For whom the bell tolls

"No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promomtorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

I'm very saddened to say that it was brought home to me last night that these words can be as pertinent now as they were when John Donne wrote them in 1624, because early yesterday evening, just as I was thinking that I would be writing a blog to report on what a nice weekend it had been, Jane Chapple-Hyam rang me to pass on the devastating news that Leslie Harrison had died that morning. This was completely out of the blue. Although Leslie never looked particularly well and one would probably have described him as underweight, and although his suddenly giving up smoking a few weeks ago had suggested that perhaps he had received a pretty dire medical wake-up call, one would have expected him to live another couple of decades. Apparently he began to feel unwell through the morning, and just faded and died in Ruth's arms. He was 63. It is just so sad to think that suddenly Leslie has no more life to enjoy, and that Ruth has had to suffer, and is suffering, this terrible sadness. As the bell tolls for Leslie, we are all diminished, because he was such a big part of life, a wise and friendly face who was just part of Newmarket and of the bloodstock world, and who suddenly isn't there any more. He has enriched my life hugely, and I would be just one of thousands who would say that.

As you may have picked up from previous postings, our Monday evening Pedigree Club gatherings in Leslie and Ruth's house have been a very big part of our lives over the past year. They have made us so welcome, made us feel completely at home in their house while Leslie has led us through some truly enjoyable, very stimulating and very funny, discussions. Sadly I missed last Monday's gathering, as I was under the weather and my energy levels were at rock bottom, but I was so looking forward to the meeting which Leslie would have hosted this evening. I happened to notice a couple of weeks ago that an Australian-bred Group One winner in South Africa last month, Sun Classique, was by Fuji Kiseki from Elfenjer, by Last Tycoon from Gamine. And, if I remember rightly, SA Oaks winner Gamine was one of the very few good horses sired by Kris' and Diesis' brother Keen. I was disappointed last week not to be well enough to bring that one up last Monday, and was really looking forward to asking Leslie this evening whether he'd noticed that Keen had appeared in the pedigree of a recent Group One winner. I suspect he wouldn't have picked up on it, and I know he'd have really enjoyed finding out, and that it would have been the trigger to a good discussion as we prompted him for his recollections of Keen. And now that opportunity has gone. Leslie can't enjoy the discovery, and all his knowledge has died with him. I can't claim to have known Leslie closely, but I liked him and respected him very much, and greatly treasured the welcome which I received every week from him and Ruth, and the discussions which we had. The bell tolls for us all.

So that, I'm afraid, was a really shitty way to end what had up to that point been a really pleasant weekend. Emma had organised a syndicate outing to visit Anis Etoile at Kerry's farm, but this turned out to be less of an event than we'd hoped - but no less enjoyable for that. Steve McCormick's brother Ronan had a long-planned visit to England for the weekend and was keen to see the filly, so we made a long-range plan to make the journey up to Norfolk, and the obvious thing to do was to encourage all the English-based share-holders to join us. All were keen to do so, but obviously circumstances would become clearer nearer the time. As it transpired, as the weekend approached, it turned out that Ronan's schedule would be too tight for him to come, and then all bar Anna Ridges of the home team found that they couldn't make it. So at the end of a dull, grey, wet Saturday morning, Anna appeared here and she, Emma and I loaded ourselves into the car, put the windscreen wipers onto full, and headed north. And we had a LOVELY time. Kerry had very kindly offered to provide lunch for the visitors, and went well beyond the call of duty in laying on a really lovely lunch. It was great to spend a few hours with her and Steve, plus their two excellent children Joshua and Eleanor, and we didn't hit the road home, with very full bellies, until it was getting dark. The real brahma of the visit was, unbelievably, that Anis Etoile was very lame when we ventured out into the rain to see her! Poor Kerry must have been so embarrassed at this astonishing coincidence, as it transpired that she had had a foot abscess appear that day. She is in a field with Ben Bhraggie, who is a real prick to have anything done to his feet, and I was just chuckling to myself at the coincidence of it all, and said to Kerry, "Well it could have been worse: it could have been Ben Bhraggie" (who had a foot abscess last month, and caused Kerry a huge amount of trouble as she dealt with it). To this, Kerry pertinently replied, "Well, yes, except that he's not the one you've brought Anna to see"! It's lucky that Anna knows horses and knows us well enough not to suspect a cover-up, because in retrospect I can see that it could have been suggested that I took the discovery of Anis Etoile's lameness too light-heartedly. Basically, long-term it is of no significance whatsoever, and the coincidence of the timing was amusingly bizarre, but someone who knows me and horses less well might have thought that I was either not treating a problem with the seriousness it deserved, or was taking a misleading jolly view of things to brush a problem under the carpet. But really it isn't a problem at all, and it was just very funny - although poor Kerry obviously didn't think so at the time. I took a few photos in the gloom, one of which has made its way onto the site elsewhere; it's either in Emma's blog or in the latest news section.

I also have some photos on my camera which Tim, Anna's husband who arrived at our house on Saturday evening, having spent the afternoon at Stamford Bridge watching Chelsea play, took on Sunday morning as Anna, Emma and I went for a ride up Warren Hill. That was really nice, especially as pleasant spring-like weather had made a brief return. One of these photos is somewhere on the site too, so I don't know if there'll be anything to illustrate this posting. You'll have seen from a picture which I took out of the window of Olly and Katie picking their way up the snowy stable-yard last Thursday which has been attached to my previous rambling that the prediction therein that snow was about to arrive did indeed come true. However, it's been and gone, and we're back to being as wet as we were in the first half of January.

Something else you might like to see is the page of horse biographies, because it had been becoming irritatingly clear to me, whenever I looked at the page, that most of what was on there was terribly out of date. So a few days ago I wrote out new descriptions for all the animals who are here (although I naturally didn't pen anything for Panto, leaving that important assignment to Emma) and Emma put them up yesterday. There are actually still two or three descriptions which to my eyes stick out like sore and inaccurate thumbs, because I only wrote pieces for horses who are here at the moment (and for Ben and Anis Etoile) and have found that that leaves us with some outdated biographies for former inmates (who may or may not be going to return) still up there. But you can't have too much (mis)information! And if you don't know the horse isn't here, and don't know that what's said isn't really relevant any more, you won't realise that it's wrong. Anyway, if you're wondering about anything in training here, the likelihood is that what is up there now is a fairly accurate summary of its current state of play. And I couldn't have said that two days ago.