Walter Swinburn
Jockey known as the ‘Choirboy’ whose three Derby wins included a remarkable run on Shergar
WALTER Swinburn, who died last Monday aged 55, rode three Derby winners, but will be indelibly remembered for his partnership with Shergar, the horse which took the race by a remarkable 10 lengths in 1981.
Swinburn was only 19 at the time, and it was his first Derby ride; but Shergar conquered his rivals with almost contemptuous ease, coming around Tattenham Corner with a clear lead and drawing further away from his pursuers until Swinburn eased him down approaching the line.
For many racegoers, it was a first glimpse of the nerveless performance that would be typical of Swinburn when it came to the big-race occasions. He was an outstanding horseman, with an almost magical ability to relax his mount and coax it into an easy rhythm.
With characteristic modesty, Swinburn gave all the credit to the horse. “Anyone could have ridden Shergar,” he once said. “When you were galloping, he was the sort of horse you didn’t realise exactly how fast you were going because he had this really short, daisy-cutting action. He never wasted any time in the air and stayed really low. When he pulled me to the front I remember thinking ‘Whooah’, but he was gone.”
A furlong out, Swinburn was unaware of how far they were in front, and picked up his whip when he heard a voice in the crowd shouting: “Go on, Lester!” His thought was that Lester Piggott was about to overtake him on Shotgun. In fact, he later surmised, it was probably: “A housewife who mistook me for Lester, thinking only the great man would be given a horse as good as Shergar to ride.”
Piggott did ride Shergar to victory in that year’s Irish Derby — when Swinburn was suspended for a riding infringement — but the teenager was back on board when the horse won the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. By the time trainer Michael Stoute sent them to the St Leger, the horse was probably “over the top”, and finished fourth. Shergar was retired to stud, and in February 1983 was kidnapped from his stable in Co Kildare and never seen again. An IRA informer later claimed that he had been taken by a gang and later shot because they could not control him.
Swinburn went on to win two more Derbies, on Shahrastani (1986, like Shergar owned by the Aga Khan and trained by Stoute) and, in 1995, on Lammtarra, owned by Saeed bin Maktoum al Maktoum and trained by Saeed bin Suroor.
Lammtarra’s was a particularly remarkable ride by Swinburn, given that the horse had raced only once in his career; yet the jockey steered him around the notoriously difficult Epsom track to win in a record time. To add to his three Derbies, Swinburn won a further five English classics: the Oaks, on Unite (1987); the 2,000 Guineas on Doyoun (1988); and the 1,000 Guineas on Musical Bliss (1989), Hatoof (1992) and Sayyedati (1993).
He also won the Irish Derby on Shareef Dancer (1983) and Shahrastani (1986); the Irish 1,000 Guineas on Sonic Lady (1986) and Marling (1992); the Irish 2,000 Guineas on Shaadi (1989); the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and three major North American events on All Along (1983); and the 1996 Breeders’ Cup Turf in Toronto on Pilsudski.
Given this record in the big races, it might seem surprising that Swinburn was never a champion jockey. But he showed little interest in racking up large numbers of winners at small meetings, and he was also competing against a golden generation of flat race riders, among them Piggott, Pat Eddery, Willie Carson, Steve Cauthen and Joe Mercer.
At 5ft 7in, Swinburn was relatively tall for a flat race jockey, and throughout his career he struggled with his weight, encountering problems with bulimia and alcohol — drink, he said, “made me feel better about myself ”. Although his angelic looks as a teenager had earned him the “Choirboy” nickname, he was never quite as innocent as he looked.
In 1996, at the Sha Tin racetrack in Hong Kong, he was riding a horse called Liffey River when he was catapulted into the running rail, sustaining numerous broken bones and a punctured lung. He was in a coma for four days.
Later, he reflected: “The crash brought me liberty. For a while I didn’t have to worry about eating or my next ride.” Although he returned to the saddle within six months, he would retire from riding in 2000, adding: “I never got nervous before a big race. I felt completely at home on a horse... It was where I was always happiest. But the other side of racing was killing me. I hated doing what I had to do to ride.” For 14 years he had been fighting to control his weight, and it had become too much. In more recent years he also had to contend with epilepsy.
In 2004 Swinburn set up as a trainer in Hertfordshire, principally for the entrepreneur and former trainer Peter Harris, whose daughter, Alison, Swinburn had married in 2002. In his seven seasons as a trainer, Swinburn sent out more than 250 winners, among them Julienas in the Royal Hunt Cup at Royal Ascot. His most successful year was 2010, when he had more than 50 winners, but he handed in his licence at the end of the following season after Peter Harris decided to sell off his racing stock. He continued his involvement in racing, however, through his parents’ Genesis Green stud at Newmarket.
Walter Robert John Swinburn was born in Oxford on August 7, 1961, the son of Wally Swinburn, the former Irish champion jockey. At Rockwell College in Tipperary, Walter Jnr was an exceptional schoolboy scrum-half and an all-round sportsman. After leaving school he began his career in racing at Frenchie Nicholson’s yard at Prestbury, Gloucestershire, in 1977. He rode his first winner, Paddy’s Luck, at Kempton in 1978.
A sociable and generous friend, Swinburn enjoyed playing cricket — he once bowled out Gary Sobers in a match at the Kensington Oval in Barbados — and taking his chances on the Cresta Run at St Moritz.
Walter Swinburn’s marriage to Alison was dissolved, and he is survived by their two daughters and one stepson and one stepdaughter.