Horses for courses
A club-footed chestnut mare was an improbably providential purchase.
The Duke of Bedford’s racing colours were once famous. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Duke’s horses had won the English Derby and The Oaks three times.
But by the time Robin Russell, heir to the title, married Henrietta Tiarks, no one in the family had raced horses for more than 100 years. Henrietta was determined to make the colours – purple and white vertical stripes and a black velvet cap with a gold tassel – famous again.
This is Henrietta’s story about her love of horse breeding and its role in their eventual move to New Zealand.
‘ After 10 unsuccessful years with our horses, Robin probably felt sorry for me – he told me I could buy a good mare, up to £20,000. I went to the Tattersalls December sales in 1975 and was sitting in the sales ring when a very pretty little chestnut mare walked in. I knew nothing about her, but my hand went up, the hammer fell and Mrs Moss was mine for 2100 guineas.
I rushed outside to have a good look at her, only to find she had a club foot (that means a little boxy foot – not something one wants to see or breed). I rushed to find the vendor to see if I could return her, but he wouldn’t agree, so she was mine. She was a winner of one unimportant race, she’d had two foals and was carrying her third. I did not dare tell Robin what I had done so I said nothing, and sent her to live with a friend.
The foal she was carrying sold for nearly what she had cost. And the next one for £10,000. By now, Robin knew and was fine about it. By the time that fourth foal sold for £10,000, all Mrs Moss’ other foals were winners. Then came the magic 80s. Mrs Moss had four different group winners at Royal Ascot – Pushy, Krayyan, Precocious and Jupiter Island. My little chestnut mare was a star. In all, Mrs Moss had 15 foals and 14 winners.
Jupiter Island started our New Zealand connection and, if it had not been for him, we might only have made a single visit. Jupiter Island won the Japan Cup in 1986, the first British horse to do so. At that time it was the richest race in the world, paying approximately £500,000 to the winner. His mother had cost 2100 guineas and the service fee to his sire, St Paddy, had been £300.
In Japan, we met the O’Sullivan family – Dave O’Sullivan was New Zealand’s champion trainer and the trainer of the favourite for that race, Waverley Star.
After 10 unsuccessful years with our horses, Robin probably felt sorry for me – he told me I could buy a good mare, up to £20,000.
That evening at the party, his daughter Lisa, who was 16 at the time, came up to me and said, “My father said your horse was the only one who could not possibly win.” I loved her from that moment on. Lisa, who later married Mark Chittick of Waikato Stud, became one of my very best friends until her death from leukaemia in 2014, aged only 44.
Precocious’ full brother, Pandemonium, was bought by Jack O’Brien for his Sovereign Lodge Stud in Levin. Our New Zealand connections deepened when Robin was ordered by doctors to take a three-month break. We fell in love with New Zealand, its incredible beauty and lovely people. We went to see Pandemonium in Levin and stayed a couple of days with the O’Briens. And there I saw Jack’s other stallion, Kingdom Bay. His pedigree was very complementary to Pandemonium’s – how interesting it would be, I thought, to breed a mare by Kingdom Bay to Pandemonium.
We continued our drive and visited the O’Sullivan family. The yearling sales had just been held and I asked if they had bought any fillies by Kingdom Bay. They had and Marie, Dave’s wife, was going to have her. We looked at the filly and Robin really wanted her, which was odd because horses were not his thing. Marie said, “Let’s have her 50/50.”
Her name was Snap and she became a top two-year-old, Filly of the Year as a three-year-old, winning the One Thousand Guineas and the New Zealand Oaks I, and 11 races in total (four of them Group I races). By the time she finished racing, we had been coming to New Zealand about twice a year and we loved it. We decided to buy a stud farm – my dream was to have some of Mrs Moss’s
daughters and granddaughters here and to see if she could do in the southern hemisphere what she was doing in the north. A generation later, Snap is still giving me enjoyment. I bred and now race one of her sons, Snapshot, with a group of owners that includes Richie McCaw and Ali Williams. We’ve won six races with him so far.
