14.

Ross Poldark

Ross Poldark was not a good everyday ride. He was fine in a race, when he loved to be in front of a crowd and tended to show his best side, but at home he pulled too hard and he wouldn’t stand still to watch the other horses.

So Dad said I was to ride one of the racehorses called Miller’s Tale. He was a son of Mill Reef, out of a mare called Canterbury Tale. It was a great name. Naming racehorses is a fun process and, for Mr. Mellon, it was part of the challenge. He picked names that were memorable, clever and often funny. All racehorse names in Britain have to be registered with Weatherby’s, who will ensure that names are not repeated and are not rude or offensive.

Names such as Wear the Fox Hat or Sofa King Fast have been rejected on the grounds of poor taste. Other racing authorities are sometimes not as eagle-eyed or as aware of how a name might sound when a commentator is in full flow. In South Africa, Hoof Hearted had ten runs without troubling the judge while, in France, Big Tits was similarly unsuccessful.

Much later in Mr. Mellon’s life, when discussions over the division of the family fortune were a little too regular for his liking, he bred a foal by Seeking the Gold out of You’d Be Surprised. He called it Wait for the Will.

The Queen has proven inventive at naming horses. She has a horse in training with my brother by Motivator out of Small Fortune—he is called Bank Bonus. Years ago, a horse of the Queen’s by Young Generation was called Unknown Quantity, and one out of Contralto was called Soprano. Shaft of Light was out of Reflection. The royal names are often rather beautiful words or phrases—Zenith, Phantom Gold, Sleeping Beauty, Insular, Vitality or Tolerance (by Final Straw).

Dad got out his Dymo Maxi printing gun and typed out my name: Clare B. I was going to appear on the slate, like a proper jockey. He slotted it into a rung next to the bottom and put Miller’s Tale in the gap for First Lot. I tried to persuade Dad to put Stuart’s name on there too (as I would be riding him Second Lot, after breakfast), but he was a trainer—he had some pride. He didn’t want to be typing out the name of a half-bred hunter who weighed over 700 kilos, or more than a ton. That would be plain embarrassing.

The next morning, Dad woke me up at six thirty and I headed out into the yard. I know it sounds odd, as I had spent my whole life there, but I really didn’t know much about the way the yard actually worked. I had been banned from going anywhere near it for most of my childhood, and for the past four years I had been obsessed with my own ponies and horses at the stud.

My father employed around forty staff, and they all rode out until they got so old that their creaking bones wouldn’t take it any more. If they still wanted to be around horses, and most of them did, they would help out around the yard, muck out, sweep up—there was always someone sweeping—or take the horses swimming. It was a job for life, and among the team was a hard core of men who had been there ever since my father had started training.

The Head Lad for nearly twenty years was Bill Palmer. He was a bow-legged ex-jump jockey whose face was weather-beaten from a life spent outdoors. He lived in brown jodhpurs, battered brown boots and a tweed cap. He used to ride in just the cap, but my father now insisted on and provided crash hats for everyone. He had seen too many head injuries. Bill was probably only a couple of years older than my father, but he seemed ancient.

“So, Miss Clare,” he said as he pulled down a saddle for me, “going to ride a racehorse, are you? It’s about time, I s’pose. Take this bridle for now, and be sure to wash it after you’ve used it. There’s a cover here for the girth that you need to put on the laundry pile afterward. There you go.”

Bill handed me a light leather saddle that was no more than a handspan in width, two in length and absolutely flat. The lads in the yard all had their own tack and transferred it to each horse they rode. To prevent ringworm or other skin diseases being spread around the whole string, the girth was covered in a washable cotton sheath, which was cleaned after every use.

I set off to tack up Miller’s Tale. He was so gentle and his skin so soft that I dared not brush it. I polished him instead, with a stable rubber. His muzzle felt like satin as he took a Polo from my hand.

One of our young apprentices, Seamus O’Gorman, was tacking up in the stable next door, so I asked him for some help. He showed me how to fold the sheet up over the top of the saddle and secure it with the surcingle, which went over the top of the girth and around the saddle, keeping it all in place. It was complicated and had to be done so fast. We pulled out at seven twenty on the dot. I made the best job I could and led Miller’s Tale out in the middle of the yard.

