Tania Kindersley's Blog, page 77

Ascot, Day Three. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

The thrilling thing about the Royal Meeting is that it throws up stories, as if a seasoned old scriptwriter had sat down, thrown every last shred of cautious professionalism to the four winds, and let rip.

If the first day was about a horse, when Dawn Approach rose from the ashes like a fiery phoenix, the second day was about a man. The man is a very young one; polite, soft-spoken, modest. He is, without flash or fanfare, very, very good at his job. That talent, only three years ago, did not seem enough. In 2010, James Doyle was so disillusioned with race riding that he booked himself onto a plumbing course. Yesterday, at the age of 25, he rode his first winner at the Royal Meeting, when Al Kazeem vanquished Camelot and a field of top-flight rivals in the big contest of the day.

The shattering highs and lows of racing could not have been more vividly illustrated. Only half an hour before, Doyle had gone out on the talented filly Thistle Bird. He must have been full of hopes. But, once again the ultimate mystery struck. Thistle Bird ran no race, labouring away from miles out, never looking likely. They may take her home and scope her and find some muck in her lungs, or it may have to be a puzzle that remains forever unsolved, the kind of thing where, as racing people say, you just have to put a line through it. James Doyle was so despondent that he could hardly construct complete sentences when interviewed afterwards in the weighing room by Mick Fitzgerald.

Then fortune turned topsy-turvy, and Al Kazeem came powering down the straight like a titan, after Paul Hanagan had slipped the field and must have thought he had the race in the bag. It was a brilliant ride by Doyle because the older jockey, canny and tactical as the day is long, had gone on the bend, and taken the field a bit by surprise. But James Doyle was alive to the move, shook his own fella up so that he would not have too much to do, and in the end, reeled in Mukhadram in a thrilling finish.

Suddenly, the young jockey was all blinding smiles and eloquent words. The bleak start to the day was forgotten.

That lovely victory would have been enough for anyone. But in the next hour, the improbable happened. A dear old handicapper called Belgian Bill suddenly decided to have his day in the sun, and in the muddling cavalry charge that is the Royal Hunt Cup, he powered through the huge field, ignoring a pocket here or a lack of gap there, and put his determined head in front. (According to his trainer, the auld fella loves a bit of trouble in running, as it keeps him amused. That’s the kind of horse that really captures my heart.)

At 33-1, Belgian Bill might not have been on James Doyle’s list of sure things for the meeting, but the old horse made it look inevitable, and the price in hindsight stupidly long.

It was an enchanting result for another reason. The trainer, George Baker, has been going for about five years, and this was his first winner at the Royal Meeting. That is a huge milestone in any trainer’s life. It makes all the wet Wednesdays at Wolverhampton and the demoralised trips back from Ripon worth it. The memory of that moment will brighten the dark winter mornings and warm the heart when the snow lies thick on the gallops. ‘It’s what you dream of,’ said Baker, smiling with disbelief.

James Doyle, by this stage, looked as if someone had transported him into a fairytale where he was riding unicorns heralded by choirs of angels. But it still was his day at the office, so after the sunshine and congratulation, he had to run back into the weighing room to change into the vivid yellow colours of Rizeena. Many of the races at Ascot are impossible, but the Queen Mary seemed particularly hard to unpick. It was a big field of very talented fillies; one of those things where you could make a brilliant case for six or seven. On impulse, I had twenty quid on Rizeena, because she’d won so impressively before, and because confidence does run down the reins, and James Doyle was at that moment the most confident man in three counties.

She bolted up. There was not a single moment’s doubt. James Doyle, who had never ridden a winner at the meeting before, who almost became a plumber, had suddenly chalked up three triumphs at the greatest flat fixture in the world in under ninety minutes. And the especially lovely thing about the last one was that it was for Clive Brittain, a trainer who is almost eighty, and who likes to do a special dance in the winner’s enclosure after a victory. Sure enough, there he was, doing a little soft shoe shuffle, joking with Clare Balding, who had to use all her professional skills not to break down in hopeless laughter, whilst the happy crowds clapped and cheered around him.

I am all about the horses. I love these thoroughbreds as if they were my own. I admire them for their beauty, their brilliance, their courage, their mystery. But yesterday was really about humans. One trainer is starting his journey, and one is ending it, and they would both have felt the exact same euphoria. And one jockey has suddenly had all his dreams granted, as if the fates woke up that morning and alighted on his good shoulders with all their beneficence and grace, and lent him wings.

My mother stirred herself. ‘What a very nice young man that is,’ she said.

Today, it could be the mighty moment for the Queen, if dear little Estimate could win The Gold Cup. I watched Estimate canter away with the Queen’s Vase last year to riotous applause, but this is a stiffer test, and there are plenty of good challengers to foil her dream. But if yesterday showed anything, it is that dreams do sometimes come true. So I’ll cross my fingers for Her Majesty and her lovely filly.