One granddaughter of Mrs Moss that came out here was Upstage. Sired by 1990 Epsom Derby winner Quest For Fame, she was the dam of Tavistock, whom I’d sold as a yearling at Karaka. Robin had died two years earlier and the people who bought him asked me if I would mind them calling him Tavistock. He became a very good racehorse.
I was in England when the phone rang about five in the morning. It was Sir Patrick Hogan, ringing to tell me he had just bought Tavistock to stand at Cambridge Stud and as I had bred Tavistock, he wanted me to be the first to know. Patrick said Tavistock had one of the most beautifully balanced pedigrees he had ever seen, especially with his Zabeel mares.
To breed a horse good enough to be a stallion is a real feather. To have it bought by one of the great breeders is another. For him to stand at Cambridge Stud, one of the top studs in the southern hemisphere, is yet another. And then for his progeny to win the races they are winning, and the way they are winning, is like a huge handful of feathers.
The huge sadness for me is that Robin did not live to see that his supporting me as he did was not wasted. His family colours, some of the earliest colours ever registered, are famous again, and he would have enjoyed it all so much.
Mrs Moss’ memorial plaque has “Thank You For Changing Our Lives” engraved on it. Without that clubfooted mare that I nearly sent back, we would never have lived in this wonderful country.” do you live?” and I say, “Matamata,” and they go, “Matamata?” If I said Auckland, that would be fine, but Matamata? I learnt very early that if someone tells you they come from the Wairarapa or Hawke’s Bay, it is to put themselves in a box, slightly apart from others. What led you into that short but incredibly successful period as a model? After I came out, there was that Deb of the Year business, which I hated because it was so unreal, so fake. Until you come out, you’re not allowed to go out with anyone. And then you come out, you’re given lots of beautiful dresses and you can stay out till four in the morning – it is potty, barmy. I passed the entrance for Harvard, or Radcliffe [College] as it then was, but Mummy wouldn’t let me go in the end. She had asked the president of Radcliffe how long I could be missing for before anyone would notice. The president said about two weeks and for my mother that was not on, so I went to a junior college, which is a glorified boarding school. I went into a bit of a rebellion.
But modelling saved the day after that short stint at boarding school?
I was 18 and earning $100 an hour in 1959. It was huge. I had my own money. It was fun. My parents had a flat in New York and I stayed there.
This was on the cusp of the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll 1960s – were you part of that scene?
Funnily enough, I have always had quite a strong instinct of self-preservation. I was never very wild. I never wanted to regret anything I had done. I had a very sensible grandfather whom I adored. He died when I was 12, but I wouldn’t think there is ever more than three or four days go by without my thinking, “What would he tell me to do?” It is extraordinary. I have always had great influences and friends – some of them have sadly died, including my parents, and my friends Mary Braga and Ruby Holland-Martin.
I am amused that most people who live in Auckland feel vastly superior to the rural community.
Why did you so strongly resist going to live at Woburn Abbey, despite its beautiful grounds and stately home and wonderful works of art?
We were 34 when we moved into Woburn; it was very young to take on a job like that. While it was an adventure, every night I would leave a note by Robin’s bed about why this was not a way of life. You couldn’t live in a house like this. It wasn’t home. The children were only 11 and 12 when we moved in.
How did you make the transition to the new life easier for yourself and the children?
When we were in Suffolk, we had a lovely duck pond with every type of duck. So I caught the ducks the night before [we moved to Woburn]. I had a horse trailer and into it went all the ducks, and we also had our ponies. We arrived at Woburn like the Beverly Hillbillies. Robin was at work in the City, so it was just the children, the nanny and me. There is a great big lake by the drive, so we stopped the trailer and released the ducks onto what must have seemed to them like the Atlantic Ocean after their little pond. Then we dropped off the ponies. There was a very formal staff, and this very informal woman and her children and a nanny. The staff took the luggage and went into a house that carried on running as it always had. But the children said they could stand in the hall and yell for me and I couldn’t hear them: how could they live like that?
