The Lady out to hit the right notes

Whisper it, but celebrity racehorse owners can be notorious for their inability to recognise their own nag without the visual clue of jockey in silks on board. Madeleine Lloyd Webber has never been among them.

Horses have always been a serious business to her. As Madeleine Gurdon she made the British three-day event team, but upon marriage to millionaire composer Andrew Lloyd Webber she redirected her energies, and in 1991 decided the time was ripe to become a racehorse owner. The following year Dusty Miller, the very first horse they bought together, won the County Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival.

Ten years on and Lady Lloyd Webber - with four Festival winners to her name before this week began - has interest in three runners tomorrow at Cheltenham. Lord Joshua, which she owns in partnership with the American ambassador Will Farish and his wife, goes in the Triumph Hurdle.

Bacchanal - hers outright - is among the fancied runners in a startlingly open Gold Cup.

She also has a seventh share in fellow Gold Cup contender Behrajan, an unexpected purchase after the wife of a potential investor insisted on buying new curtains rather than a racehorse. Lady Lloyd Webber, 39, has no need for such economies thanks to a family fortune estimated at around £420 million.

Besides which, the unpromising Behrajan has turned out to be something of a gem. He was a 20-1 shot for his hurdling debut at Warwick in 1998, which he won by 14 lengths. Since then he has collected another eight victories, amassing more than £150,000 in prize money. He would have done better still were it not for an annoying habit of making an error at the final fence.

"At best we thought Behrajan would be second division,'' explained Simon Marsh, the Lloyd Webbers' racing manager. ''But he's turned out to be the star of trainer Henry Daly's yard. We cannot believe we've been this lucky. He's only seven and we've had so much fun already.

"His performance at Warwick that first day left us speechless. There was no skill on our part in buying him. We fluked it.''

Of course it has not all been glory and delight. Within a year of Lord and Lady Lloyd Webber experiencing the thrill of a win the first time their silks were worn in public, another racehorse which was a £100,000 present from Andrew to Madeleine on her 30th birthday had to be destroyed. Al Mutahm, a candidate for the 1993 Champion Hurdle, severed both tendons in his right foreleg in a race at Newbury. Lady Lloyd Webber stayed with the distressed horse while a vet humanely destroyed him.

"He was a gorgeous horse and it's very sad,'' she said at the time. "He was very special to me as he was a 30th birthday present and the first horse I ever owned in my own name.''

Now Marsh discusses racing and stud matters with Lady Lloyd Webber on a daily basis. The Lloyd Webbers own two studs, Watership Down on their private 450-acre Sydmonton Court estate near Newbury, and Kiltinan Castle in County Tipperary.

"The stud is a commercial business required to make a profit,'' said Marsh. "So far we've been very lucky. It's a very difficult game to come into if you know nothing about it but it's one of those things that becomes a bit of a bug and grips you.

"Racing is notoriously badly paid but Andrew and Madeleine are very generous. They have handed me the opportunity of a lifetime. To start something like this from scratch and be there throughout its development has been an enormous amount of fun.''

With such an open Gold Cup in prospect, the "fun" may yet reach unprecedented heights tomorrow afternoon.