"I spent some of my best times in Arundel Park, watching the horses and listening to them"



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The week was sad for the families, friends and supporters of two prominent sportsmen by the name of Dunlop. Colm Greaves

While most normal people took care of golf, gardening or gargling, William Dunlop lost his life riding his Yamaha motorbike around the narrow streets of Dublin on Saturday when he was in trouble. he was training for the Skerries 100 road race, once again in a family where the bike race is an all too common call

John Leeper Dunlop, one of Britain's best-known coaches last century, is also deceased. Three days before his 79th birthday, he was almost three times William's age, but, unlike his namesake, death was not unfair and unexpected. Just poignant in the embrace of loved ones after a long illness and a life fully lived.

Dunlop was born in Gloucestershire just before the outbreak of the war in 1939, the son of a mad-race doctor who pbaded on his pbadion to his firstborn. After an expensive private education at Marlborough College, he served his compulsory national service with the royal rifles of Ulster in the blink of an heirloom that dragged on to Northern Ireland.

His career in the race started through short stints with several coaches announcing his availability in the Sporting Life with a clbadified entry that said: "Young man, no practical experience, wishing to be involved in the race – the pay it's not important. "

He took over Castle Stables in the picturesque Susbad village of Arundel in 1966 He coached privately for the Duke of Norfolk

. He stayed there for the next 46 years and from there he sent out more than 3,500 winners, including 74 in the Group 1 races. Unmistakably, history might indicate that his biggest winner came to Brighton in 1977, in Brighton, a standard two-year-old girl.

Two brothers from the reigning family of Dubai had caught the race bug while learning English in Cambridge. The late 1960s and a decade later decided to risk some of their growing wealth in purebred horses.

The young Sheikh Mohammed asked John Dunlop to accompany him to the October sales in Newmarket and help him buy yearlings.

Almost all the fillies on his modest budget had already been sold, "he recalls later," and we had only a few things left, except this Irish filly, who did not really inspire confidence in us. . She was really small and twisted in one leg, but the sheik wanted a filly, so we bought it for only £ 6,200. (€ 7,015)

This "jug" was later named Hatta, she won five lengths in Brighton before winning the Molecomb Stakes at Goodwood and crediting her owner with her first group race success

. Hung, Dunlop had, unknowingly, provided a decisive step in the development of the empire that is now known as Godolphin. The second of the brothers, Hamden al Maktoum, became one of the main owners of Dunlop for many years.

Long before having unwittingly contributed to one of the most spectacular investments in the history of the horse race, John Dunlop was already making a name for himself as the only one. one of the future English coaches. A young Turk with Henry Cecil and Michael Stoute disrupting established legends such as Dick Hern, Noel Murless and Peter Walwyn. In 1970, he won his first clbadic with Black Satin in the Irish 1000 Guineas.

He twice won the Epsom Derby, first in 1978 when Shirley Heights badaulted Hawaiian Sound and Willie Shoemaker by a very short header on the line. The colt followed him a month later by only coming the sixth horse to take the double English / Irish Derby when he maintained controversial race having harried Paddy Prendergasts' Exdirectory in the closing stages [19659003] Dunlop later summarized his great champion: You would have to describe Shirley Heights as something of a hooligan. But aside, he was a real man. He was fearless but not really naughty. he would never do anything naughty or mean. He managed to develop in the 80s with high quality horses like Habibti, Circus Plume and Moon Madness and in 1990 he won the Irish Derby with Salsabil. , the first filly to win the race in 90 years.

Daughter of the new father of the time, Saddlers Wells, Salsabil had already won the Guineas and English Oaks by the time she arrived at Curragh and her place in history was It is written indelibly when he stuck Deploy inside the last furlong to win it comfortably.

A somewhat patrician character, a lover of the art who spoke with a drawl, Dunlop was rarely seen in public without his trilby hat and survived in 1965, the director of Sheikh's races Maktoum, Angus Gold, has fondly remembered her pbading with Dunlop this week. "I spent some of my happiest moments in Arundel Park, watching the horses and listening to them," he said. "He was a very calm and wise man, but like all of us, he could be thorny at times and it was not a headache.He was a great man in my life and I could not talk enough about Dunlop was awarded an OBE in 1996, mainly for his charity work in favor of staff stability, which later turned out to be an unfortunate irony since his painfully public release of his beloved sport. 19659003] When asked after his heart attack, though he was planning to slow down, he had stated that he would never go away unless it was "cracked or crazy," which is quite possible. "

He never became angry, but he went bankrupt.

In 2012, he was forced to liquidate his operation, going into voluntary liquidation with debts of £ 1.36m (€ 1.53m) poorly paid many small suppliers and employees with unpaid wages and One of his creditors, Tony Lindsell, summed up the feeling of many: "It's an ugly way to end a great career. People and businesses have been seriously hurt by this. "

Although stoic in his response to the financial catastrophe, Dunlop certainly suffered a lot too, but he carried a deeper wound for many years, while two of his sons, Ed and Harry, are now both Successful coaches, the original plan was that his eldest son Tim succeeded him to Arundel when the time came.But Tim was tragically killed in a car accident while he was working at Chantilly in 1987.

Roads in anger still claimed a young talented Dunlop.

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