Ringing in the winners but good horsemanship the main motivator

Michael Bell isn't comfortable in front of a camera. As much is quickly apparent to our photographer, Edward Whitaker, who is so taken by the living room at Bell's Fitzroy House Stables that he wants to feast on the opportunity.

There is only one winner in this tug of war. Despite minor protestations at every turn, it says much about Bell that he acquiesces to Whitaker's every request. His wife, Clare, is more amenable, probably because she knows how difficult it is to get her husband to stand still and here is, after all, an excellent opportunity for a pictorial family sequence involving their daughter Emily, who is 21 months old.

The scene is revelatory because Bell, 55, comes across as the sort of chap who would relish a photoshoot. Well, perhaps not so much relish it as be sportingly up for it. He's a bit of a dandy, with a penchant for monogrammed initials that extends to the back of his golf shoes. When he speaks, it is often with the insouciance of a man blissfully untroubled by life's travails.