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Captain John Macdonald-Buchanan MC DL
Late Scots Guards
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 Captain John Macdonald-Buchanan was a soldier who saved a vital code-book in the heat of battle but met his match in the Horse of the Year Show.
Captain John Macdonald-Buchanan, who has died aged 89, was a soldier, a landowner, an important figure in British horse racing and a stalwart supporter of many charitable organisations.
On 2nd March, 1945, he was serving with 3rd Battalion, the Scots Guards, in an attack on Winnekendonk, north-west of Duisburg, Germany. He was in command of a troop of Churchill tanks, and it was his first battle as a troop leader.
The light was failing as he left the start line, but the moment his troop emerged from the woods it came under attack from armour-piercing shot and high explosive shells from the front and both flanks. Two of his tanks were knocked out. One was hit five times.
Despite heavy mortaring and shellfire, the tanks and infantry managed to force their way into the town. It was now quite dark, but by the light of burning buildings fierce hand-to-hand fighting took place between the infantry and a crack unit of German paratroopers which was holding the town.
The remainder of Macdonald-Buchanan’s troop was under constant attack from bazookas and grenades, but they managed to support the infantry until they had reached the far end of the town. His tank then fell into a bomb crater and had to be abandoned.
He and his crew jumped out, scrambled on to the back of another and fought off a series of determined attacks in the narrow streets lit by blazing buildings. To his dismay, Macdonald-Buchanan then discovered that he had left a code-book that could prove of great value to the enemy in the abandoned tank.
Taking just one guardsman, he made his way back to the crater. They had to fight their way there and back before returning with the precious codes. The citation for the award to him of an Immediate MC stated that the infantry could not speak too highly of his coolness, courage and the support that he had given them.
John Macdonald-Buchanan, the son of Major Sir Reginald Macdonald, was born in London on 15th March, 1925. His mother, Catherine, was the only surviving child of James Buchanan, Lord Woolavington, the founder of Buchanan’s Black & White whisky, a well-known brand in the first half of the last century. She and Sir Reginald joined their surnames the day before they married.
John was brought up at Cottesbrooke Hall, Northamptonshire, which his mother purchased in 1936 when Lavington Park, the family home in West Sussex, was sold. He was educated at Eton before attending Sandhurst, from where he was commissioned into the Scots Guards. During the war he served with William Whitelaw and Robert Runcie (later Home Secretary and Archbishop of Canterbury respectively), both of whom also won MCs.
Macdonald-Buchanan was in Malaya for two years during the Emergency before returning to regimental duties at Pirbright, Chelsea and Wellington barracks. He retired from the Army in 1952.
Shortly after the end of the war, his polo pony, Matilda, was selected to appear at the Horse of the Year Show at Olympia and to bring the whole week to a spectacular conclusion. On the Monday night, Macdonald-Buchanan, resplendent in his Army uniform, galloped through the curtains and into the spotlight of the darkened arena, waving his polo stick while the band played Waltzing Matilda.
Two laps of the arena were followed by two figures of eight. At the end of the second verse, he reined in at the far end of the arena before hurtling towards the bandstand, pulling up in a single stride and a cloud of dust, to thunderous applause.
This went without a hitch that night; and for the next four nights, while Macdonald-Buchanan was on regimental duties, his groom took his place. On the Saturday night, Macdonald-Buchanan arrived late, changed in the taxi and swung himself into the saddle. His groom tried to warn him that over the previous four nights Matilda had become increasingly impatient during the preliminary manoeuvres, and was interested only in the final dash of the grand finale. But the band was already striking up. ‘Nonsense! Nonsense!’ cried the captain. ‘Tell me tomorrow.’
Macdonald-Buchanan burst through the curtains, and it was all that he could do to hang on as Matilda pelted round the arena, going faster and faster while the conductor strove to keep up. There was no chance to rein in; but as soon as Matilda heard the second verse she whipped around, took off straight for the bandstand, stopped in one stride and catapulted her rider into the band, just below the royal box.
Disentangling himself from the trumpets and violins, Macdonald-Buchanan got down in time to hear his groom remark: ‘Horse of the Year! Ass of the Year, if you ask me!’
Macdonald-Buchanan hunted with the Pytchley, Beaufort and Heythrop, and steeplechased under National Hunt rules, having inherited from his family his great love of racing. The renowned Lavington Stud was founded by his grandfather and, as an owner and breeder, he had many successes with horses on the flat. Worthy of special mention is Sans Frontieres, winner of the Irish St Leger in 2010.
A friend said of Macdonald-Buchanan: ‘He was magnificent looking, ramrod straight, quick thinking and sometimes pretty curt. He was nearly always right, and when he said something very offensive it was always with that marvellous smile and a flick of the moustache - and he got away with it!’
On one occasion, he had a horse running at Baden-Baden . The top brass of the German Jockey Club, very Prussian-looking and marvellously kitted out, turned up to meet him and his companions. There was much clicking of heels and bowing.
The first man sprang to attention and said, ‘My pleasure!’ The arm that was thrust out had a hook on the end of it. The second man had a patch over one eye. The next had a wooden leg. Macdonald-Buchanan, turning to his friends, said, ‘D’you know, I had no idea we did so well!’
He was a member of the Horserace Betting Levy Board from 1973 to 1976 and senior steward of the Jockey Club from 1979 to 1982, a period when the appointment was by no means a sinecure. His acts of kindness were legion, and his family, friends, employees and the soldiers who served under him were devoted to him.
He was a governor of Christ’s Hospital School, Sussex, a committee member of Victim Support in Northampton and a founder member of the Northampton Five Charities Association. At various times he was Vice-Lord Lieutenant, High Sheriff and Deputy Lieutenant of Northamptonshire.
John Macdonald-Buchanan married first (dissolved), in 1950, Lady Rose Fane, a daughter of the 14th Earl of Westmorland. He married secondly, in 1969, Mrs Jill Trelawnay, daughter of Major-General Cecil Fairbanks, who survives him with a son and two daughters of his first marriage and two daughters of his second.
By kind permission of The Daily Telegraph
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