Interview with Guy Landau, master and huntsman of the Meynell and South Staffs
Guy Landau has been a jump jockey and a top showman. Now he is hunting one of the country’s premier packs. Catherine Austen learns how these previous careers influenced a third
HOW many people reach the top in three separate careers? There can’t be many; few people would have the skill, the desire and the application.
Guy Landau does, though. He was a leading jump jockey, the best showman of his era and, in his second season as master and huntsman of one of the most famous packs of hounds in the country – the Meynell and South Staffs – is motoring his way towards the peak of that profession, too.
A quietly entertaining man, a world of equine experience lies behind his eyes, around which the laughter lines are deeply etched. Possibly the greatest influence on his life was his stepfather, the famous showman Roy Trigg, and it is his tenets of “old-fashioned” horsemanship that have guided him and given him the foundations to do what he has done.
Guy says: “If you are consistent that your basic principles are the same, they [horses] have a chance to understand. If every day you ask the same question, there is no excuse for not getting the right answer. If you ask a different question every day, and you don’t ever get the answer you are looking for, you are not actually advancing one iota, are you? If they can’t understand you, they start losing confidence in you. It is the same with hounds.”
Guy’s equestrian schooling began early; by the age of nine, he was helping his Sussex-based stepfather break-in “hundreds” of yearlings for local trainers, who included Ryan Price, Guy Harwood and John Dunlop.
“I was lucky to be educated by a supreme horseman; most people haven’t had that luxury,” he says.
Guy did a lot of showing, naturally, as a child, but it was racing that fired his imagination.
“I had two desires, either to be a jockey or a huntsman, and I am so fortunate to have been able to do both,” he says.
He was apprenticed to Guy Harwood – trainer of the Arc winner Dancing Brave – and rode his first winner on the Flat, aged 16, having got off the mark in a point-to-point a year earlier. As his weight crept up, he joined
Stan Mellor’s yard as a conditional jump jockey. In 1987, aged 20, he finished third in the Grand National on Lean Ar Aghaidh, having led over the last fence.
He says: “What little boy who is interested in horses doesn’t grow up watching the National, thinking they are going to ride in it one day? It’s every boy’s dream. Old Lean-on-the-Aga [as the horse was nicknamed] was the most unbelievable jumper. He made it feel effortless.”
Three weeks later, the pair won the Whitbread by five lengths, and the picture of Guy being presented with his winner’s memento by the Queen Mother that hangs in his sitting room illustrates “one of his proudest moments”.
However, the majority of his racing career was spent in France.
“Stan Mellor’s horses had been ill for most of that season and weren’t running well. It was January-time and I was offered a job over there for six months,” he says. “Back then there was no racing in June or July and next to none in May or August. So, in my mind, six months took me to July, when I would come back, knuckle down and get going again. And I could afford to pay my mortgage.
“The job I went for wasn’t as good as it was portrayed, but the top man, Jean-Pierre Gallorini – the Martin Pipe of his day – approached me, and I spent five years with him. We had a lot of good horses and the vast majority of them you only had to park your backside on and vaguely point them in the right direction.”
He was twice the leading jump jockey in France in terms of prize money, and won most of that country’s big races.
“I came back probably for three reasons,” Guy says. “A great friend of mine died in a fall at Auteuil, then my stepfather died and I broke three vertebrae, all in the space of three or four weeks. Mother had half a dozen show horses in a yard at John Dunlop’s.
“She had spoken to John and said that if I came home and got stuck into those, he’d keep them for a year or two and we would see how we got on. Otherwise, he’d give up the show horses. I saw I had maybe five years of racing left, and here was a job to get on with.”
“IT WAS THEN OR NEVER”
GUY was enormously successful in the show ring, specialising in hunters and winning everything that was on offer with the likes of Finn McCool, Red Hand, Statesman and Tradesman. It was something of a surprise when he retired, aged 43, after the 2009 Horse of the Year Show and took on the West Somerset Vale as master and huntsman.
