Council house lad who had little time for diplomacy but was a masterful horseman

David Elsworth has many talents but good PR has never been one of them.

He admits that when he started out, he was quite nice, at least to owners he thought might send him a horse or two, but after that he reverted to his natural state of being gruff, unrelentingly forthright and often downright rude to more or less everyone, regardless of rank.

"I don't try to be cantankerous," he once explained, "I am cantankerous. I'm just f*****g rude to everybody."