1990 was the last year that I rode with any great intent in amateur races. I had a few more winners, but never again challenged for the championship. Lydia Pearce won the Ladies’ Championship the following year and took home considerably fewer cases of champagne. Her son, Simon, now rides as an apprentice jockey for my brother.
The pink Lanson champagne was saved for my twenty-first birthday party, where my school and university friends helped drink to the exploits of Knock Knock, Waterlow Park, Song of Sixpence and Respectable Jones.
I became president of the Cambridge Union at the end of my second year and graduated from Newnham College with a 2.1 in English.
Mrs. Gooder and her husband, who was director of studies at Clare College, came to stay at Park House for a weekend. She loved seeing the horses in their home environment and watching them on the gallops. We went racing at Newbury, and she could read the form perfectly.
My relationship with the army officer did not survive our living in the same country. We had been better in long-distance letters and, when he returned from the Gulf War, mercifully unhurt, he did not propose again. I went out with a few more boys, because that’s what I thought I was meant to do, taking them out like books from the library and returning them when I didn’t get into the story. I did not treat them well, and didn’t much like the way I was around them. It was another few years before I realized I’d been looking in the wrong section of the library.
My brother moved into Park House with his wife and children a few years ago. My parents built a new house at the end of the garden. Andrew took over the trainer’s license in January 2003 and that year trained his first Classic winner when Casual Look won the Oaks. I attempted to conduct a live TV interview with my father and my brother, but none of us could speak because we were all crying. Andrew now trains over 150 horses and employs 60 staff. He may one day be a champion trainer.
I had no intention of working in racing and left Cambridge wanting to be a writer. A chance meeting with the BBC radio racing correspondent Cornelius Lysaght led to a voice test for Radio 5. The following week, I started as a freelance reporter on racing. I became a trainee sports reporter for a new station called 5 Live, which started in 1994. I had a screen test for television a couple of years later and, when Julian Wilson left, I took over as the BBC’s racing presenter in January 1998. I have been doing the job ever since.
My grandmother died in 2010, at the age of ninety. Her last words were to her doctor, who had withstood her decline with admirable patience, as he urged her to sip from a glass of water.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Trying to drown me?”
I keep a postcard from her in my desk drawer. It says, “I’m sorry I said you were talking nonsense.” It was the only time, to my knowledge, that she ever apologized for telling someone they were an idiot.
I ride rarely now, and I am often asked if I miss it. It was a huge part of the first twenty years of my life and may yet be a huge part of my later life, but these last twenty years have been dedicated to a career that is stimulating, exciting and rewarding. Deep in my heart, I know my working life would not be what it is had I stayed at home.
I have learned not to take too much notice of those who disapprove of my lifestyle choices, because I know that I was not designed to be part of the crowd. If I am different, I make no apology, and I hope that others will have the courage to be themselves and stand up for what they believe in, fight for those who need protection, love who they want to love, and be proud of it.
Alice and I have been together for ten years and counting. We had our civil partnership in 2006. My parents adore her, and my father even accepts that she is better than he is at golf. My nephew Toby asked me the other day, “You and Auntie Alice are married, aren’t you?”
“Yes, effectively, we are,” I replied, deciding that, at three years old, he was a little young to understand the finer points of how civil partnership and marriage differ.
“Can women marry men as well?” he asked.
“They can if they want to, and most women do. But not all.”
He stared at me with big blue eyes and smiled. “I love Auntie Alice,” he said.
“I know. I do too.”
As I write this, Archie the Tibetan Terrier is asking for his evening walk. We live our days according to his needs, but I would admit that his needs suit us very well—a long walk in the morning, a shorter one in the evening. Breakfast in the morning, and tea at four o’clock on the dot. He sleeps on the bed at night and the sofa during the day. He is thoroughly spoiled and he is far from perfect, but he is part of the life that Alice and I have carved for ourselves. We wouldn’t have it any other way.