Before the tide of history washes him away, and the race which commemorates him (2.15 Yarmouth) is renamed for some commercial sponsor, can I briefly leave an elegy for Sir John Musker ?
Met him once, when my firm was peripherally involved with the winding-up of his private bank (Cater-something). When I say 'met', I only mean that we were in the same room: I was just a bag-carrier and note-taker, and no dialogue took place, but he seemed pleasant enough. What he deserves to be remembered for is the original creation of the Shadwell Stud operation, long before it was sold to Sheikh Hamdan in the 1980s.
I suppose his claim to fame today is that he was the fourth husband of Audrey Paget (half-sister to the legendary Dorothy, owner of Golden Miller and arguably pound for pound the most prodigious punter of the 20th century). Audrey was - putting it delicately - a bit of a goer: when she was a WAAF in the early 1940s, she reputedly told an admirer (Jock Colville, then Churchill's personal secretary) that she spent all day saying yes, sir and all night saying no ,sir. I hope it's true.
So, I always look for the Shadwell colours in this race. Owen Burrows's horse Talbeyah doesn't exactly leap off the page at you, but I'll have a bit on out of sentiment. Talking of sentiment, I understand that the main house, Shadwell Court, has been allowed to deteriorate to the extent that the Victorian Society has listed it as 'endangered'. I hope that's not true, but the Shadwell Estate does have something of a reputation for concentrating on land and letting buildings fall into decay. Princess Newmarket may be better informed about this than I am, though.
