it.

Anyway, long and short is: fingers too crabbed to type. So here are some pictures for you:

When I went up this evening, there was a ray of sunshine, and in its warmth, Red was dozing, gazing out calmly to the west:

I adore her evening face. She does not do this in the morning:

This is what she was staring at:

And the equally lovely Pigeon face:

The hill:

In which I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

No sleep last night, so my mind is absolutely buggered. I really do not know how new mothers do it. One occasional night of insomnia does for me completely.

I spend a quiet morning with my mare. I am absolutely fascinated by her shifting states of mind. There are people who will not buy a chestnut mare, especially one with three white socks. Mares are supposed to be moody and unpredictable and impossible to deal with when they come into season. I think this is pure sexism. I have never owned a mare before, but I have admired them from afar. The only mood I have ever seen the great Irish mare Quevega have, for instance, is sheer gutsiness and determination and romping delight as she storms up the Cheltenham hill.

I don’t think Red’s temperament is anything to do with her gender or her colour. Like all living creatures, she has quirks and feelings. Some days she is quite antic and frisky; other days she is dozy as an old dog. On one morning her stubborn streak will be on display; on another she is biddable and eager to please. She can be as haughty as a queen empress. Sometimes she does not want to be bothered at all. One evening last week she was actually quite cross that I woke her from a nice rest.

Today, she was pure affection. She buried her head in the crook of arm and rested it there, until she had got all the love she needed. When I left, she gave me a reproachful look over the gate, as if to say: leaving already?

Sometimes the Pigeon gives me the best beloved gaze. Sometimes when I stroke her, she gives a little teddy bear groan of profound pleasure.

The animal love: it’s absolutely blinding.

Then the Younger Niece arrived, so there was human love too. She laughs at every single one of my jokes. She is nineteen, and she is like a dancing ray of sunshine, and when people say they don’t know about the young people of today, I think: I do, and they are perfectly marvellous.

Out in the world, Leveson bashes on. Despite all my political geekery, I have lost interest in it entirely. This may just be post-book exhaustion. Although, politics continues to fascinate me on the other side of the pond. I grow more and more curious to find out what sort of a man Mitt Romney is. Almost no-one seems to know. (Although there is the terrible story about the dog. I know I obsess too much on dogs, but really. A man who puts his canine in a cage on the roof of his car and drives to Canada cannot be quite right.)

The weather continues grey and flat. I squint out at the dirty sky, wondering what we shall do should we ever see serious sun again. There shall certainly be some form of dance.

Not sure if any of this has made any sense. I am going to bed at seven tonight, like a very old lady, so there may be hope of coherence tomorrow.

 

Quick pictures:

Red’s view has gone crazy with gorse:

No wonder she loves to rest her gaze upon it.

The mare:

The Pigeon:

The hill: