Leading Sire will be Cooper's next racing romp. But do we want to see the beautiful bounder who first appeared in Riders nearly 30 years ago turned into a skirt-chasing octogenarian?
I have spoken before of my love for Jilly Cooper – she is such a hero of mine that, when she phoned my previous place of work to speak to a colleague and I spoke to her just to put her through to a colleague, my hands were practically trembling; my palms damp, in best Taggie O'Hara style. So despite my disappointment that Jump! didn't match up to her finest (Rivals, Riders, Polo, if you're interested – perhaps it was the exclamation mark that turned me off Jump!, Score! and Wicked!), there's still a part of me which is (in Cooper idiom) in heaven at the news that she's currently embroiled in researching her new novel, which will be set in the world of flat racing.
Thanks go to Horse and Hound magazine for alerting me to this, and for the wonderful quotes they've elicited from Jilly, who's been having – of course! – a "heavenly" time researching. "I've been to the Guineas, the Derby, to Ascot and I'm off to Goodwood this week. I've met Sir Henry Cecil and even Frankel. I don't think the latter liked me very much, though, as he tried to nip me," said the novelist, who has "fallen in love" with flat racing.
"I never understood why people liked sprints, but now I do," she went on. "I'm fascinated by the breeding side and the sense of dynasty. And, of course, the men are so charming and dress so beautifully."
What, though, to make of the fact that "Jilly's favourite rascal-in-jods Rupert Campbell-Black once again stars in the new book – working title Leading Sire – with his stallion Love Rat and the horse's offspring Master Quickly"? Rupert, is, of course, "Mecca for most women" – he's variously won the Olympics, taken a GCSE, been Tory minister for sport and won a television franchise. Obviously Rupert, who first appeared in Riders in 1985, nearly 30 years ago, has aged – he's got children these days, an "angel" of a wife in Taggie, etc. But – as yet, at least – he's always remained "as bloody-minded as he is beautiful".
The fact that he's getting yet another outing got me thinking about recurring characters, and how novelists handle them. Some allow their creations to grow older as their series progress – Ian Rankin and Rebus, Dorothy L Sayers and Lord Peter Wimsey. The Famous Five, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy summer holiday after summer holiday, never getting to an age where they would develop spots or teenage angst. I think that's how I'd like to remember Rupert: as the arrogant bounder who won Taggie's heart in Rivals, and the reluctant father of Polo, rather than as a skirt-chasing octogenarian, his perfect jawline sagging, his blue eyes a little less gimlet-like, his thick blond hair a little less, well, thick and blond.