Some mysteries will never be solved, like why planes and boats disappear in the Bermuda Triangle, cats always land on their feet and why Mrs Oakley can always find a parking space plumb outside a restaurant when I am lucky to squeeze in 400 yards away. Add one more conundrum: why are there only 12 horses in the successful racing stable run by Mark and Sara Bradstock?
Since 1994 they have trained in Captain Tim Forster’s old yard opposite the church in Letcombe Bassett. On the skyline above their glorious gallops are tree clumps planted by the Captain to celebrate his Grand National successes. Their home is in a row of converted boxes where the great Golden Miller was once trained and where an irrepressible terrier shares the breakfast table with your coffee. It is an operation in which animals come first in every sense.
Horses have not always been good to the Bradstocks, a couple who share a passion and who talk as a pair, filling in each other’s dependent clauses. One reared over and broke Mark’s pelvis in three places. Sara holds her throat to speak after bad falls damaged her respiratory nerves, daughter Lily spent four years in and out of hospital after a paralysing kick from a pony but has still followed her brother Alfie as an international eventer and showjumper. Mark learned his trade through 12 years with Fulke Walwyn, Sara is the daughter of the late and beloved Lord John Oaksey, amateur rider, racing journalist supreme and co-founder of the Injured Jockeys Fund.
Spending £15,000 or £20,000 maximum, they regularly produce horses capable of taking on the £200,000 purchases in the top yards, like their Cheltenham Festival winner King Harald. Their best have been the progeny of Plaid Maid, a mare whom they found in a field in Ireland to give John Oaksey some breeding fun in his declining years.
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