TDN Weekend December 2016 Issue 9
Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/757593
hair and that same keen, spacious delivery once so familiar in winner's circle debriefs after so many of the sport's great races. Nor has there been any dim- inution in the stakes at issue. Even in its pomp, there cannot have been many years when his Coombe- lands stable housed horsepower more valuable than Harwood has assembled on the forecourts of a dozen luxury motor dealerships in the south of England – around £80 million, he calculates, in new and used Bentleys, Audis, Aston Martins and, above all, Land Rovers. "I've accepted that I've got to keep going until I'm 80," he says. "And will happily hand over to my son when he's ready. I'm getting too old, really, and won't be sorry to stop. But it's slightly a Hobson's choice. One has a great investment, and five chil- dren all with shares in the business. And over 900 people who rely on me for a job. Over the years we've taken over quite a lot of family business- es, and used the facilities they had. But now the manufacturers are saying that if you want to keep selling our cars – and we have six out of the 120 Land Rover franchises – you've got to upgrade your premises. So we've got to spend around £50 million before the end of 2018. If we get through that, and are still solvent, I'll gladly retire. It's quite an ask, though, isn't it?" It would seem a pretty safe bet that he will prove equal to the challenge. When he handed over Coombelands to his daughter Amanda, after all, the residue of the family business – kept going under management during his training career – was turn- ing over £15 million and on the point of collapse. Now it is turning over close to £600 million. And to think that his father had been enraged when Har- wood had gone into racing instead. "As a self-made man, he could see all that hard work going into the bookmaker's satchels," he says wryly. Much like Charles Howard, his father had saved up £400 as a bicycle mechanic to start selling and repairing motor-cars, just down the road in Pulbor- ough, in 1931 – a step or two behind the owner of 31