Champion Jump Horse Trainers tells, for the first time in one volume, the fascinating story of the 19 trainers who have reached the top of the National Hunt tree in the post-war period. It includes exclusive interviews with the surviving champion trainers and fresh insights from friends, colleagues and family members of champion trainers we have sadly lost. Filled with anecdotes about some of the greatest characters of the sport, like Captain Neville Crump, Captain Ryan Price and David ‘The Duke’ Nicholson, the book is the follow-up to Neil Clark’s very popular Champion Jump Horse Racing Jockeys: From 1945 to Present Day (also published by White Owl), described in the Spectator magazine as ‘worth space in any racing library’. While the book will be greatly enjoyed by jump racing enthusiasts, it is of wider appeal too as it is an entertaining social history of how Britain has changed since 1945. In the first half many of the trainers featured were from a military background, and invariably from the officer class. They ran their stables along strict military lines. But later on, a new breed of champion trainer emerged, like the remarkable Martin Pipe, the son of a bookie, who broke all the records existing up to then. The book comes right up to date featuring successful currently operating champions such as Paul Nicholls, Nicky Henderson and Willie Mullins and attempts to answer the question ‘what makes a champion trainer’? And of course there’s the horses.
