Brennig Jones (and friends)

Today, for the first time in months, the sun shone, the sky was blue and there were hardly any clouds in the sky.

To celebrate this rare event I cut things short at 1.30 and headed up to the yard.

A short while later Tom and I were hacking up the track, and across the lane and on to… the racing gallops.

I love those gallops.

White post-and-rail and a daily-harrowed sandbed to ride on make the experience almost too good to describe.

We jogged in through the start bend, settled in to an easy canter and held it for the first 1/4 mile.

And then I took a short, forward seat, gave away a little more contact and asked Tom if he had any more.

Lots!, was his reply.

We slipped effortlessly from a working canter to a fast hunting canter, and within a further two dozen strides Tom relaxed some more, opened up his chest and showed just how easy it was for him to change up to a gallop.

He held his easy, large-striding, ground-covering gallop until I asked him to ease back to a slower pace as we passed the first set of white posts.

Half-a-mile of easy-moving, big-smilingly, blisteringly fast canter passed beneath us as we transited back to a working canter for the last 1/4 mile.

We hacked back to the yard the long way – a 2-1/2 mile stroll around the headlands of a few fields, the sun on our backs and (I like to think) a smile on both our faces.

That was, without doubt, the fastest that Tom and I have ever been. I’m still smiling.

If I’d put a full set of boots on Tom before we’d left the yard, we could have *cough* hacked back to the yard via the cross-country course.

I’d feel happier if we could get out and practice our cross-country and show-jumping more, our first one-day event is in two weeks and I still feel slightly under-prepared.

If I could find a show-jumping arena on grass, I’d be there like a shot!

I had a bad night last night due to *ahem* environmental difficulties

So as I was awake at 3am and, prodded by a podcast listener’s email asking about something I mentioned on last week’s show, I spent the early hours of the day in the company of google, facebook and linkedin, trying to answer the question ‘Whatever happened to…?’

John Deloach. Or is that John De Loach? Who knows.

John was a presenter on the radio station AFN SHAPE.

I used to listen to AFN SHAPE, and John in particular, whenever I was recalled ‘home’ to NATO’s No 4 Wing, 2nd Allied Tactical Air Force permanent base, from wherever in the world we’d been sent to, on yet another detachment.

I liked his microphone style and his personality.

I would have described John as an American version of Kenny Everett. Not as madcap as Kenny, John was still a long step away from his more mainstream colleagues.

And I’m not naive, I know that he had a set-list and an A and a B playlist, but it was obvious, from listening to his colleagues, that John mixed it up as best he could.

And the music was good; AFN SHAPE played more diverse music than any of the German or Benelux stations we could get on FM.

Anyway, my googling, facebooking and linkedining were mostly fruitless, but I did come across a four-year-old discussion, on Craigslist, that offered up an email address of someone who used to work with John when he moved from SHAPE to USAF Ramstein.

So maybe there’s a chance.

And what happens if that chance bears fruit?

I’m going to drop the guy a line and say ‘Hi John, you don’t know me but 250 years ago I used to listen to you on AFN Shape and…’?

Lame.

Lame, lame, lame, lame.

No, I’m not going to do that.

But, you know, I just want to *know* that he’s still around somewhere.

Still OK.

Still using that sense of humour of his.

That’s all.

And on this week’s podcast I’m going to play a snippet (maybe more) of the first track I heard John Deloach (John De Loach?) play on AFN SHAPE, all those centuries ago.

Oh yes.

And the music is still excellent, even after all these years.