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'You can call it shrewd, but training is only common sense' - the late bloomer who became the handicap king
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Racing Lives is a new weekly series on the lives of people and horses we have recently lost. Here, John Randall remembers legendary trainer and handicap king Reg Akehurst.
Reg Akehurst, who died in May at the age of 94, was a self-made man who became the shrewdest dual-purpose trainer of his generation.
Shrewdness is not measured by Group or Grade 1 victories – though he scored at that level both on the Flat (with Gold Rod) and over jumps – but by reputation and success in big betting races.
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more inRacing Lives
- 'The only people glad to see the back of him are the bookies' - the proud Yorkshireman who achieved his Nunthorpe dream
- 'He was an old-school trainer who knew every trick in the book - if he said a horse would win, you knew it would'
- 'Everyone in racing knew him and I don’t think anyone ever had a bad word to say about him'
- How a mare who wouldn't sell led to a legacy of Group 1 winners - and a Group 1-winning trainer
- 'We were described as vandals and all sort of terrible things' - the innovator who shaped the modern-day Jockey Club