Death of Border Burg’s owner/trainer James Delahooke

James Delahooke, one of the most influential bloodstock agents of the past 50 years and a key figure in hunt racing during the 1980s has died at the age of 77.

He owned the 1987 Aintree Foxhunters’ Chase winner Border Burg, who was ridden to victory by Alan Hill and officially trained by George Cook, although Delahooke (pictured above)
employed Cook for 30 years and the two men shared much of the training duties. Cook had bred Border Burg out of a mare called Border Knife who he had purchased privately from a local farmer.

George Cook leads in Border Burg and Alan Hill at Aintree

Her colt by Perhapsburg caught Delahooke’s eye as a four-year-old and a deal was done. In addition to the Aintree win Border Burg finished second in the Foxhunter Chase at the Cheltenham Festival.

Delahooke said later: “I was such a bad trainer it took me years to figure out that Border Burg didn’t stay an inch beyond three miles – Aintree was ideal but the extra two furlongs at Cheltenham always found him out.”

Delahooke also owned I Got Stung and King Neon, who both won Stratford’s John Corbet Cup, which is now sponsored by pointtopoint.co.uk. Jack Of All Trades was another star of the yard, winning seven hunters’ chases and regularly being placed in the best company, while he also trained The Malakarma in that doughty stayers’ early years. When Delahooke gave up training and moved to Yorkshire in 1992 The Malakarma moved to Caroline Bailey’s.

Hill said: “James had three or four really top horses, of which Border Burg was best known, but I Got Stung was possibly more brilliant. James named the horse after he took him in place of a debt when someone sent him a mare to be covered by one of his stallions and couldn’t pay the fee. Sadly the horse died of a brain haemorrhage before he could show his full talents.

“I learned one hell of a lot from James, although he didn’t like letting all his secrets out and you had to watch and observe. He had a very good eye for a horse and was a brilliant stockman – his horses looked as good at the end of the season as they did at the beginning.

“I rode for a lot of top trainers and James’s horses were the fittest. He was one of the first point-to-point trainers to give horses shorter, shaper gallops, when other trainers were still galloping horses over two miles. He once said to me, ‘You can train horses to be slow’. He insisted that the whip was not used when a horse was having its first run of the season.”

Outside of the hunter chasing and point-to-pointing world Delahooke, who for a time was clerk of the course at now defunct Little Horwood, was best known for helping Prince Khalid Abdulla establish the racing and breeding empire that became Juddmonte.

Delahooke advised Prince Khalid on the purchase of such greats as Arc winner Dancing Brave, Rainbow Quest, who was second in an Arc and awarded it on a disqualification, and the mare Razyana, the dam of the legendary stallion Danehill. He also advised the Prince on numerous high-profile matings that led to Classic winners.

The two men eventually parted company and Delahooke’s star dimmed for a while, but at the end of the last century he was enlisted by chocolate billionaire Klaus Jacobs to give advice and buy mares following his purchase of Newsells Park Stud in Hertfordshire. More recently Delahooke had been buying stock in Europe for American celebrity chef and racehorse owner/breeder Bobby Flay.

Delahooke trained several top-class hunters’ chasers  **Photos credit – Tattersalls/Laura Green

Delahooke is survived by his wife Angie, four children and grandchildren.