Walter Swinburn


Walter Robert John Swinburn was a flat racing jockey and trainer who competed in Great Britain and internationally.

Biography

Swinburn was born in Oxford. He was the son of Wally Swinburn, who won the Irish flat racing Champion Jockey title in 1976 and 1977 and was the first jockey to record over 100 winners in an Irish flat season. Nicknamed the "Choirboy", he rode his first winner, Paddy's Luck, on 12 July 1978 at Kempton Park but gained considerable fame for riding the superstar Shergar to victory in The Derby in 1981 by a record 10 lengths. Swinburn went on to win the Derby two more times.
In 1983, he rode All Along to victory in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe then the filly captured 1983 Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year honors with three straight major event wins in North America: the Washington, D.C. International at Laurel, Maryland, the Canadian International Stakes at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, Ontario, and the Turf Classic at Aqueduct Racetrack in Jamaica, New York. In 1996 he rode Pilsudski to victory in the Breeders' Cup Turf at Woodbine Racetrack and the Grosser Preis von Baden at Iffezheim Racecourse in Baden-Baden, Germany.
Swinburn spent four days in a coma after a fall in 1996, which was thought to have caused him to develop epilepsy, and retired from racing in 2000.

Trainer

After retiring as a winner of numerous Group One races, including eight British Classics, Swinburn began working as a licensed trainer in 2004 and operated Walter Swinburn Racing Stables based at Church Farm in Aldbury, Tring, Hertfordshire. At the end of the 2011 UK Flat Season Walter Swinburn gave up his flat training licence.

Personal life

Swinburn married Alison Harris, the daughter of Peter Harris, a retired horse trainer, entrepreneur and multimillionaire in 2002. They had two daughters, Claudia and Camilla. His family home was Stocks House at Aldbury, a golf spa hotel and resort purchased by Harris in 2004 and converted for domestic use.
Swinburn died in London on 12 December 2016 at the age of 55. An inquest in January 2017 heard that Swinburn had fallen from a bathroom window, and the coroner ruled his death an accident.