Morshead’s intrepid charm lit up the course

Racing has lost a great character in the former jockey who went on to transform Perth’s track

Racing lost one of its great characters last week when Sam Morshead, the jump-jockey-turned racecourse-manager, died aged 63 following a long illness. He joined Fred Rimell’s stable in 1975 and rode 400 winners before retiring in 1987. His biggest “winner” was Another Dolly in the 1980 Champion Chase, though only when the first past the post, Chinrullah, was disqualified after returning a positive test. On Gaye Chance, he won the 1981 Sun Alliance Novice Hurdle and 1984 Stayers Hurdle.

The thing I remember most about him was his time-saving device in the changing room, when he would peel his vest, shirt, tie, jumper and, occasionally, jacket off as if it was one garment and, after riding, replace it as one.

As a jockey, he was up for anything. At the start of a handicap hurdle at Exeter one day, the fog was rolling in across Haldon Hill so fast that the starter was worried about whether to let them go.

As the senior jockey, Sam checked that everyone was game and said that to make it easier he would go to the front, sing while riding and that the others should follow the “music”.

Halfway to the first hurdle, the fog had come in so thick no jockey could see his own horse’s ears and so disorientating was it that, though they could hear singing, they had no idea if it was in front of them, to the left, to the right or behind them.

When they rounded the bend, the singing suddenly stopped, to be replaced by the sound of smashing plastic and expletives – Sam had suddenly found himself approaching the open ditch on his hurdler and had taken avoiding action. A few moments later, the rest of the field were confronted by the remnants of the wings of the fence scattered across the track, the singing resumed, they missed out all the remaining hurdles down the back straight before rejoining the hurdle course for the last flight. No one knew they had only jumped three of the eight flights.

As a keen fisherman, all his Christmases came at once when he was given the clerk of the course’s job at Perth, a course situated on a meander in one of Scotland’s finest salmon rivers, the Tay. He fitted Perth, Perth fitted him, and over 25 years he transformed Britain’s most northerly racecourse into one of its most thriving, for which he received the MBE.

On one occasion, trainer Kim Bailey could not make the trip north so asked Sam to roll out the red carpet for his mother-in-law, Cilla Wills, owner of his runner.

Halfway through the afternoon, Sam rang the trainer to say how well it was going, what a good time the racecourse was giving his mother-in-law and what a lovely person Sarah Sutton (Bailey’s former mother-in-law who happened to have a runner in the hunter chase that day) was. It then transpired Sam had been steadfastly ignoring Bailey’s present mother-in-law, Mrs Wills.

Bailey’s horse duly won and when Sam got on the microphone for the prizegiving he announced that it was now entirely clear to him why the trainer had been unable to make it – because he had two mothers-in-law at the races.

Jane Wallace’s biography of the late equestrian commentator Mike Tucker, who was also an honorary steward at Cheltenham, is out and sure to be flying off the shelves at the Horse of the Year Show this week.

Tucker was on his way to the show in 2002 when he stopped at a garage. As he was paying for the fuel, the car, which contained all his commentary notes and his dinner jacket, was driven off by a sharp-eyed thief who noticed he had left the key in the ignition. Like all good farmers, he was more upset about the cost of a taxi from the garage to the NEC than he was the loss of the car.

The Man Behind The Mike – Mike Tucker, the voice of equestrianism (Quiller, £20).