There are times in life that seem bloody hilarious when you look back at them, but at the time they were painfully embarrassing.

I have been friends with Jean Purcell for many more years than either of us care to recall, and many years after what I am about to tell you happened – she still won’t let me forget it.

She and her husband Bruce train racehorses, and back when I was editor of Hoofs and Horns I did a regular column about what was happening in their stables.

It was a reader favourite, so when Jean told me that the TV program of that time “A Country Practice” was going to use one of their racehorses in an episode we decided it would make a good story.

The horse they wanted to use was grey and easy to match to TV race meetings.

So I got up at 4am, loaded my camera and was on deck when the sun rose.

The little grey horse did his trackwork and behaved beautifully with the big fluffy mike over his head walking along behind Matron Sloan and her male friend.

I took heaps of pictures.

Filming moved on to the stripping stalls with people milling around discussing the horse’s chance in the Burragin Cup, while Jean led a nice brown filly up and down to provide background clip clop noise.

I was distracted by one of the help asking me a question about race horses and we chatted so it wasn’t until the scene was under way that I began to watch.

All of a sudden, the male star suddenly paused, clutched his chest and looking pleadingly at the TV crew started to collapse and Matron Sloan bellowed “Someone call an ambulance!”..

Now, you need to understand that I was pretty fragile about people and heart attacks as my dad had open heart surgery and someone collapsing in front of me shocked me to the core.

Knowing Jean had been a nurse before she was a horse trainer, I dropped the camera and ran at her screaming for her to DO SOMETHING, as couldn’t she see the man was having a heart attack.

For one instant, her reflex was to hand the filly to me and run to revive the stricken star… but then she paused, saying very quietly “Fran, it’s in the script.”

My face, that had been ashen white, turned scarlet with the realisation that I had run, screaming like a banshee into a group of total strangers… I felt such a fool.

I turned to apologise and found the film crew and the actors in fits of laughter.

I told the star who had quickly recovered from his heart attack and was laughing that it was all his fault and that his acting had been too good.

He replied “Ï want you to be the mother of my children.”

I told them it was all their fault for being too realistic, which they enjoyed, and I was only slightly mollified in the next shooting of that scene, when Matron Sloan bellowed “Call an Ambulance” (man that woman had lungs) a jockey trotting past yelled frantically to the control tower to send one.

“Is he a friend of yours?” said the sound man with a chuckle.

Jean – my almost X friend – was unable to look at me through the rest of the filming because when she did she folded up laughing, but all the way home in the truck, she would envisage it all again, giggling and wiping tears from her eyes.

“Ät least you didn’t jump in and start giving him mouth to mouth” she said, leaning her head on the steering wheel.

I just wished the whole thing would go away, but she vowed she would tell EVERYONE.

And she was true to her word.

With such treachery, it’s a tribute to our friendship that we are still speaking and laughing. The only thing I have been thankful for since that time is that it’s never come up on one of those TV blooper shows”¦ I might have to leave the country.