For the rest, I remain mostly baffled. I’d love Riposte to run a big race for Lady Cecil, and I think Mark Johnston might just have a chance with Maputo. The Johnston horses tend to be amazingly tough and genuine, as if there is something in the good Yorkshire water, and always give their running. My each-way fancy is Elkaayed for Roger Varian. I have never met Roger Varian in my life but I love him because he looks more like a professor of ancient history than a trainer and he is always so courteous and modest. And he has excellent tailoring.

But it’s Ascot; anything could happen. The only thing I do know is that there will be more stories to tell.

The Royal Meeting, Day Two. In which I look back on a quite extraordinary opening day.

What a day.

I didn’t think, after the imperial procession that was Frankel’s Queen Anne, an opening day at Ascot could ever match it again. And yet, somehow, the Royal Meeting awoke, stretched itself, and put its dander up. There was more drama and delight than you could shake an ebony walking stick at.

First there was the sombre business of the day, done with elegance and grace. There was a minute of silence in memory of Sir Henry Cecil. Ladies in extravagant hats bowed their heads and clasped their hands, almost as if in prayer, and gentlemen stood ramrod straight, their top hats by their sides.

On the television, Clare Balding said a very clever thing and true thing. She said: ‘I always think the best way to remember someone who has died is to keep talking about them.’ I remember that exact thing after my father died. All I wanted to do was speak of him and his glory days. It’s a way of keeping the lost ones alive in all our hearts.

And there is so much to say of Sir Henry Cecil, especially in this week, the space of some of his greatest triumphs and most extraordinary records. He had seventy-five winners at the Royal Meeting, a number that may never be matched. It is so far ahead of the herd, stretching into the realms of myth.

Then it was time for the American star to come and dazzle us. Anticipation was intense. But, in the way of thoroughbreds, with all their mystery, Animal Kingdom did not run his race. There was no obvious excuse. He did not settle and raced too freely and then fizzled out, falling tamely back through the field, his fine brilliance extinguished.

It’s always sad to see a champion not give his running, but up at the front an Irish horse finally fulfilled his promise. Declaration of War is one of the apples of Ballydoyle’s eye, but he was sadly disappointing last time out, and there was suspicion he was a bit of hype, not quite as good as they all thought. I had an each-way saver on him, because those Ballydoyle boys know what they are talking about, and I could not believe they would send him to Ascot for nothing. He did run his race, and won beautifully, starting to look as if he will make up into the good horse they all thought he was.

But then the real drama unfolded. Amazingly, against the odds, Dawn Approach was back. He had imploded so fatally, so publicly, so humiliatingly, in the Derby, that the connections could hardly speak, except to say that he would be put away and there were no plans. Suddenly, without warning, Jim Bolger announced that his mighty colt would be back for Ascot.

This was not what anyone expected. The Derby is not even three weeks ago. For a horse to boil over like that could leave not only physical but mental scars. Up until that terrible moment, Dawn Approach had had everything his own way. He had dominated good fields, always had luck in running, never encountered anything to shake his famous sang-froid. His record was unblemished. He was the boss horse indeed, alpha to his hoof tips. Would he come back so quickly with his appetite for the game undimmed? Could his star shine again?

To complicate matters, the lovely, strong colt Toronado, the equal apple of the Hannon eye, who had had his own disaster in the Guineas, was also returning to the track, on another retrieval mission. And then there was Magician, so dominant in the Irish Guineas, but who had suffered a freak accident in his last week of preparation. He was having a nice relaxing time in the equine spa when a swallow flew straight into his forehead, and the horse leapt out and bashed his legs. He had missed a piece of work, so his carefully calibrated training schedule was interrupted.

The question marks hovered over all these lovely equine heads. I adore them all and could not choose between them. I went back and forth, like a confused metronome. But there, suddenly, was Dawn Approach, coming into the pre-parade ring, looking exactly like his old self: athletic, shining, utterly relaxed. That’s the fellow I know, I thought. On pure instinct, I put the house on him. I suddenly realised that I wanted him to redeem himself more than I could say.

I had a bit each-way on Toronado, for loyalty and love, and paced about with screaming nerves as the horses went into the stalls.

And they were off. Dawn Approach once again fought for his head. Poor Kevin Manning, who had had such a nightmare in the Derby, was fighting to settle his horse all over again. Manning is a quiet, interior jockey. He does not showboat. He is a man of very few words, and has said little about the whole debacle. He puts all his energy and talent into riding, not talking. I could not bear it if the same ghastly battle was going to be waged all over again.

But then, miraculously, as if Dawn Approach was remembering his true self, he dropped his head and settled into his big, rolling stride, balanced his strong body, and began to race. Now the story would be told. Would the Derby exertions and his early exuberance take its toll? Could he see it out?

He powered down the outside. Toronado, who had sat quietly out the back, came to join him. The duel which had not materialised in the Guineas looked as if it would finally be joined.