“It was then or never,” he says. “John Dunlop was giving up the show horses, and I could see showing taking a different route to the one I wished to take myself. The old-fashioned showmen have gone, and I think there are few left who really have some panache and pizzazz. Showing used to be more exciting; you’d get three or four of the old boys having a tussle for the championship. It’s all a bit safe now; no one really gallops a
“It’s every boy’s dream to ride in
the National”
horse. It’s a shame for everyone, especially the spectators.”
But such a career switch was a brave move. How did he know he could hunt a pack of hounds?
“I didn’t, but then, you don’t know whether you can ride a horse until you’ve ridden one,” he replies. “I helped at the South and West Wilts for a long time before taking my first pack, and [former SWW master] Adam Waugh taught me a lot. And I had a brilliant kennel-huntsman, David Bevan,
who educated me very well.
“The great thing with hunting is that there is always someone you can ring up for help. ‘Hounds are doing x, y or z, what do I do?’ One of the old professionals or masters who hunted hounds for many years will help you.
“And studying the hounds is not that different from studying the horse. You have to set the criteria as to what you are looking for; those who don’t start to conform to your ideals are not what you are looking for. I find hound breeding so interesting, and you can see the results much quicker than you can with horses.
“Every year you enter puppies, you think, will you live up to what I am expecting? More often than not, as the years go by, more of them do live up to expectation and that’s because you know the family traits, or possibly you judge them better in their work and conformation as you learn more. Not a day goes by when you don’t learn something out hunting.”
Guy and his family – wife Emma, daughter Molly and son Sam – had “tremendous fun” for three years before going to the Taunton Vale for four. Now he has taken a further “step up the ladder” to the high-profile Meynell and South Staffs. Did he feel any pressure, knowing the hunting spotlight would be more focused on him there?
He says with a smile, “Compared to lining up in the National on a favourite, or riding the odds-on favourite to win at the Horse of the Year Show, it’s not really pressure, is it? Every day might be a good day, you’ll do your utmost, but it won’t always be.”
His beautiful horsemanship certainly fits him for cutting a dash over the Meynell’s legendary hedges: “Like all countries, it has changed over the years,” he says.
“We have roads and railways in places we once didn’t, but in a lot of places we still have enough room to get on and have a great deal of fun.”
He does two of his three horses himself at the kennels, where his only full-time member of staff is kennel-huntsman Robert Truscott.
“I give the hunters a jump nearly every day,” he says. “In France, we had the best part of 250, 300 horses; every horse jumped six days a week, minimum. Gallorini’s whole ethos was jumpers need jumping, just like a hunter does. You expect them to jump however many bits and bobs all day long; the more practice they have, the better they get.”
BEST AT SHOWING
I WATCH him work one of his hunt horses, a seven-year-old gorgeous stamp of a horse, loose in the school. The reins are tucked behind the stirrup bars, and “Ginger” trots, canters and then jumps in a lovely, balanced, engaged manner. It seems unlikely that there are many hunt horses in Britain that are so well educated.
“Of my three careers, I was probably best at showing. I had it a little bit to myself then, in that the old-school were starting to get a bit old and the new ones hadn’t really started,” he says.
“As far as racing goes, I was probably a better horseman than jockey. With hunting, I didn’t have the formal grounding that a lot of the long-term masters and hunt staff have had. Therefore, I have had to teach myself a lot, so I have been slightly at a disadvantage. But possibly I understand riding horses better than many hunt staff do, so I have one key advantage.
“I think I understand the point of good conformation in a hound better than a lot of people, with my showing background. Conformation will dictate how long you last, how well you last – and often what sort of an engine you’ve got. It should not be the be-all and end-all, but it is far more important than many give it credit for, I think.”
At 54, Guy is not going to be at the Meynell forever, but it will be interesting to see what he does while there. Visitors used to flock to the Meynell to test themselves over its demanding country and enjoy first-class hunting. I predict they will again. And don’t bet against him breeding a Peterborough winner, either.
“My boss in France used to say, ‘As a jockey, your job is to impede your horse as little as you possibly can.’ That is something that’s stuck with me, and is a mantra for doing anything on a horse – and with hounds, too.”
“Studying hounds is not that different from studying horses”