“Forgotten the dandy brush?” Seamus was pulling bits of straw from Miller’s Tale’s black tail. “And what about your hoof pick?”

Miller’s Tale was spreading caked droppings all over the yard as his hooves met the tarmac and the contents were banged out. I had forgotten to pick out his feet. It was not a good start.

All the lads led their horses toward Bill, who grabbed the reins with his left hand and gave them a leg-up with his right. I watched how it was done and presented myself with my left leg sticking out.

“One, two, three,” said Bill, making a lifting motion on “three.” Nothing happened. I stayed firmly rooted to the spot, hopping on one leg to keep up with Miller’s Tale, who was walking toward the gates.

“You’ve got to help me,” explained Bill. “You have to jump on ‘three.’”

“Oh, I didn’t realize. I always use the mounting block.”

I scrambled into the saddle in a rather undignified manner. Many of the younger lads just vaulted, wriggled and swung their legs in the saddle. For that, you need a little more natural spring than I possessed, and a little less dead weight.

The saddle for other equestrian pursuits is designed to help keep you in place, to allow you to sit deep and to “feel” a horse. If a normal saddle is a chair, a racing saddle is a bar stool. You don’t sit on it, you use it to perch.

Once I was on board, I gave Miller’s Tale a pat and joined the crowd of chattering riders in the indoor school. My stirrups felt perilously short, but I didn’t want to look as if I didn’t know what I was doing.

The colts were at the front of the string, fillies at the back, and the geldings, like Miller’s Tale, could go anywhere they wanted. We went right at the back. The indoor school is a big ring built of concrete breeze blocks, forming a circular corridor about eight feet wide. The outside wall is solid, the inside wall open to the elements from just above the height of a horse’s head. If it rains and the wind is blowing in an unhelpful direction, the rider’s face gets battered but the horse is fully protected. As was true for most things at Kingsclere, the comfort of the horses came first.

My father stood on his hack at the open gates to the indoor school. He watched each horse walk by and asked each rider if they felt OK—the horse that is, not the person. He wasn’t interested in human coughs and colds, but if one of the horses had given a cough or taken a false step or felt strange for any reason, he wanted to know. I came past at the back of the string, my stirrups shorter than I had ever had them.

“All right there, Clare?” Dad called.

“Yes, I’m fine, thanks,” I replied.

“Not you, you idiot, Miller’s Tale—is he all right?” he said firmly.

“Yes. Yes, I think so,” I said, not really sure what he was meant to feel like.

We walked another circuit or two, and then I heard Dad yell to Spider and John Matthias, who were at the front: “Jog on now. Eight circuits. Come on, let’s get going.”

The entire string of forty horses eased forward into trot. Some of them bucked, others snorted. The riders all sat tight, bracing themselves for the usual signs of freshness and well-being. It was then I noticed that I seemed to be the only one with my stirrups hiked up short. The others all had a nice long length of leather, allowing their legs to wrap around their horses. I looked like a frog, hopping up and down as I did rising trot around and around in circles.

After three laps, I realized why they had their stirrups long. Doing rising trot with short stirrups is absolute agony. My thighs felt as if I had lit them with a blowtorch. They were burning with pain. As we trotted past my father, still watching from the main entrance, I said, “How many more?”

“Five.”

Good God, I wasn’t sure I could last one more at this rate. It was nothing to do with my knee this time, but my muscles were protesting.

Bill was directly behind me.

“Getting a bit tired, Miss Clare?” he laughed. “Rest your hands on his withers and just stand. He’ll do the rest.”

The relief as I kept myself in the raised position was immediate. Miller’s Tale plodded on, following the horse in front, and I could effectively freewheel until the cries of “Whoa” came back through the string and we could pull up into walk. You can’t do this on a fresh young two-year-old, but on a sweet old gelding like Miller’s Tale the odd shortcut is allowed.

“Best to wait until after you’ve trotted to shorten your stirrups,” said Bill as he pulled up his leathers.

Oh, what good advice. How very helpful. Thanks so much for telling me this now it’s over.

We headed out of the school, around the cinder track and into the Starting Gate field. The “round chippings” was a huge circular track of wood chip where we would have our first canter. The string stayed in exactly the same order, with the colts at the front and the fillies at the back.

Spider set the pace at the front, with every horse a length behind. Some pulled for their heads, others settled beautifully. Miller’s Tale was a gent. He wouldn’t dream of running away with a teenager on her first day riding a racehorse. Other horses would not be so kind.

Dad came trotting over to have a word.

“Let him have his head,” he said. “You need to relax a little more. Flatten your back, keep your lower leg still—it’s moving backward and forwards all the time—and just keep a light contact on his mouth.”

He moved to the front of the string and started shouting out instructions. Nearly all of us were put into pairs, a few into a group of three, and one horse, who was particularly difficult, would canter on his own. I was paired with Bill, who was riding a horse called Mailman. The lads around me hitched their stirrups up a little bit shorter, so I did the same. It was a bit like getting into a steaming bath: I had got used to the temperature by now and could take a little more heat.

I followed Bill to the bottom of the straight four-furlong gallop, left a gap while he set off and let Miller’s Tale find his stride. I sat up and rested my hands on the withers, slipping a finger under the neck strap to keep my hands still. Bill set off so fast I had to give my horse a squeeze to catch up. Then, suddenly, Miller’s Tale was pulling my arms out. I could enjoy the magic of galloping at speed on an animal that has been designed to do exactly that.

The faster a horse is traveling, the more the weight of the rider needs to be positioned forward, over the shoulder. In the 1870s, Degas painted jockeys with long stirrups, their legs hanging down below a horse’s stomach. This increases control and security, because it’s hard to fall off, but impedes the speed of the horse.

Two American jockeys revolutionized the British jockeys’ riding style. Willie Simms rode with great success in America and came to Britain in 1895, to be followed two years later by Tod Sloan. Sloan won five consecutive races at Newmarket in 1898 using the “monkey crouch,” which sealed the fate of the old British bolt-upright style.

Miller’s Tale pulled himself up at the top of the hill—he had been doing this for so long he knew exactly where the gallop ended—and I patted him furiously as we walked along the path and down the hedgerow toward my father.

“Good boy. You are a good lad,” I gushed.

“All right, Bill?” my father asked.

“Yes, Guv’nor. He feels great. He’ll be ready to run next week, I’d say.”

“All right, Clare?”

“Oh, he was lovely. Just lovely.” I was still patting Miller’s Tale furiously.

“For Christ’s sake, girl, he’s not a pony. Leave him be for a second,” he snapped. “What were you doing for the first two furlongs? Climbing all over Mailman, you were. You looked like a sack of potatoes. You need to find a bit of muscle somewhere.”

He was right. Riding racehorses was about as similar to my kind of riding as flying is to driving. I would need to start again from scratch.

Back in a normal saddle, I was still persevering with the madness of Henry. I took him up on the Downs and tried to make him jump the Team Chase course at a sensible pace. He hopped up and down on the spot and then shot forward, hot breath steaming from his nostrils like a dragon. I tried dropping my hands completely, thinking that, if I didn’t resist him, he wouldn’t fight for his head. That didn’t work so well.

We came into the double of brush hedges that separated the first paddock of jumps from the second so fast he tipped up at the second part. I crashed to the ground, cracking two ribs in the process. I didn’t need to go to the hospital, but it was darned uncomfortable for a while. Every time I laughed, it hurt, and when I tried to sneeze, my body would cut out just before “atishoo.”

My point-to-point debut was put on hold.

~

Most horses like attention and respond to affection. They like to be stroked, patted, kissed and cuddled. They like it almost as much as we do, but we do it for us, to make us feel better and to make us feel loved. It’s why humans domesticated animals in the first place—to bring something warm and furry into our lives that needs us.

Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, argues that horses have domesticated humans as much as we have domesticated them. I believe that horses bring out the best in us. They judge us not by how we look, what we’re wearing or how powerful or rich we are, they judge us in terms of sensitivity, consistency and patience. They demand standards of behavior and levels of kindness that we, as humans, then strive to maintain.

I wonder if that’s why some of the most famous and powerful people in the world—the Queen, the Aga Khan, Sheikh Mohammed, even Madonna—develop strong relationships with horses. Perhaps, surrounded by those who flatter, it’s the only way they can get a true reflection of themselves. The horse will be their honest mirror.

During the First World War, the British Army acquired over a million horses. The Great War was the last of the major cavalry encounters, because it saw the arrival of an enemy the horse could not match—the tank. The tank was stronger, but the horses provided the men with so much more than just a means of transport. For many, the only thread connecting them with sanity in the face of such despair and chaos was the daily care for their horse. Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse tells that story through the eyes of Joey, a plow horse who is called up to fight.

In the midst of extreme inhumanity, man is given a chance to show his humanity. Respect for human life was disintegrating before their eyes, but the moral code of care for their horses held as strong as it could until the end. If only we could say that we honored them after the end of the war but, largely speaking, we did not. Of the half-million or so horses that survived, only 62,000 were deemed worthy of being transported home. It was the largest ever loss of British horses.

I rode a horse for a while who could have been an officer’s charger. Henry had run away with me once too often, Stuart wasn’t ready for competition and Quirk was lame, so my mother organized for us to borrow a horse for the summer. A cartoonist called Tony Cuthbert who drag hunted with the Berks & Bucks had been trying his hand at eventing, but it wasn’t working out that well. He was having particular trouble with this one horse, so he figured a break for both of them might be the answer.

Tony’s horse trailer was even bigger than the six-berth trailer that took the racehorses to all parts of the country. It didn’t hold as many horses, but it had living quarters, a shower and a TV. It was too big to park at the stud, so it had to be taken up to the yard for the ramp to be let down. I had no idea what sort of a horse was coming to stay, but I hadn’t expected this.

If the horse trailer was enormous, so was the horse that emerged. Tony said he was over seventeen hands high, but no one had ever been able to get a measuring stick near enough to him to get an accurate reading. He was called Pot Luck and, as he came down the ramp, he was dripping with sweat.

“Hates the horse trailer,” said Tony. “He’s a shocker to load and doesn’t like traveling.”

I took the rope from Tony and put my hand toward Pot Luck’s head to calm him. He pulled away from me and put his ears back.

“Thanks so much for having him.” Tony was talking to my mother. “Weight off my mind, to be honest. I’m not sure he likes me much.”

I led Pots away, and we walked slowly down to the stud. He spooked at a bird in the tree, at the foals, at the tractor in its shed and, seemingly most terrifying of all, at a dandelion. Yes, a dandelion.

This giant of a horse, who weighed enough to crush a truck and looked as if he could lead the Charge of the Light Brigade, was scared of his own shadow. He hesitated at the red-brick arch that led into the yard and started to resist me. I let the rope go slack and moved back toward him.

“Come on, you old fool,” I said, trying to sound jolly and encouraging. “Honestly, there’s nothing to be scared of. It’s just an arch.”

Carol came out of the tack room at the far end carrying a head collar. Well, it might as well have been an air gun. Pots rushed backward; the rope in my hands suddenly tugged hard, pulling me into the air with the force of it. I clung on and used all my weight to set myself against him. I didn’t want to get into a tug of war so, as soon as I was close enough, I slackened the rope again and let him stand.

He was quivering like a jellyfish. He wasn’t like Frank or Quirk or Hattie, who could behave like this out of naughtiness. He was genuinely terrified. I stood just under his head, and waited. I talked to him constantly, in a low voice, just nonsense but getting him used to the sound of me.

I got a packet of Polos out of my pocket and put one in my hand, not offering it to him but just letting it sit in the palm of my hand. Pots could have trampled me, he could have bitten me or pulled away and got loose, but he didn’t. All horses are curious—whether they are foals or adults—and they will stay with the thing or the person that interests them.

The usual clattering of the stud carried on around us, the sounds of horses being brought in from the fields, being fed, watered and groomed. I explained to Pots who they all were and what was happening. Slowly, his head came lower and, eventually, I felt his breath behind my neck. I carried on chatting, trying not to move my hands or my head and, as his nostrils came toward my left ear, I started to breathe more deeply, through my nose, as a horse does.

He hesitated for a second and then kept coming, his head appearing over my shoulder and reaching for my hand. I raised my palm just a fraction to make it easier for him, but his head shot back and we had to start again from scratch. I have no idea how long it took, but I had time on my side and I knew that this first bonding would be crucial.

When Pot Luck finally succumbed, he took the Polo from my palm, chewed it and spat it out. His top lip curled back in disgust, and I started laughing. He looked so funny, behaving like a baby spitting out its food. He let me stroke the side of his enormous head and, as I slowly inched closer, he leaned toward me.

“Here we go, big man. Do you want to see your new room?”

I started to walk steadily toward the arch, leaving the rope slack so that, if he came, he was doing it because he wanted to. Gingerly, he placed one hoof in front of the other and followed me into the yard. We turned left toward his stall, where Carol had laid a deep bed of fresh straw and a big pile of sweet hay. As we got toward the door, Pots barged past me, squeezing me against the side. I let go of the rope as he charged in, and slammed the door shut before he could change his mind.

In the stable on the opposite side of the quadrangle, the noble head of Ross Poldark poked over the top of his door. He was having his summer break but, earlier that year, he had, finally, carried me in my first point-to-point.

It had been at Hackwood Park on Saturday, April 4, in the Ladies’ Open. I had borrowed Dad’s racing breeches and boots. Both were too big, but he would not allow me to wear my eventing gear. For one thing, it was too heavy, and for another, as he said, “You’ll look like a bloody amateur.”

“But I thought this was an amateur sport? Isn’t that what point-to-pointing is?” I asked.

“Yes, but there’s amateur and there’s amateur.”

It was clear I could be one but not the other. I could take part in this sport for the love of it, as in the French or Latin translation of “amateur,” but I must not seem amateur in the British sense of “a bit rubbish.” The point-to-point has its roots in Ireland, where, two hundred and fifty years ago, people would race on horseback from one point to another. Often, they would use the steeple of a church as a highly visible point to race toward—hence the term “steeplechasing.”

I didn’t really want to ride in a point-to-point at all. It was just one of those things that had taken on a life of its own. Dad had said it would happen, and therefore it was happening. The trouble was, I couldn’t win. I could, in theory, win the actual race, but if I did it would be Poldark’s victory, and if I didn’t it would be my fault. I felt inadequate and nervous, so I dealt with it by being grumpy and pretending I didn’t care.

Hackwood Park is on the outskirts of Basingstoke, less than half an hour from Kingsclere. I traveled in the horse trailer with Mum and Liz, who would lead up Poldark. Dad and Andrew came later in the car. The weather was atrocious, so the field had been reduced to just four. As long as I stayed in the saddle, I thought, I would be placed in my very first race.

The circuit at Hackwood is a tight left-hand oval of only a mile, so you have to go three times around. I walked the course with my father, who tried to explain to me the importance of taking the inside line. With it being such a tight course, he reckoned I could save lengths if I was always on the inside at the bends. I was more worried about counting the number of times we were going around so that I didn’t ride for home a circuit too early.

I headed off to the ladies’ changing room, which was one section of a large tent, to get ready. My father’s breeches were too loose around the waist and kept falling down at the back. His boots were made of paper-thin black leather, with brown tops; they were classical and smart, but the soles felt like cardboard. I stuffed the toes with cotton batting. I wore my back protector over a cotton T-shirt. Then a cream silk scarf around my neck tied with a scarf pin that used to belong to my great-grandmother and, finally, my father’s colors—turquoise with brown sleeves and a turquoise cap.

This was to be a rather public debut. There had been a piece in the Racing Post saying that I was making my race-riding debut. Grandma was there, along with girls from school for whom Hackwood was their local course. There were bookmakers taking actual money from people who were backing me. This was not a game anymore—there were investments from people I had never met.

I emerged from the changing room in my outfit, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. I hated wearing a back protector, because it made me look like a hunchback and, at sixteen, I was far more concerned about how I looked than the protection it offered my spine. Dad had the saddle ready, with racing girths and surcingle balancing on top. The weight for all ladies’ races at point-to-points is eleven stone, including saddle. Some of the smaller girls needed weight cloths with lead weights to make their weight up. Suffice to say, I did not.

Dad disappeared to saddle up Poldark and I waited with the other three girls—well, women—who were riding in the race. One was Amanda Harwood, whose father, Guy, was also a trainer. He had trained Dancing Brave, one of the most brilliant horses of all time and number one on most people’s lists of “horses that should have won the Derby.” He finished a narrow second in 1986, having won the 2000 Guineas. He would go on to win the Eclipse, the King George and the Arc.

Amanda was a year older than me and had ridden winners already. She was focused and serious. We stood, the four of us, waiting to walk out from the tent to the rainy paddock. I think that was the worst moment of the lot. I tried to lighten the mood by chatting away, saying things I thought were funny but, for the moments before a race, were deeply inappropriate. I was getting on my own nerves, and no doubt theirs as well.

I walked out into the center of the paddock. My father looked serious; my mother, nervous. My brother looked odd. He was wearing Dad’s old leather jacket, one of my shirts hanging loose over his jeans and a gray cardigan. It wasn’t the clothes I minded—I had been telling him exactly what to wear for about five years—it was the hair.

Unlike the rest of us, Andrew had curly hair. It sat on top of his head like a fluffy toupee. He had tried Brylcreem, gel, mousse, fudge and wax. He had even tried hoof oil but, despite the rain, it was still a bouffant, like Lionel Blair’s.

Dad talked me through exactly what he wanted me to do. He was firm with his instructions and went on and on about sticking to the inside rail. I was distracted by the crowds of people thronging around the paddock, so I wasn’t really listening. When he gave me a leg-up, I missed my timing fractionally. It wasn’t the most stylish or dignified arrival in the saddle. I heard tittering in the crowd, and voices saying, “Are you sure she knows how to ride?” and “I know the horse is top class but even a great horse can’t carry a passenger who doesn’t know how to drive.”

Liz looked up at me and smiled.

“He’s really well today,” she said. “He’s been pulling me round this paddock. You just sit tight and you’ll be fine.”

Poldark was elegant, proud and, luckily for me, knew exactly what he was doing. We cantered down to look at the first fence, a peculiar tradition that I am sure is more for the benefit of the rider than the horse. I like it because, even in the midst of the hard-nosed industry of horse racing, it reveals a softer side—the side that acknowledges a horse’s brain and character.

Poldark didn’t look that closely, he looked over the fence, his ears pricked and his gaze far into the distance, as if he saw beyond the tight turns of Hackwood. A few cameras clicked—he was, after all, extremely photogenic. My father always reckoned he had “the look of eagles.”

We circled at the start, the four of us saying nothing to one another. I was looking at the crowd, while the other three were looking at the starter. They turned as the starter raised his flag and shouted, “Ready?”

Amanda and the others were absolutely ready. I was away with the fairies. The starter’s flag dropped, and the three of them went thundering toward the first fence. I heard my father’s voice shouting at me to get a move on, realized they wouldn’t be called back and pointed Poldark in the right direction.

On the plus side, we had a clear view of all our fences and were in no danger of jumping into the back of the other runners or being brought down if one of them fell. On the minus side, we were tailed off, a fence behind Amanda and the others. As I passed the start again, I heard my father shouting, “Give him a bloody kick! Lay up. Come on, lay up!”

I duly moved my lower leg as much as is possible when you’re perched up a horse’s neck like a monkey up a tree. Poldark responded and started to make ground on the others. He jumped brilliantly, seeing his own stride and adjusting accordingly if he was slightly wrong. I kept my hands in the neck strap and tried not to interfere. I lost my balance a couple of times on landing, and my reins were so slippery that I didn’t have any grip, but he stayed so straight and true that I was never in danger of falling off.