And then a horse on the inside jinked left, creating a disastrous domino effect. The horse outside him was hit, who crashed into Dawn Approach, who bumped into Toronado. Both the principles veered and lost their stride. This kind of thing can be enough to finish a challenge. It’s not just the loss of vital rhythm; that sort of barge at forty miles an hour can shock a horse into submission. But these two were made of doughty stuff. Kevin Manning and Richard Hughes got their fellows rolling again, and the two brave colts stuck their heads down and charged into the final furlong ahead of the rest, matching strides.

On the television, Simon Holt was shouting. In the room, I was shouting. My mother, a quiet polite person, suddenly yelled, at the top of her voice: COME ON KEVIN. Stanley the Dog went nuts.

The real Toronado, the stellar colt that the Hannons loved and believed in, was finally revealing himself. For a moment, he drew ahead. But Dawn Approach is not just brilliant, he is brave. He stuck out his neck, put his ears flat back, got a bullish, bugger off look in his eye, lengthened once more, and flashed past the line a nostril ahead.

The beautiful bold chestnut was redeemed. The risk paid off. Jim Bolger, one of the cleverest and canniest men ever to train a horse, was right. The crowd went wild. The drama rating ricocheted off the scale.

And that, my darlings, was, in the words of the song, a thrilling, absolutely chilling Ascot opening day.

I’m not sure we’ll see anything to match it.

Today, the ladies move into the spotlight. There is the Duke of Cambridge, for the older, polished fillies, and then the Queen Mary for the babies, raw two-year-olds who are still revealing their potential. There are so many I love that I can’t split them, and this will not be a betting day for me, but a watching for sheer love day.

If Chigun could win for Lady Cecil then I would expire from happiness, but she has the talented Duntle and Dank to vanquish.

I love little Oriel in the Queen Mary. She had no luck in running last time out and I’d adore to see her have her revenges.

And then there is the fascinating rematch between the progressive Al Kazeem and the old conqueror Camelot. Camelot, the Derby winner of last year, suffered a severe bout of colic over the winter and had to have an operation to save him. No one knows how much this takes out of a horse. He was thoroughly beaten by Al Kazeem last time out, and there is no scientific reason to see him reversing that form.

But again, Ballydoyle must be keeping the faith, to bring him back here, onto the highest stage of all. And there is almost nothing I love more than seeing a once-dominant horse reduced to underdog, with all the doubters and knockers out in force (last year’s three year olds were an average bunch; the Derby form does not add up to a hill of beans; etc, etc) and then, once again, having his day in the sun. So I’d love to see Camelot come back to his rampant best, and I’ll have a tiny loyalty bet from the heart.

Who knows? Day Two may give us drama again. It is Ascot. The Queen is there, with her match greys; there are crowds in improbable hats; there are Welsh Guards with trumpets. The best horses in the world are gathered. Anything could happen.

The Royal Meeting: Day One. Or, things do not go exactly to plan.

My fingers are actually shaking as I write this. My heart is banging like a big bass drum. It is because finally, after all the anticipation and the discussion and the questions and the waiting, the Royal Meeting is finally here.

My special holiday for the occasion did not get off to a flying start. My mind was so mazed with trying to work out whether Animal Kingdom would win the Queen Anne that I could not sleep. I finally drifted off in the smallest of the small hours, and slept straight through my alarm. My cunning plan had been to rise at seven-thirty, rush to the shop to buy the Racing Post, get out the notebook and give forensic attention to the form. Instead, I was cantering about like a loose horse all morning, hours late.

Even though I am officially on a break, I still decided I must do my HorseBack work. I had another plan for that: go very quickly there, take five pictures, rush back, do the Facebook page for which I am responsible, and then turn all my attention to the racing. Instead, when I got there, I was so enchanted by the lovely herd that I ended up standing in a field for fifteen minutes, looking out over the Deeside hills, chatting to two of their dearest mares. They stood, calm and dozy, like two auld wifies in their Scottish fastness, happily giving me their heads for some love and scratching. My heart stopped beating wildly for ten minutes, and stillness descended.

So now there is no time for the forensic form. I’m going to have to bet on gut and love, which is how I often gamble anyway. I’m all in on the global star Animal Kingdom. Despite the fact that Ascot represents an entirely different test from anything he has faced before, I think he has the mighty class to see him through. It’s a bit of a fairy tale, if he can do it; to come from the tough dirt of the Kentucky Derby to the emerald green straight mile of the Royal Meeting would be a story indeed.

The extraordinary thing about Ascot is that three of the most thrilling and highest grade races of the whole meeting come on the first day, boom boom boom, like silver bullets from a pointed gun. The reason that the whole week is so delirious is that all the superstars are here, primed for the occasion. It is the moment in the season when horses should be in their pomp. They have cast off their spring rustiness, felt the sun on their mighty backs, gained race fitness and experience. The babies will have had their education; the veterans will be remembering all their talent and moxy. Trainers will have laid out runners especially for this moment, bringing their precious cargo carefully to their crest and peak. And yet there are still mysteries. Not all the stories have yet been told; there is always the space for an improver to come out of the pack like a joker.

