Sad death of outstanding trainer Sheila Crow

One of point-to-pointing’s greatest trainers, Sheila Crow, has died. She was 87.

Based at Hadnall in Shropshire, Crow handled numerous multiple winners, guided her children Alastair and Lucy to national riding championships, was a key factor in the four title races won by Richard Burton and helped Alastair’s son Henry at the start of his riding career. It was fitting that while in failing health she witnessed Henry’s memorable wins this spring on the Joe O’Shea-trained Barton Snow at the Cheltenham and Aintree festivals.

Crow’s own highlight came in 2009 when the Burton-ridden Cappa Bleu won the Christie’s Foxhunters’ Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, while two years later the same rider partnered the Crow-trained My Flora to victory in Stratford’s champion novice hunters’ chase for the John Corbet Cup.

Henry said of his grandmother: “She was brilliant to me, a great help when I started riding and it was so good to have her to rely upon. You need that when you are young, someone to give you experience.

“She also provided me with a Cheltenham hunters’ chase win on Mr Mercurial and an Aintree victory on Rob The Getaway in the point-to-point bumper.”

Sheila Crow with the good mare My Flora and jockey Tom David following a win at Chaddesley Corbett in 2012 (Ce)

Childhood visits to point-to-points with granny were never dull for Henry, who said: “She would give me £5 to put on one of her horses, and I used to hang around the bookmakers waiting to find someone to put the bet on for me.”

Born in Powys, mid-Wales, Sheila was one of five children who all made their mark in the equestrian world. Her sister, Sarah, is mum to champion jumps trainer Dan Skelton and his jockey brother Harry, while her brother, Roy Edwards, was a professional jockey who won the Champion Hurdle on Saucy Kit in 1967, three years after he had finished third in the Grand National on Peacetown. Another brother, Charles, was a well-known breeder of showjumpers and whose son, Carl, represented Great Britain in that sport at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, while a third brother, Gordon (Gordy), who died in December, was a successful amateur rider with more than 100 wins to his name. He later trained the brilliant point-to-point mare Scally Muire who won 26 races.

Henry added: “Nanny was an incredible character and so tough. She was still riding racehorses at 80.”

Henry Crow: ‘Nanny was an incredible character and so tough’ (Ce)

Described as ‘indomitable’ by Michael Williams in his book Point-to-Pointing In Our Time, Crow was presented at the national dinner in 1996 with an inscribed salver for services to point-to-pointing. She was described by former record-holder Richard Burton as “a huge force in the sport” and “someone who played a big part in a memorable phase in my life”. She supplied him with his 100^th winner and also his 200^th winner – he went on to win 414 point-to-points, then a record. Yet their relationship began in unusual circumstances while Burton was working for Andrew Dalton, another national champion from Shropshire and at that time heading a rival stable to Crow’s yard.

Burton, who had won the national novice men’s title and Wilkinson Sword a few years earlier, but was still in the ascendancy, said: “It was April Fool’s Day, and Andrew told me Sheila had rung the office and wanted me to ride one for her. So I rang her and said, ‘Hello Sheila, it’s Richard Burton, I’ve heard you want me to ride one for you today.’ There was a pause, and then she said ‘No?’. I looked around and there was Andrew, standing in the corridor, laughing his head off.

“However, she said she would find me a ride, and I got on a first-time-out maiden who didn’t win, but things went from there. When Alastair subsequently picked up an injury she rang me up and I think of my first 13 rides for her 11 were winners. I thought to myself, ‘This is a different set-up’, and we became great allies.

“She mothered me a bit, gave me counselling when I needed it and instilled confidence in me, but she had a tremendous drive and will to win. She’d go to any length to be victorious. She’d say ‘I’ve got three winners for you today’ and she was normally right, but when things didn’t go to plan she took defeat as well as she took victory. She was very good at that.

Former national champion Richard Burton: ‘She had a tremendous drive and will to win’ (Ce)

“There was something mystical about the way she handled horses. She loved her family and was devoted to Edward, but she loved horses too and was a very canny buyer. She would go to Ireland and find horses, often with a minor issue that made them affordable. That became the model.”

Crow’s stable reached a zenith in terms of numbers during the 1980s and 90s, a period in which her daughter Lucy became senior women’s champion (1989) followed by Alastair who took the men’s title (1993 and ’95), although the number of horses in her yard slipped a little after an accident involving agricultural machinery led to the death of a teenager at the family farm in 1999. Her husband and son received fines and suspended prison sentences.

Despite the resulting hiatus Crow came back with a model based on quality over quantity and with backing from racehorse owners William and Angela Rucker soon unleashed her best horse. Henry recalls: “Soon after Granddad died my mum [Caroline] and Nan went over to Ireland together to look at horses and saw Cappa Bleu in a field. He was a little footsore, but they both fell in love with him and bought him there and then.” A phone call to William Rucker resolved the question of who would own the horse and a brief but brilliant association with the Crow stable began.

Burton said: “We took him to Horseheath for his first run, but after walking the course Sheila and I both felt it was a bit quick. William said ‘We’re going to run’ so we lined up in a 16-runner open race and won easily. That night I went to the Wynnstay Hunt Ball and remember saying to a friend, I think I’ve just ridden the winner of the Cheltenham Foxhunters’ Chase.

“Next time out we went to Chaddesley Corbett, where Dave Mansell had a ride in the race and was sure he would win, but we beat his horse by ten lengths. Then it was on to Cheltenham for the race after the Gold Cup which had been won by Kauto Star [who beat Denman]. Cappa Bleu had a great head on his shoulders and despite all the noise he was totally unfazed. He was a joy to ride – winning that race was one of the great highs in Sheila’s life.”

Cappa Bleu was subsequently moved to Evan Williams’ stable for a career under rules and four years later finished runner-up in the Grand National. Another horse who Crow trained for the Ruckers, High Chimes, won a brace of point-to-points before joining Williams and becoming his first Cheltenham Festival winner when landing the Walwyn/Muir Chase in 2008 under James Tudor.

In May Crow attended her final point-to-point when visiting Eyton-on-Severn – a course where she had trained her concluding winner, Love Around, in 2019 – although she was frail and stayed in her car. Burton, who visited her just two weeks ago, said: “She loved talking about the many good times we had together and the horses. Sometimes things are meant to be, and it was a great thing for her the way Henry came through this year and did what he did [on Barton Snow].

“I feel very lucky to have known her – it was marvellous to have her in your corner.”

Crow is survived by her children Alastair and Lucy, by grandsons Henry and Scott, granddaughters Alice and Sophie and great grandchildren Louisa and Edward.