Despite those reservations, you expanded the family once you moved to Woburn.
I had nagged Robin about having another child because I wanted a daughter – he said if we moved to Woburn when I was of childbearing age, I could have one. We were 34 when we moved in and nine months later, we had another baby – another boy. The older boys wrote us a joint letter when James was born, thanking us for having him; they said it was going to make it so much easier for them when they had children of their own. They loved him; James was like their toy.
Did Woburn grow on you or did you look forward to leaving?
As a woman, you have to realise it is never going to be your home. If your husband dies or you are divorced, it is not yours. You are merely looking after it. But I didn’t mind that; I didn’t want it to be my home. I knew it would end at some point. We did that job for 30 years and it was a huge privilege. I learnt a lot: one moment I would be dealing with a Rembrandt selfportrait about to go on display, and the next moment the infertility of a hippo.
I learnt a lot: one moment I would be dealing with a Rembrandt self-portrait about to go on display, and the next moment the infertility of a hippo.
Were you able to escape or was it 24/7?
We had a tiny, tiny cottage we used to escape to – it took us an hour to get there and it was in the middle of a beautiful estate. We were not responsible for anything we looked at. When you are dealing with wild animals and incredible works of art and the 500 people looking after all of this, there are times when you just want to get away. Within 24 hours, we were able to cope again. Country House was really Coronation
Street set in the country. I remember the first time the people who wanted to make it came to see us, and I thought, “Absolutely not.” Then I told Robin and he said he would like to meet them. We discussed it with our son Andrew and he said, “I can see why you don’t want to do this, but people in this country have no idea about how a big estate is managed. They just think of it as a playground for rich people. If we are serious about what we are doing, you have to do it.” And you know, it was really fun.
You’ve built up a rather special collection of books. What are you doing with them?
Quite a long time ago, I decided that every book I really loved I would have beautifully leather-bound and I would leave these books to whichever grandchild I thought was the closest to me mentally. They are beautifully bound by George Bayntun of Bath and they have my initials on them. They are quite ordinary books, but it is a lovely little library.
And what are those books?
They include A Walk in Wolf Wood by Mary Stewart, which is one of the best children’s books you’ll ever, ever read. Christopher Trent’s The Russells is the best book about Robin’s family. If you ever want to understand people, read The Territorial Imperative and African Genesis, both by Robert Ardrey – about animals and animal reactions to each other. Henrietta’s House by Elizabeth Goudge was my favourite children’s book and was obviously given to me because of its name – magic. Mao’s Last Dancer by Li Cunxin: I’m not a balletomane at all, but somebody said, “You have to read this,” and I think the most amazing thing is you read about extraordinary deprivation and there is not a moan or a groan; nothing is “Poor, poor me”. It’s more like, “Isn’t it amazing where I’ve got to?”
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, you need to read again now; to think she wrote it in 1962 as a warning to us. The other mustreads on rather an extensive list include Mauve by Simon Garfield, West with the Night by Beryl Markham, Green Darkness by Anya Seton, Frederick Forsyth’s The Shepherd and The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett.
Is there another book in you, given everything that has happened since A Chance To Live?
You know how you sometimes spot a book at the airport and you’re attracted just by the cover or the title? I’m not sure I’d write a full autobiography – perhaps a memoir – but if I do, the title will be The Life and Times of a Violet Cream. They’re my absolutely favourite chocolate.
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, you need to read again now; to think she wrote it in 1962 as a warning to us.
You’ve lived the society high life in the UK and elsewhere – what makes for a good night out these days?
Arrowtown has the best cinema in the world. There are two cinemas, one with 40 seats and one with only 14 seats, so it is even nicer. You can take your wine in with you. When I am on my own, it’s my favourite thing. I order my pizza before and then pick it up after the movie, and rush back up the hill to eat. I feel very, very, very lucky.