Mercy made the bullets for Fred to fire
Rimell was a formidable woman who formed one of racing’s great double acts with her husband
It is popular to announce it as the end of an era when someone dies but Mercy Rimell’s era was well past by the time she died, aged 98, last week. Born just after the end of the First World War, married before the Second World War, she and husband Fred formed one of the great husband-and-wife partnerships in post-war jump racing; he training the horses, she riding out – her hack was the Champion Hurdle winner Comedy of Errors – and in charge of entries.
Fred was champion trainer five times. They won four Grand Nationals; with ESB (1956), who capitalised on Devon Loch’s slip 50 yards from the winning line, Nicolaus Silver (1961), Gay Trip (1970) and Rag Trade (1976).
They won two Gold Cups, with Woodland Venture (1967) and Royal Frolic (1976) and two Champion Hurdles with Comedy of Errors (1973 and 1975).
After Fred died in 1981, Mercy took over the licence and won the Champion again with Gaye Brief in 1983 and the Stayers’ Hurdle (1984) with Gaye Chance. She retired in 1989. It was once said that she made the bullets for Fred to fire and that, without Mercy, Fred would happily have been a tenant farmer on the Croome Estate, Worcestershire, for the rest of his life. I would place her in the heavyweight category of formidable women I have met.
I interviewed her twice; one was memorable for the rollicking I received for speaking to one of her stablelads, the other before Simon, a horse she owned and bred, ran in the 2007 Grand National was memorable because, while still not quite a cuddly old granny, she had mellowed considerably.
She was the first person other than family that Michael Oliver, who trained West Tip to win the National, remembers meeting. His father, Rolie, was one of the Rimell’s first big owners, and won the four-year-old chase at the Cheltenham Festival with ESB on the day Michael and his twin brother Martin were born.
He sold the horse before he won the National. However after one altercation between owner and trainer, Mercy ceremonially burned the Oliver colours on the lawn, though their differences were patched up and the Olivers continued to have horses there.
Sam Morshead, her first jockey, always had a tricky relationship with her.
The index of his autobiography Racing Through Life certainly seems to suggest that. Under “Rimell, Mercy – dissatisfied with SM” there are numerous page references – the best example being when she jocked him off a horse in a walkover. There are fewer entries under “Rimell, Mercy – pleased with SM”.
She was always turned out immaculately, even though being well groomed is not always compatible with people who spend their lives working with horses, and she was with it to the end, ringing her former assistant Mike Bell to congratulate him after Big Orange won the Ascot Gold Cup.
In Great British Racing’s bid to attract a younger (under 18) audience, it has set up a campaign called Stirr Up Summer with DJ Sara Cox.
In a video called “Jumping Jockeys”, Cox, who would ideally like to drop the D from DJ, is question master, while Jamie Spencer and Sean Levey are contestants in a quiz about racing. If they get the answer wrong, they get electrocuted.
The questions include: “Racehorses eat 35,000 calories a day, how many Weetabix is that?”; What gets the highest score in Scrabble – Frankel or Kauto Star” (it is Frankel). And it finishes with the trick question: “Which is faster, ostrich or racehorse?” The answer, of course, is that they are the same speed. As you can imagine, both jockeys are jumping all over the shop by the finish.