It is magnificent because it is steeped in history and the kind of absurd but lovely pageantry and pomp that only the British can really do without embarrassment. When the Queen is carried up the straight mile in her carriage pulled by the splendid match greys, three hundred years of tradition come with her. Even in these rushing, technological days, gentlemen still doff their shining top hats, in a rather touching display of old world courtliness.

It is a festival of beauty too. Ascot is one of the prettiest courses in England, from the gleaming sweep of its storied straight mile, where last year Frankel soared into immortality, to the wooded bends of Swinley Bottom, where so many dreams have been fulfilled and crashed. In the quiet of the pre-parade ring, where the horses are saddled in the dim cool of serried boxes, venerable old trees spread their benign branches over the equine athletes, in their last moment of calm before the hurly burly starts.

And there are the horses themselves, an aesthetic feast of perfect confirmation, shining coats, gleaming muscle, intelligent heads. A finely-bred thoroughbred in the month of June gladdens the eye like almost nothing else. Last year, when I flew south for the whole five days, it was not just to watch the racing; I wanted to gaze on all those brave, bonny creatures until I could look no more. I ruthlessly refused to socialise. I just wanted to fill my head with beauty.

And so it shall be today, this time on the television. I’ll have a few bets, but Ascot is famously impossible. My old dad used to fly abroad for the week, because it was the only way he could avoid the temptation of the betting shop, where he knew he would lose hundreds of pounds. Going on holiday was cheaper, he used to say. I want Animal Kingdom to win like the champion he is, and I’ve had a few quid on his lovely back. I’d like to see Toronado run his race, after disappointing in the Guineas, but at the same time, it would be tear-jerking to see Dawn Approach avenge his Derby debacle. If Lady Cecil could win with Tiger Cliff in the long-distance test, for the memory of Sir Henry, there would not be a dry eye in the house. Although I think the dark horse Homeric might run a huge race at 12-1. I can’t work out the sprints at all, because I can never work out the sprints.

So I will be shouting Come on my son, but not for much money. Mostly for love and beauty. They are all champions, these brilliant creatures, and over the next five days, they shall give more pleasure than they know.

 

No time for pictures. Just one, of the two dear, dozy girls with whom I spent the morning, about as far away from hats and trumpets and champion bloodlines as you can get. But none the less lovely for all that:

A day in pictures

You’ve had to read far too many words here lately, so here are some pictures instead.

 

It is also now OFFICIAL (have just checked with the people who need to know and they are kind and happy and give the nod) – I am taking Ascot week off. I can’t go south because that is too time-consuming and extravagant, but I am going to have a proper break, with only the barest of HorseBack work in the morning and then nothing else except me and the Racing Post and hours of the greatest flat meeting of them all going full blast in my front room. It is mildly tragic that this is my idea of a dream holiday – no travelling, the highest class racing, the most beautiful thoroughbreds in the world – but there we are. One must know oneself. So that’s it: I am now in full Royal Meeting fever, and if our own dear Queen can win the Gold Cup with Estimate, my head might explode with joy.

A little Sunday parable; or, the woods are dark and deep.

Now, this one most certainly is a parable. Or at least, it is in the mazy halls of my own mind.

This morning, I walked the mare up into the Terrifying Wood.

At this point, you have to imagine timpani drums and flights of trumpets.

You see, the Terrifying Wood had become a bogey. I am ashamed of having bogeys, so I did not speak of it. I do not get stopped in my tracks by a bit of sloping timber, oh no. I cannot possibly admit to such craven weakness.

In fact, the last time we went there, many weeks ago, Red had a proper, cinematic wig-out. Up in the air with hooves pawing the vacancy; all we needed was John Wayne and Champion the Wonder Horse and we would have had a party.

She has done this three times since I’ve had her. I put it down to the fact that she had never done anything in life on her own. Racehorses and polo ponies work in great strings, and she found strange places without the comfort of companions properly frightening.

I put it down to all sorts of things. At one point, I convinced myself that she was having acid flashbacks to the starting stalls of her hectic youth.

But really, the dark voice in my head was saying it was my fault. I was not up to it; I was not a good enough horsewoman. How the real experts would laugh and mock.

Lately, all the time and patience has paid off. All that groundwork, all those cold mornings, all those hours of concentration. The bond of trust is forged. It goes to my new theory which is: it takes a year. Maybe there are people who can get a new horse and do anything with it after three weeks. I am not of that cohort.

Anyway, today it was lovely and sunny and I had decided to do no work, so I had all the time in the world. Red’s bruised foot is still faintly tender, so we were going for another amble on the lead rope. A kind man has cut us a lovely grassy track through the wilderness, all the way round the set-aside and past the far paddock rail and over the old granite bridge, and into the Terrifying Wood. I was just following it, admiring the delightful new facility, where we would be able to canter, when I reached the bridge, and thought: oh, well, why not?

