NEWS ARCHIVE

Week Beginning - 01.06.2009

Monday 1st June:

 There was a real touch of summer here over the weekend. With no Sunday racing on our schedule this week the horses had a chance to let off some steam turned out in the sunshine.

IVY THE TERRIBLE, who made her debut at Yarmouth on Friday and SANCTUM, who experienced competition for the first time on Saturday evening at  Lingfield, also enjoyed some relaxation before they return to the serious business of training.

Wednesday 3rd June: ROMANTICIZE is upped 3lbs in the handicap to reach a mark of 76.

On Monday we received the sad news of the death of Bertie Edwards.

Bertie Edwards entered our lives as an owner on the same day as our son came into the world, November 28^th 1987. Jon had known him when he was assistant trainer at Robert Williams and had renewed acquaintance with him by chance on the July Course at Newmarket. As we started the task of accumulating horses for Jon’s first licence application, Bert intimated that he would support us and so, on that Saturday lunchtime, as I was occupied at Newmarket General, Jon was sat in the Three Blackbirds in Woodditton wooing a potential client. As time wore on, father-to-be lost his composure just slightly and mentioned that he had another pressing appointment. He was summarily sent on his way with one horse to train and the promise of another. The former was Aceface one of our few older horses for our first season. Described by jockey Michael Roberts as a ‘lazy little devil’ he never quite succeeded in winning on the flat. Hurdles beckoned and he did manage to pass the post ahead of the pack and was duly sold on. The ‘promised’ horse turned out to be breeze up purchase Sign People. He had a mission on and that mission was to win on June 27^th 1988, the day Bertie’s company re-launched as ‘The Sign People’. Mission was accomplished and followed up with an impressive nursery win at Glorious Goodwood. He went on to take 3^rd in Listed company at 2 and was a decent handicapper from then on. And two other unforgettable horses running in the Edwards’ red and white colours (Arsenal man through and through) were 1994 Lincoln winner Our Rita (I could write a book about her, so won’t start) and the wonderful Pips Song.

As an owner, Bert was exemplary and as a friend he was straightforward and supportive. The most amusing of companions he was a wit and wisdom personified. As he stepped onto the podium to collect the spoils after Our Rita’s Lincoln victory he stumbled and fell over. Worried faces looked down at him only to be greeted by the words, ‘How the **** did the Queen Mother get up here? [She had presented a cup the previous day.] Lead me to a large gin and tonic!’ On another occasion he was somewhat riled having sent a horse to the seaside track at Redcar only for the meeting to be abandoned due to waterlogging. He had tried to speak to the clerk of the course but was told that he was in a race planning meeting. ‘Is he planning to move the course inland?’ was Bert’s response to that. Such off the cuff remarks were manifold. When he claimed Our Rita out of Paul Kelleway’s yard the Clerk of the Scales at Sandown that day reassured him the ‘Mr Kelleway was ok’. ‘Why has he got a medical condition?’ came the reply.

He liked a bet but took his wins and losses equally well. He once landed an ‘off shore’ coup when Our Rita slopped home in the mud in a York handicap. He was on a cruise and had got the captain to ‘park the boat up’ in Gibraltar.

So we bid a really good friend and mentor a very fond farewell and our thoughts and best wishes remain with his two sons David and Pip.