A Horseman – And A Hound Man

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

- Catherine Austen

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.