The wood has alarmed me for a long time. The trees are so dense that hardly any light can penetrate. It has all the spookiness of the old-time fairy tales, and is exactly the kind of place one might find goblins and sociopaths. (All this runs through my head, despite my daily battle against magical thinking.) Even before the mare, I never went there. But it is the way out to the great riding places; once over the hill, you find miles of forestry tracks, snaking north. Despite the fact that Red had freaked out last time we went there and I am not so keen on it myself, we would have to master it eventually.

Because we just came, without plan, to the threshold, following the new track, it was not a thing. I did not wake up this morning and decide to conquer all my fears. It was just there, and I looked at my dozy girl and said: come on, then. And up we went, into the dim cool, where the shadows moved and played and the world was silent, as if someone had thrown a switch.

And the wonderful thing was that it was not frightening at all. Red moved easily by my side, not even lifting her head when Autumn the Filly, missing her lead mare, started yelling from the field below. Stanley the Dog waltzed about, picking up scents. Even when he buggered off on the the hot trail of some deer or pheasant or rabbit, callously leaving me to the mercy of the forest psychos, there was nothing to fear. The mare and I inhabited the wood, so that it was no longer a place of dark imaginings, but a benign, delightful Eden. There were carpets of pine needles on the good earth and blue wildflowers bending their elegant heads. Shafts of sunlight lit the close trees and the quiet spread out like a benediction.

All this time, I thought, watching my happy horse pick at the thick green grass, I was looking up at this crowded slope and thinking of it as a great and daunting obstacle. And now it was an enchanted glade.

Well, it feels like a parable to me.

 

Today’s pictures:

I’m always banging on about love and trees, but I don’t take that many pictures of the trees. Trees drive me nuts, because they look so majestic and filled with awe in life, but on camera, they lose all their beauty. If I take a photograph of a great beech or a mighty oak, it comes out flat and dull, for some reason. But since today is all about trees, I thought that some photographic tribute was called for.

These are rather bark and lichen heavy, because the best way I can capture the loveliness is to go in close:

The Terrifying Wood:

And the happy herd:

I love this face. This is the look she gives me when I am leaving. As if to say: you’re not really going? Not when I look this adorable?:

Mr Stanley the Dog, who had a high old time:

The hill:

A long, winding shaggy horse story for a sunny Saturday; or, life and death and love and trees.

I did such a funny, lovely thing this morning. I took my mare for a walk.

I usually have many rational explanations for this. It’s important to get her onto metalled surfaces to harden up her hooves, now she is living barefoot. It’s a fine thing to let her explore new places on the ground. (We crossed the burn today and went up into the woods.) Besides, she is recovering from a slightly bruised foot, so she is off games and I cannot ride her, but it’s good to get her moving.

I also have a whole, highly developed theory about leading. Everything with a horse starts with the feet. If you watch herds at work, you see quickly that the leaders are the ones who get the others to move their feet. You can tell the hierarchy instantly from that. If Red is fractious or not paying attention, I move her feet, and like magic, I have her back. Four steps backwards or disengaging the hindquarters, and the stardust is scattered. If I ever had to give advice about a difficult horse, which I would not really, because I can’t bear all that telling everyone what to do, I would say: do a week of nothing but leading.

But the real truth is that it is one of my keenest, most profound pleasures. There is nothing that soothes my heart more than ambling past venerable trees and fields of antic sheep and meadows fecund with cow parsley, with a beautiful, relaxed creature at my side, as the sun gentles the bright land.

I taught the mare, very early on, to lead nicely on a loose rope, matching her pace to mine. This is not just some hippy freak or circus trick. It makes everything easy and happy between us. I don’t get pushed or barged or pulled. She gets the safe feeling of being with her good leader. She puts her head down and lengthens her neck and swings her lovely quarters. Everything in her speaks of peace. I look at the trees and the hills and then I look at her glorious, strong body, her intelligent head, her kind eye, and I am in aesthetic overload. The world stops and the bad news goes away, and it’s just me and my girl.

I suppose it is slightly eccentric, this going for a walk. A gentleman stopped his motor to ask if he was going in the right direction, and seemed excessively surprised to see a red thoroughbred peering curiously through his car window. But it feels entirely natural and proper and expected to me.

I came back to watch The Morning Line, which I had recorded. I like to look at it after my equine work is done, so I can prepare myself for the day’s racing. Clare Balding made a moving and eloquent tribute to Sir Henry Cecil. All his past glories were there, from the beautiful and bold Oh So Sharp, a mighty filly I adored in my youth, to the soaring swansong that was Frankel.

I thought, as I always do when the good ones go, that it’s a pity that these lovely canters through a great life come after the person is dead and cannot see how beloved and brilliant they were. Although I suspect that Sir Henry had an inkling of it. In London, the cab drivers used to lean out of their taxis and shout: ‘Hello ‘Enry, got a good one for us?’ When the cab drivers love you, you have arrived indeed. I used to smile all over my face, in my younger days, when taxi drivers would tell me they had once won money on my old dad.

The great thing about Henry Cecil is that he never trained by the book. He did not even know there was a book. He always said he did everything by instinct. ‘The horses tell me what to do,’ he said.

