Life As I Know It (32 page)

With such incessant demands on my time, I have been counting down the days to the Bali trip that we have managed to arrange.
When we Loreto girls gather at the airport, I am more than ready to escape. It doesn't take long for us to return to our Year 9 selves.

‘G'day, Dopey.'

‘G'day, Stupid.'

Sitting round the pool at the hotel there is a lot of reminiscing.

‘What about the time you made us do synchronised swimming?' Liz says to me. ‘And then you were the judge.'

It's so good to be with them. Inevitably, as we are all just on thirty, we get to talking about plans and thoughts and, after a few drinks, why things happen the way they do. The discussions turn to what is important to us, how we understand the world, what matters. The girls are talking about some of the things I said after the Cup about being blessed. They are surprised but, as someone said, ‘Surprised in the nicest possible way.' I think we have similar understandings, that life matters, that people matter, that we have a duty to make a difference.

Although I have had moments of great doubt, some of them long moments, I have tried to have my father's faith. I see grace every Christmas Day when I look around and everyone is at Home. I sit for the family photo and I look across to my father, who is never in the centre, never making a fuss, and I believe.

I still love going Home. Two years ago I bought the farm a stone's throw up Kennedys Road from Dad's. For Stevie and me. Dad turns eighty in March this year and we have had to think about what will happen to Stevie in the future. He will love living at our place. After we bought it, he and I tried to think of a name. We decide to call it
Nottingham Farm
. That's what happens when you watch
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
one hundred times.

I have planted trees there—liquidambars, elms and Cypress pines. Hundreds of them. It's a start. I want to make
Nottingham Farm
a special place of stables filled with horses, one hopefully as good
as Prince, and a home filled with children, who I want to give the richest of lives—a life of love like we have had.

I have travelled the world to learn how to live with horses. And what I have learned is what my father, who grew up at the end of the earth, already knew. That people and horses respond to love and kindness and to those who, they come to understand, want the best for them.

I was not expecting
any
phone call from Louise Adler of Melbourne University Publishing in mid-December of 2015, especially not one about the possibility of writing a book with Michelle Payne. The suggestion she made, to work closely with Michelle to write a book about her life, was attractive even if it seemed ambitious to complete a book in the suggested timeframe.

However, the sense of purpose that developed around the project made it all achievable. The editorial team was led by publisher Sally Heath, who rode us with the whip from the barrier and never let up. Thanks, Sally. Also thanks to other team members, editors Louise Stirling and Joanne Holliman for their calm professionalism and commitment to the book, and to Yael Cohn for transcribing interviews.

Thanks to the wonderful Payne family. You were all a tremendous help. You have so many stories!

Thanks to all those people who returned phone calls and emails and set aside other matters to enable us to meet and talk
sooner rather than later. They include: Father Joe Giacobbe, Tony Cavanagh, Greg Carpenter, Father Brendan Dillon, Layne Beachley, the Men in Hats (but especially the most organised man in the world, Sam Brown), Darren and Emily Lonsdale, Rebecca Ludbrook, Emily Hall, Liz Francis, Kellie Baird, Roger Morris, Maureen Fithall, John Richards, Andrew Rule, Ian Fulton, Chris Byrne, Aunty Bertha Hughes, Father John Keane, Joan Sadler, Phillip Roost, Jade Darose, Sandy McGregor, Adam McNicol, Wes Clarke, and Maddie Raymond. In addition to these interviewees, thanks to all those who offered their insights in incidental conversations—Michelle's story has resonated far and wide.

Thanks to Neil ‘Lofty' Longden for reading the manuscript with a racing aficionado's eye.

I also wish to acknowledge Tony Kneebone whose fine book
The Paynes
provided a foundation on which to build. And Neil Kearney, whose documentary
The People's Cup
shows, yet again, his skill as a story-teller with a sense of what matters—that people are at the heart of sport.

I could mention many newspaper, magazine and radio reports. There was such interest in Michelle's story that it dominated press and radio for some time.

Finally, thanks to Michelle Payne, who is an uncommonly thoughtful and contemplative sportsperson. Michelle's uncomplicated values are rock solid: love of family, love of people, love of horses, and the quest to be the best she can be in all her endeavours. Like her father, she has an inspirational faith in life.

John Harms