Laurie died in 1997 having rebuffed Jack’s attempts to mend their relationship. Isabel died in 1985, and since then Jack Lee had returned to London each summer to see his grandchildren and pursue a lifelong passion for cricket.Tom Vallance. Cecil Blacker was a man of many talents and he used them all to great effect. He had a distinguished military career; he enjoyed success as a sportsman (in particular as an amateur steeplechase jockey and show jumper); and he was an accomplished writer and painter. It proved an apt choice – “From then onwards my life moved contentedly along grooves worn smooth by cavalry custom,” he wrote in his book Soldier in the Saddle (1963): Each winter we all departed for two months to hunt; in the spring we rode in point-to-points to the accompaniment of not very exacting military duties, and during the summer we were mainly concerned with polo. In the autumn there were some fairly intensive manoeuvres, after which the cycle began again.This idyllic life ended abruptly in 1939, with war looming and the Army (which no longer needed horses) undergoing mechanisation. After urgent training in the new techniques, the then Lieutenant Blacker was part of the British Expeditionary Force which assembled in northern Europe in the autumn of 1939.The following year, he took part in the chaotic evacuation from Dunkirk, where he admired the regular soldiers (“who devotedly and bloodily held the ring while the main bodies withdrew behind them”) but was dismissive of other participants – “I have always been surprised at the shining halo with which the so-called Dunkirk veterans have since been invested.”After his involvement in a massive tank battle waged near Caen in July 1944, Blacker saw war “for the ugly and unfair monster that it is.

Overnight we lost our crusading zeal and became professionals.” When the war was over, he forced himself to study “theoretical soldiering” while devoting his leisure time to sport. Steeplechasing was his first love.In 1948 he achieved his ambition to ride in the Grand National (he was well placed before he fell with Sir John at the plain fence before the Chair); in 1954 he rode Pointsman to win the Grand Military Gold Cup. In between these two milestones, he represented Britain in the 1951 World Modern Pentathlon Championships.The late Col Sir Mike Ansell wrote about “Monkey” Blacker’s “supreme versatility” which had enabled him to box for the Inniskillings (although a lieutenant-colonel), have a picture hung in the [Royal] Academy, write an article for The Spectator and ride the winner of the Grand Military Gold Cup at Sandown – all in one month.Ansell, who had been Blacker’s squadron leader in the far-off days of pre-war military manoeuvres, was largely responsible for putting post-war show jumping firmly on the map. This would be to Blacker’s advantage when he took up yet another challenge on the ex-steeplechaser Workboy.He had first ridden Workboy in 1949, when the black gelding was a four-year-old, newly arrived from Ireland into a trainer’s yard. The horse gave him such a wonderful feel as he galloped enthusiastically over training hurdles that he wanted to buy him immediately, but the price tag of £2,000 was beyond his means.Workboy had won 13 steeplechases before he came on the market as a 10-year-old.

Quite by chance, Blacker spotted the familiar name in a catalogue for Ascot Sales and this time he bought the horse for £137. It was a gamble, for he knew that Workboy had strained a tendon and was of doubtful soundness But the gamble paid off. The little black horse was hunted and show jumped by Blacker’s wife, Felicity, before she – with characteristic generosity – handed him on to her husband. Within two years Workboy was winning prizes at White City and Harringay, then the homes of the Royal International and Horse of the Year shows.By then Blacker had been appointed Military Assistant to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, working in the War Office in Whitehall, whence he returned each evening after jumping at White City. In February 1959, he took time off from CIGS in order to compete in Chile, where he and Pat Smythe were invited to represent Britain on borrowed horses at the Inter- Continental Show Jumping Championship. Blacker finished runner-up to the dual Olympic champion Pierre d’Oriola, with such great names as Piero d’Inzeo and Hans Winkler behind him.In 1959 and 1960 Blacker took Workboy to Arundel in Sussex for the training sessions that had been arranged for Olympic possibles, but they were not a success. The horse had a sensational fall there in 1959 and it was with great reluctance that Blacker took him back the following year, when he again ran into problems.Although he missed the Rome Olympics of 1960, Workboy had two successful years of international competition.