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The parish I live in is a very abrupt, uneven country, full of hills and woods, and therefore full of birds.

Somerset has a wonderful wildness about it - it hasn't been tamed. This is farming country, and there's a realness here - I love it.

Breed is stronger than pasture.

The only way you can obtain brood mares on a basis you can afford is to buy two or three yearling fillies every year and race them. The good ones, the ones that show potentialities, you keep, and the others you get rid of. In that way, you have a chance to build up a good brood mare band.

I know people sometimes have this fantasy about Cornwall. But the Cornish are so grounded.

New York has an amazing history of farming and fishing that goes right back to the Pilgrim Fathers. At its core are the four seasons, which are distinct, well-established and similar to those in Lyon, where my family lives: when it's snowing in New York, a week later it will be snowing there.

One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of March thaw, is the Spring.

There are two seasons in Scotland: June and Winter.

There are eight different breeds of peacock. I have them all.

Hedge-hogs abound in my gardens and fields.