Obituary: Gordon Richards

GORDON RICHARDS will be remembered for his name as well as for the feat of training two winners of the Grand National in a magnificent career which spanned 34 years of National Hunt racing.

Born in Bath, the eldest of 10 children of a timber merchant, he was named after the legendary jockey Sir Gordon Richards, who was no relation. He had a "W" inserted as a middle initial on the insistence of a fastidious clerk of the scales in order to avoid confusion with his namesake when he started riding as an apprentice on the flat at Salisbury in 1944. At the time Richards was attached to the stables of J.C. Waugh and the "W" stood for Waugh.

Even so there were times when the two names were confused by both punters and racing's officialdom. Sir Gordon was once stopped by a well-wisher while holidaying in Barbados and congratulated on all the winners he had been training during the winter. On another occasion Richards was mistakenly sent Sir Gordon's account by Weatherbys, racing's secretariat, and he used to tell the tale with a smile saying: "I have never been so well off!"

Of course he was well off in his own right after many successful seasons as a trainer in the Cumbria village of Greystoke near Penrith. He owned property and land in the locality, where he handled a string of some 70 jumpers.

Richards's fortunes rode on the backs of some outstanding steeplechasers, beginning with Playlord and Titus Oates and continuing with the 1978 Grand National winner Lucius, followed six years later with another momentous Aintree victory via Hallo Dandy. His most recent stable star was the enigmatic grey One Man, winner of two King George VI Chases and last March hero of the Queen Mother Champion Chase at the Cheltenham Festival. Richards's brave fight against cancer prevented him from being at Cheltenham for One Man's emotional victory, which was probably the triumph he cherished most of all.

One Man had been written off as a horse that hated the undulations of Cheltenham and for Richards to have defied his critics meant a lot to him. Nothing gave him more satisfaction than having his professional judgement vindicated. One of the last times he went racing he witnessed the tragic death of One Man, who fell and broke a leg at Aintree the day before this year's Grand National.

Gordon Richards left home near Bath as an 11-year-old to work for the eccentric Mrs Louie Dingwall, who combined training horses on the south coast with selling petrol and second-hand cars. He was later apprenticed to the Didcot-based J.C. Waugh. He became too heavy for the flat and switched to the jumping yard of Ivor Anthony and in the Fifties moved north to join Johnny Marshall's stable at Chatton in Northumberland. Richards's riding career was brought to a premature end by a fall in which he broke his back at Perth at the age of 29. For the next five years he looked after hunters and ran a riding school, before turning his hand to training jumpers with great success, winning most of the big races in the calendar.

He embarked on his new career at Beadnell on the Northumberland coast and Playlord and Titus Oates, two of the outstanding chasers of their generation, alerted the racing world to the fact that another Gordon Richards was quickly making a name for himself.

Playlord was Richards's first winner in a novice hurdle at the now defunct Bogside racecourse in Scotland in 1965. As the horse progressed Richards, never one to lack confidence, was of the firm belief that he would make it to the top of the tree as a trainer. Playlord lived up to his trainer's aspirations by winning Doncaster's Great Yorkshire Chase, at the time one of the most important races in the calendar, and the 1969 Scottish National. He also finished third behind What a Myth in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

In 1968 Richards moved west from Northumberland to train in the beautiful Cumbria Fells at Grey-stoke Castle by the Lake District. He persuaded the Newcastle multi- millionaire builder Philip Cussins to pay a then record price, pounds 14,750, for Titus Oates, previously in the stables of another great north country practitioner, the late Arthur Stephenson.

Titus Oates proved a big success, winning the 1969 Massey Ferguson Gold Cup at Cheltenham, the King George VI Chase at Kempton and the Whitbread Gold Cup at Sandown. After Playlord and Titus Oates had provided the best possible advertisement for their trainer's ability, Lucius maintained the momentum by winning a thrilling race for the Grand National in the hands of the jockey Bob Davies. Hallo Dandy, ridden by Richards's stable jockey Neale Doughty, made it a second National for the trainer in 1984. Richards was firmly established as a leading member of his profession.

Other big races successes came with Man Alive, winner of the 1979 Mackeson Gold Cup, Noddy's Ryde in the 1984 Future Champions Chase, Clever Folly in the 1989 A.F. Budge Gold Cup, Four Trix in the 1990 Scottish National, One Man in the 1994 Hennessy Gold Cup, Unguided Missile in the 1995 Betterware Cup and Addington Boy in the 1996 Tripleprint Gold Cup.

In addition, One Man produced two spectacular displays of steeplechasing to win the King George VI Chase. First he ran away with the 1996 race - rescheduled at Sandown after the Christmas showpiece had been abandoned at Kempton a fortnight before. He then broke the Kempton course record 12 months later beating a King George field which included the Grand National winner Rough Quest and the Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Mr Mulligan.

The day before One Man won this year's Queen Mother Champion Chase, Richards won the National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham with Unguided Missile. That victory will also have given him particular pleasure because he was generally considered an under-achiever at the Cheltenham Festival.

Richards was never champion trainer, nor did he win as many races at the festival as everyone believed he should. In fact he had saddled only three other festival winners before this year's meeting. In 1981 Current Gold took the National Hunt Handicap Chase and Lord Greystoke followed up in the Cathcart Chase. Six years later Tartan Tailor won the Supreme Novices Hurdle.

Richards often gave his horses priority over his fellow humans. Some say he was better at understanding his four-legged friends and enjoyed a better rapport with them than he did with people. Throughout life he devoted his abounding energy to his horses. He was a successful amateur boxer during his days as an apprentice and was never averse to raising two fists across his chest to make a point during a heated discussion.

He gave his best and demanded the best from those who worked for him. Indeed he could be a hard task master. He produced two champion jockeys in Ron Barry and Jonjo O'Neill, who joined him from Ireland as raw young riders. But there were occasions when both jockeys found themselves on the receiving end of severe public bollocking from Richards, sometimes even after they had WON races and in full view of the public in the unsaddling enclosure.

Ten years ago Richards moved from the beautiful environs of Greystoke Castle into the village itself where he built a 70-box yard with all the facilities required of a modern-day racing stable.

Gordon Richards, racehorse trainer: born Bath 7 September 1930; married 1955 Jean Charlton (deceased; one son, one daughter), 1980 Joan Howard Lacey; died Carlisle, Cumberland 29 September 1998.