The model for Jilly Cooper’s frisky hero is on the loose again

OFTen considered an inspiration for Rupert CampbellBlack — the hero of Jilly Cooper’s bonkbusting ‘Rutshire’ novels — legendary Old etonian huntsman Robin Smith-Ryland is on the loose once more.

For I can disclose that the thrice-married equestrian, now 64, has just filed for divorce from his wife, Lucy.

But Smith-Ryland, whose only offspring — a 40-year-old son, Alexander — was born out of wedlock during an entanglement with an Australian lover, Denita Schaeffer, insists that he’s not saddling up with anyone else, or certainly not at the moment. ‘It’s very sad; I guess we just grew apart,’ he tells me from Sherbourne Park, his 2,000-acre Warwickshire estate, where Princess Margaret was a frequent guest.

‘Lucy’s in my London flat. As far as I know, she hasn’t got anyone else — any more than I have.’

The now estranged couple married in 2008, with SmithRyland (right) — a former joint master of the Quorn, the Prince of Wales’s favourite hunt in the days when Charles rode to hounds — explaining that he wanted to ‘do it quickly, before the hunting season started’.

But he is almost as acclaimed for his restless romantic life as for his equestrian prowess. His first, short-lived marriage was in 1982 to eliza Dugdale. Speedily divorced, he re-married three years later, his new bride being noblewoman Baroness Helene de Ludinghausen, several years his senior. Three years ago, SmithRyland hosted a swingers’ convention at Sherbourne Park but complained it was too ‘tame’. A Sunday lunch guest once found a young woman locked in the bathroom and had to let the poor girl free. Asked how long she had been incarcerated, she replied: ‘Only 24 hours.’