He sailed over the Open Ditch, and I could hear my schoolfriends shouting their encouragement. By the time we passed the start again, I was only a few lengths behind the others. I hugged the inside rail and, as we turned into the home straight for the final time, with two fences to jump, I snuck up the inside of Amanda Harwood.

“What the hell are you doing there?” I heard her say, before she gave her horse two cracks with the whip. We jumped the last near enough together before her horse, Red Shah, picked up again and forged clear.

I let Poldark ease down (or I was so exhausted I stopped riding) as we were well clear of the others, and we finished second. The first time you race over three miles is an absolute killer. Liz ran to meet me to lead Poldark back toward the winner’s enclosure, her face wreathed in smiles. She patted him and me and told us how brilliant we were.

I could see my mother having words with Dad as they stood in the place reserved for the second. I thought he was about to launch into a Grade A scolding, but he smiled and said, “Did you enjoy that? There’s a bit we need to work on, but not bad, girl. Not bad for a first effort.”

“I got up Amanda Harwood’s inner!” I said, relieved that he had ignored the crime of getting left at the start. “Did you see? I got right up her inner!”

He had seen, as had Guy Harwood, who was giving his daughter grief for allowing it to happen.

I saw Grandma walking toward us, putting money into her wallet. She smiled.

“Well done,” she said. “At least you didn’t fall off. That would have been embarrassing.”

“I hope you didn’t back me,” I replied. “I would have hated to lose you money.”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Grandma, peering down at me. “I backed Amanda Harwood. She’s a proper jockey.”

~

The Downe House school prefects are called seniors. They are elected by the whole school and the members of staff, with the person winning most votes being declared the Head Senior. My mother had been Deputy Head Senior in 1966. In 1988, my name was on the voting list. By virtue of being Head of House, I had been heard and seen a lot around school.

When the voting was over, the results were announced in the large dining room. The incumbent Head Senior, Sarah Carter, revealed that I would succeed her. Toe, Heidi, Char, Shorty, KT, Becks and Gerry were all elected seniors as well, and my deputy was a laid-back, kindhearted girl called Marina Mohammed-Arif. Ours was a band of genuinely close friends, and we were determined to work as a team.

Having been suspended and de-housed in the Lower IV, four years later I was Head of House and Head Girl. Miss Farr pinned the metal badge on my cloak.

“Well, well,” she said. “I knew you were worth giving a second chance, but even I could not have predicted this. Quite a turn-around, my girl. Quite a turnaround.”

She held my shoulders and smiled.

Now, when I walked into Miss Farr’s drawing room to sit in the chair opposite her desk, I could relax. We met once a week, and she would ask me about concerns the girls might have. She always listened to me with patience and consideration. She gave the impression that she valued what I had to say and, in return, I made sure it was worth hearing.

It’s hard to know exactly what makes any of us click in our teenage years. It’s not an easy time of life, and you need people on your side. I had Miss Farr, and I had a brilliant English teacher called Miss Healy.

I had never met anyone as clever as Miss Healy. She was only a few years older than us, had left Oxford the year before and this was her first job. She taught me that poetry rewards the investigative mind.

“Look beyond the words, Clare. What does it say to you?” She looked at me and silently challenged me to allow my brain to expand.

“The poet is a part of this, but he is not all of it,” she said. “He writes the words and they mean what they mean to him, but you, the reader, you fulfill the chemical experiment. You complete the poem. Without you, those are just words. With you and your interpretation, it becomes poetry.”

Miss Healy was so detached, so self-contained. She made things happen. She read extensively to arrive at an informed opinion so that she could be governed by what she thought of the world, not what others thought about her.

I wanted to be like that. I wanted to think for myself, not be consumed by what others thought of me. I wanted to be the subject of the sentence of my life, not the object—to control and initiate the things that happened, not to allow life to happen to me or be about what other people thought of me. Most of all, I wanted to have an identity that was not linked to my surname or to the achievements of my family. Perhaps that is why I had been so reluctant to embrace horse racing or even point-to-pointing. It seemed such a cliché. I would be condemned to the title of “Ian Balding’s daughter.”