That’s the most profound truth, for anyone who has anything to do with equines: the horses are always your best professors. If you listen to them, they will tell you everything.

I’ve been thinking lately what it is that makes a horseman or woman. Some people just have a feeling for the thing, and it’s almost impossible to define or teach. I think it’s an imponderable combination of a dozen things. It is calm and curiosity and patience. I have a private notion that people who are really good with horses have a rhythm to them, as if moving to some gentle internal metronome.

I think that they are also the ones who understand that a horse is a horse. It sounds stupidly obvious, but a lot of people never quite believe it. Horses are not like us. The human and the equine worlds have a little overlap, a small coloured common area in the Venn Diagram, but they are mostly quite different. Horses think differently, act differently, literally, with their binocular vision, see things differently. They consent, generously, to step into our world, and light it with their mysterious, foreign presence. I never take that consent for granted. It is my daily gift.

Henry Cecil was a horseman to his bones, and a bit of an eccentric too. In my flaky mind, I think: I bet he’d understand why I take my beautiful, bonny mare for a walk.

 

Today’s pictures:

Are of the week. It’s been such a strange seven days. This time last week, I was mourning a fine man I knew who died too young; then came the very public passing of a national treasure who is missed by the entire racing world. I’ve been surfing a tide of rolling emotion, tears never far from the surface.

Yet, it’s also been a week of small, intense pleasures; of kindnesses, love, family, interesting new people, good work. I even had two huge accumulators come off, which would make my dear old parent smile, in the great betting shop in the sky.

The sun shone. The blossom blossomed. The lilac bloomed.

Stanley the Dog was impossibly funny and handsome. My mare took my heart in her delicate hooves and expanded it, which is her great talent and my great fortune, and not what I expected would happen to me in my middle age. 

Life and death; love and trees. That was the story of the week. 

The wonderful children of Banchory Academy, who inspired us all at HorseBack so much:

And Scott and Rodney:

Stanley the Manly:

The precious herd:

And my glorious girl:

The hill:

Have a happy weekend, Dear Readers, wherever you are.

The end of the week; or, I can’t remember what I was going to say

I was going to write a whole thing about flaws. I had it, running in my head all morning. Ironically, whilst it sat snugly inside my brain, it was flawless. Ha, ha, ha, go the gusts of ironical laughter.

I think my thesis was: flaws are good. They are what make humans lovable. Diamond-hard perfection is of course not possible, but some people manage to give a simulacrum of it. But the real beloveds are the ones who not only have chinks in their armour, but who cannot help but show the chinks.

I was able to bring evidence to bear. I was going to show you my working.

And now it has all gone.

Never mind. Feels quite symbolic, really. Like a little parable.

The week is coming to a close and I am stuttering to a halt. I did a lot of HorseBack work, I wrote many, many words of book. This morning, I got up early to dazzling sun and put on a further 1358. Half of them will go in the second draft, but still. They are scratches on the page and that’s what matters.

I said goodbye to the servicemen who have been with us this week, under the kind Deeside sunshine. I checked the mare’s foot, which is bruised. The heat has gone and she is nodding her head at me as if to say: I’ll be fine. Mr Stanley the Dog staged two great escapes, which luckily did not end in disaster. (He went to investigate a very tempting building yard just across from my house. And for those of you who worry about these things: far from a public highway, so no actual danger.) I even sent some long overdue emails.

I still keep finding Sir Henry Cecil tributes, which make me cry. Yesterday, Warren Place sent out the first horses since his death, and Songbird and Morpheus won beautifully for Lady Cecil, in whose name they now run. They were both so bonny and imperious, streaking away ahead of their fields, that they reminded me poignantly of all that lost greatness.

I got my outside tap to work, with the help of my kind neighbour. This is a hang out more flags moment for me. Now I can water the white lilac.

And that’s it really. That’s all I am capable of. I’ve done all my work; for once I have beaten time. Now I’m going to watch the racing from Sandown and York, two of my favourite courses in the world.

 

Today’s pictures:

Are a little photo essay, for a change. This is what I see when I go down to the small herd each morning. This is why even after the darkest night, I start the day with a smile on my face.

Some of the pictures are not of high quality, because I was quite a long way away, and just pointing and shooting on auto-focus. But I wanted you to get an idea of the sweetness.

First sight. Red the Mare spots me:

She at once sets off. The other two are in no hurry:

I love that I SEE YOU face. Notice Autumn the Filly is still flat out. This is because she is one of the most laid-back horses I have ever met:

Myfanwy the Pony decides to get moving:

And the chilled American Paint at last hauls herself upright:

And then there is some ambling:

The lead mare is on her way. Nothing will stop her queenly progress:

The two junior members don’t like to rush anything:

And round the corner she comes, with Stanley the Dog in the lead:

The dozy beauty, with the wind in her mane:

And finally the sweet hello here I am face, ready for love. Which of course she gets, in spades:

I genuinely do not know what I did to deserve her.

