Cheltenham mourns one of its great friends
Sarah Holman was a much-loved eccentric who raised millions for Countryside Day
Cheltenham’s Countryside Day lost one of its greatest friends when Sarah Holman, who organised the fundraising lunch from its inception until last year, extracting over £2million from her guests in those 27 years, died this summer.
A part-time racehorse owner – her great triumph was Famfoni winning the cross-country on the day of her lunch – she helped to raise the profile of the day to such an extent that Edward Gillespie, the course’s former managing director, partly credited her with the attendance on Countryside Day increasing from 6,000 to a regular 20,000 now.
In a wonderful address at her memorial service last Friday, Rodger Mcphail, the artist, described her as “95 per cent wonderful and five per cent maddening”, although he conceded there might be a difference of opinion about the precise percentages.
A couple of years ago, she was given a retirement lunch by Cheltenham after 25 years of great service, enjoyed it immensely but steadfastly refused to take the hint and was back running the lunch the following November.
Cheltenham must surely be aware that she will regard her untimely passing as but a small impediment to her running the show again this year.
As a sport, racing is extremely lucky to have, around its fringes, a vast array of eccentrics and one-offs, and in that department she batted high up the order. She lost her keys, wallet, phone and insulin (she was diagnosed a diabetic aged five) on a monthly basis and ignored those parts of the Highway Code which did not suit her rapid style of driving.
After one incident, she picked up 10 points on her driving licence in one hit and another time, having raced ahead, she lost the cars which were following her to a picnic. On her way back to find them, she had a head-on collision round a corner with the car leading the rest of the lost convoy.
But her regard was always for others before herself. When she fell off her horse on the road near Ilmington and broke her femur badly, one of the first people on the scene was the vicar (not to give the last rites – he happened to be passing). Before he could inquire of her obviously not-too-rosy situation, she said: “Tell me, Vicar, how did the village fete go at the weekend?”
Though she never married, she had 20 godchildren, each of whom was summoned to her Scottish estate in Argyll to go stalking or fishing. On one occasion, when her rifle had broken, she was taking it to be mended in Inverness but had forgotten the cover. She was walking down the high street, the rifle slung over her shoulder, with a small godchild in tow, when she was stopped by the police.
After questioning her about the gun, the policemen asked: “And is that your child?”
“Good Lord, no,” she replied. “Most certainly not.”
At that point, kidnap was nearly added to the charge of carrying an uncovered firearm but, as usual, she talked her way out of the situation.
Despite her diabetes, she drank a bottle of red wine every day but announced she was giving up for Lent at the start of this year.
“Wonderful,” said her sister. “But how are you going to manage?”
“Drink whisky instead,” she replied.
Susannah Gill, director of external affairs at Arena Racing Company and occasional point-to-point rider, is also racing’s foremost longdistance runner and warmed up for ARC’S biggest Flat race, the St Leger, by becoming the first woman home in the Putneyhenley Thames Path Challenge, an ultra-marathon of 100km, the weekend before last.
She finished 11th overall in a time of 10 hours 17 minutes, a cool hour and a half in front of the next fastest female, and close enough to the magical 10 hours to want to have another crack at it next year.
While most of us might set off on such an expedition with a tent and sandwiches and, given the route, a boat, she carried a bottle of water, a phone, her Checkpoint card, two Paracetamol and a tin of lip balm in her bum bag.
She guzzled the pills at 35km and, according to her split times, she reckons they kicked in at 55km.
A veteran of 30 marathons and ultra-marathons from the Great Wall of China to the Two Oceans in Cape Town, four days at Doncaster was officially harder; she lost no weight on the run but 2lb across the Leger meeting.