Robin Oakley

When lawyers take to racehorses

Graeme McPherson is a successful QC and a dedicated horse trainer. The only problem is when his cases mix with his races

issue 25 January 2014

Can you be both restless and content? Standing last week with Graeme McPherson on the viewing platform over his sharply rising gallops near Stow-on-the-Wold, I found a man who answers to both descriptions. An in-demand QC with a big sporting practice, Graeme is also a racehorse trainer with a fast-expanding yard, a glorious Cotswold hillside house and a plan for the future.

Like most journalists, I live by the next deadline. My lawyer daughter and her husband, another advancing QC, chide me for my lack of a life plan, so perhaps it reveals something about the legal profession that Graeme started his racing career with two. The five-year plan was for a yard of 30 decent horses by December 2014, a target achieved with a year to spare. The ten-year plan is to have trained a Cheltenham Festival winner, and if I can find a bookie to give me reasonable odds on him doing that I will take them.

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