On not taking things for granted

I bang on about quite a lot of things. One of the things about which I bang is not taking anything for granted. I mostly remember this but sometimes I need reminding.

I spoke to a serviceman today who described to me, quite matter-of-factly and without being pressed, his condition after a severe training accident. So many terrible things happened to his body that I cannot describe them here. But what stayed with me was his pain. It is excruciating, and it never stops. He can control it a little with extreme medication, but the problem with even the strongest drugs is that the body gets used to them in the end, and the pain reasserts. The agony is so intense that he counts himself lucky to get four hours’ sleep a night. Days will go by when he is existing on no more than two hours of rest.

I go insane if I do not get my full eight hours, and I do not have pain all over my body. I think of the minor moans and complainings I make about idiot things. I think: every morning when I wake up I should hang out more flags over the simple fact that my nerve endings are quiet. The absence of something is quite hard to celebrate, but the absence of constant pain is something that goes right to the top of my gratitude list.

I do think of my luck quite a lot. I think of the great good fortune of living in this astonishing place, surrounded by venerable trees and ancient mountains. There are no riots in the streets. No secret police are bashing down the door. I may drive a car and vote in elections. The usual losses and griefs of a life lived this long may make my heart sore, from time to time, but do not crush or smash it. All my fingers work, so I may type my 1096 words of book as I did today and feel a sense of satisfaction.

There is something I often think of, when there are deaths, as there have been in the last week. I think: say the thing. Give the compliment, express the love, open the heart. Because all the best beloveds are only one bus away from extinction. But I also think: make the list. Write down, literally or figuratively, the things for which one should be grateful. I know it’s the mad old hippy in me, coming out and waving a tattered, tie-dyed flag, but still. I think it might be true. Smell the damn flowers, because who knows what may happen tomorrow.

 

Today’s pictures:

The white lilac and the apple blossom are out:

Happy herd:

The nobility of Mr Stanley the Dog:

The hill:

Three Cheers for Sir Henry

If I were a mystical, I would say that all the good ones are being gathered. But I’m not. I am an empiricist, a rationalist, mostly. I don’t have deities or afterlives. I believe in love and trees and the earth and these hills and the human heart. I will talk of the soul, but only in a strictly metaphorical way.

And yet, that is the sentence that comes into my head.

Sir Henry Cecil, one of the mightiest titans of the turf, has died at the age of 70.

Henry Cecil was not like other trainers. He wasn’t like anybody. He was a dandy, famous for his shoes. He loved his roses as much as he loved his horses. And how he loved his horses. People said that for all his technical ability and his lifetime of racing knowledge he had something extra, something beyond easy definition, something that could not be measured or quantified.

They say, of the great jockeys, that horses just run for them. It’s not a question of perfect position or being strong in a finish or even having good hands. It’s something in the spirit that communicates itself to the animal, so that it will give its last bit of strength and will and heart. Sir Henry Cecil had that.

You only had to watch him with his horses to see it. After a great race, with the crowds going wild, and commentators scrabbling for superlatives, Frankel would come back into the winner’s enclosure, every inch of his mighty thoroughbred blood coursing through his fine veins, his head up, his flight instinct on high, and Sir Henry would run his hand up and down the champion’s mane as if he were a dear old dog. There was something in those long, elegant fingers that communicated in equine: understanding, admiration, love, and something else, for which there is not a human word, something which only the horses knew.

I remember him very vaguely from my childhood; a tall, smiling, shy figure, other-worldly, faintly removed from the ordinary things of life. His brother was my father’s great friend, and David Cecil and my old man are buried next to each other in the quiet green of the old churchyard at East Garston. But I really remember him as everyone who loves racing does, everyone who has watched it over the years, as a quiet idiosyncratic gentleman who had some indefinable genius in him, who, despite being the ultimate professional, was never ashamed to show emotion as one of his beloved charges reached the highest heights.

What he did with Frankel was extraordinary. For all that horse’s outrageous talent, someone had to turn him into a complete racehorse. Perhaps only Cecil could have taken the tearaway, who used to trash his box in the early days, pulling mangers off the walls, and made him into the polished creature who could settle so well, even amidst the hurly burly of racecourses heaving with fandom and an almost hysterical excitement.

It was partly that settling, that learnt ability to be calm and biddable during a race, that meant Frankel had enough energy left in the final furlongs to make top-class horses look like selling platers. To educate any horse takes patience and work and dedication; to educate Frankel, and turn him into the greatest thoroughbred of a generation, is the mark of a legend.

What is so lovely about the story of that particular man and that particular horse is that it is filled with irony and triumph and redemption. Henry Cecil went through his dark years. There was a time when everything was in danger of falling apart. The horses went, the winners dried up, but one of the few owners who stuck with Sir Henry through the thick and the very, very thin, was Prince Khalid Abdullah. From that act of loyalty came the defining moment when a raw two-year-old called Frankel was sent to Warren Place. The rest is, literally and for ever, racing history.

