Bilborough Hall was owned by Sir William Blake, no relation to the poet, but nicknamed “Tiger” at school. Mingling with the crowds, he gossiped to friends, raised his hat to people he didn’t know, and told everyone that in twenty years there had only been one wet Bilborough show. His wife, a J.P. in drooping tweeds and a felt hat, whose passion was gardening, sighed inwardly at the ground already gray and pitted with hoof marks. Between each year, like childbirth, nature seemed to obliterate the full horror of the Bilborough show. She had already instructed the undergardener, to his intense embarrassment, to go around with a spade and gather up all the manure before it was trodden into the ground.

“Oh, there you are, William,” she said to her husband, who was genially trying to guess the weight of a piglet. “People are already arriving for luncheon; we’d better go and do our stuff.”

Down by the horse lines, Jake Lovell, tying up a weedy gray pony more securely, was slowly reaching screaming point. The family of the unspeakably hopeless Patty Beasley (none of whom had ever been on a horse) had all turned up in jodhpurs. Sally Ann Thomson’s frightful mother hung around the whole time, talking at the top of her voice, so all the other competitors turned around and laughed at her.

“It doesn’t matter about winning, dear,” she was now telling Sally Ann. “Competing and having fun is all that matters.”

Bloody rubbish, thought Jake. They all sulk if they’re not placed.

After Sally Ann’s pony had bolted with her, and Patty Beasley’s cob had had a kicking match with the priceless winner of the under 13.2 showing class, causing loss of temper on all sides, Jake had refused to let any of the children ride their ponies until the jumping in the afternoon. He had nearly had a mutiny on his hands.