Last summer, I drove the three hundred and fifty miles to York, to see Frankel take on his greatest test. He was up in distance for the first time, and, for all his stellar qualities, there was the quiet doubt whether he would shine quite so brightly over those two extra furlongs. ‘And here,’ said Simon Holt, a sort of thrilled trepidation in his voice, ‘Frankel is going into the unknown.’

The Knavesmire that day was mobbed. In the pre-parade ring, young children were staring at the great horse, their mouths open with awe. Frankel cantered down to the start on rising wings of applause, as collected as a dressage horse. He was so relaxed in the race that the commentator actually said: ‘Frankel has gone to sleep at the back’.

Rounding the corner into the long home straight, he was running, as always, straight as an arrow, his fine, intelligent head stretched parallel to the ground, his dancing, raking stride lengthening effortlessly over the emerald turf.

The world went still for a moment; Frankel seemed suspended in space and time. And then Tom Queally let him go, and he sauntered - mightily, easily, gloriously - past the best of his generation as if they were standing still.

‘They can’t get him off the bridle,’ shouted Simon Holt.

There was always something imperious about Frankel, and he was truly an emperor that day. He came back to shouts of acclamation and love such as I’ve never heard on a racecourse since the old glory days of Desert Orchid. It is rare that a flat racehorse generates such adoration. They are fleet thoroughbred flashes; here for a couple of seasons, then gone to the hallowed halls of the great breeding operations where they may pass their brilliance on. They do not stick around for years as do the National Hunt horses, who become like old friends, lodged in people’s hearts.

But Frankel was not only admired and lauded, he was really loved. And the love that shining afternoon on the Knavesmire was as much for the man who taught him and cared for him and made him as for the astonishing animal himself.

Cecil had a long connection with Yorkshire. He was welcomed there as a native son, and that day he was greeted like a returning hero. He had been undergoing severe treatment for his illness and had not been seen on a racecourse for weeks. But he was determined to travel north for that great race, and he was determined that the Yorkshire crowds of whom he was so fond should see that wonder horse.

And so there he was, thin and frail, his voice so hoarse it was almost inaudible, but with a smile that lit up the whole county. ‘It's great for Yorkshire,’ he said, as waves of joy still rippled round the paddock. ‘They are very supportive of racing and they deserve to see him.’ Asked how he felt, he looked up at the sky, thought for a moment, smiled, almost to himself, and said, with a quiet wryness in his lost voice: ‘Twenty years better.’

And then someone shouted ‘Three cheers for Sir Henry,’ and hats went in the air, and the sound nearly blew the roof off the County Stand, and Frankel lifted his head to listen.

Three cheers for Sir Henry, indeed. We were lucky to have him, and we shall not see his like again.

 

(I generally do not put up pictures which are not my own. Copyright is a serious business and must be respected, and this photograph belongs to the exceptionally talented Edward Whitaker. But I had to give you the man and his greatest horse, and I hope that on today of all days, Mr Whitaker will forgive me.)

Bashing on

It was sad going up to HorseBack this morning and thinking of the good man who has gone. Everyone is hard hit, particularly the younger members of the team. At the same time, it was soothing, because there were the horses, and there was the new course coming in, and there was everyone lifting their chins and squaring their shoulders and getting on with it.

I think crossly about grief that it is not useful. It has no evolutionary utility. Humans tend to explain it to themselves as meaningful: it marks the passing of the beloveds as that great matter should be marked. And yet, the person who has gone would not be delighted that mourning and melancholy is left behind. Still, there it is: the hollowness in the throat, the feeling of unreality, the stupid sense of waste. It must have some deep biological root, since even animals mourn; elephants most famously, but horses too have been observed displaying signs of grief. The Pigeon pined for six weeks after the Duchess died.

My theory is: honour the dead by bashing on. This is not necessarily straightforward, but I think it must be true. So I do my HorseBack work and come back and write 1546 words of book and then take Mr Stanley up to see the herd. The Horse Talker and I brush our ladies in the blinding sun, so that their coats shine in the light.

The Remarkable Trainer brings her year-old boy to visit. He is ravished by the equines and very keen on Stanley the Dog. He has no fear of animals but only delight. They all respond to him with astonishingly touching gentleness, as if realising that this is a very small person, still a little unsteady on his feet, who comes in peace and must be treated with care. He laughs at them and feeds them delicate strands of grass and waves his arms in unfettered joy. He is the totem of life going on.

 

Today’s pictures:

HorseBack morning:

Mr Stanley says: please, please, please may I play with my absurd squeaky toy?:

Answer: Yes. At which point, joy is unconfined:

Yesterday was my mother’s birthday, and there are dear relations staying, so we had a very lovely little party. I made what I can only call Luxury Snacks, and arranged some special birthday flowers:

No hill today. The camera battery died. Just imagine something very serene, and very blue.

Battery died before I could capture the horses with the small boy, or their special shining coats, so here is one of Red from a few days ago, because a blog is not a blog without her dear face in it:

(Slightly wistful look means: is tea ready YET?)