Fergus Sutherland

FERGUS Sutherland, who has died aged 81 following a long illness, was better known in Ireland than in his native Scotland as a trainer of National Hunt horses.

The best-known of the horses he handled was Imperial Call, which when it won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1996, sparked off huge rejoicing as the first Irish-trained winner of National Hunt's blue riband event for a decade.

Mr Sutherland was born in Peebles into a Scottish military family and was educated – like so many stalwarts of the Turf – at Eton.

From Eton he went on to Sandhurst and was commissioned into the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards. He was sent to Korea, where he was wounded, losing a leg after one of his platoon tripped a land mine, with the young Sutherland caught in the blast.

But the loss of the leg little inconvenienced him. He rode to hounds until into his sixties and had three different artificial limbs as spares: one for shooting, one for dancing and one for horse riding.

He continued in the Army after convalescence and was sent to Egypt, where he married his first wife, Catherine, with whom he had two sons – Adrian, now one of Ireland's leading equine dentists and Harry and two daughters: Tessa and Rosie.

Back in the UK, he decided to retire from the Army and pursue his interest in the Turf. He started as assistant trainer to Geoffrey Brooke at Clarehaven, between 1954 and 1957. He then took out his own trainer's licence, initially at the Carlsburg Stables in Newmarket, from whence Joe Lawson, who stayed around to advise his successor, had sent out Never Say Die to give Lester Piggot his first Derby win in 1954.

Mr Sutherland tasted early success on the flat, saddling amongst other winners, A.20 to win the Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot in 1958. Always a modest character when it came to personal successes, Mr Sutherland rode to hounds and was equally proud of his success in riding the winner of the Melton Hunt Club Cross-Country race in 1957.

He was, even then, drifting towards National Hunt racing and on moving to Ireland in 1957 he began training under National Hunt rules at the classical Georgian mansion Aghinagh House in Killinardish in County Cork. His mother Joan, who died, aged 102, in 2006, had moved there after marrying the colourful First World War VC Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart – the inspiration for Evelyn Waugh's Brigadier Ben Ritchie-Hook in the Sword of Honour trilogy.

In 1993 he went to the famous Tom Costello yard and bought a promising four-year-old named Imperial Call on behalf of Lisselan Estates. The young gelding was soon winning over hurdles and being looked upon as a potential Cheltenham Gold Cup winner.

In 1996 Imperial Call was touched by greatness. A win at Leopardstown in January did not go unnoticed by the Irish betting fraternity, then, when it won the Hennseey Gold Cup, the English cogniscenti also took note.

The great Cheltenham National Hunt Festival meeting came along and Imperial Call was ready, winning the great Cheltenham jump classic under a sterling ride from Conor O'Dwyer, to take the Gold Cup across the Irish Sea for the first time since Dawn Run had won 10 years previously.

The post-race craic was particularly good in Mr Sutherland's local, the Angler's Rest at Carrigadrochid, when he, his second wife Ann and Sarah Lane of Lisselan Estates carried National Hunt's Holy Grail into the party on their return home; the evening including his party piece, his rendition of Roamin' in the Gloamin'.

That Cheltenham success earned him the Irish Racing Personality of the Year award for 1996, the prize handed over at a typically boisterous evening in Goff's in Dublin.

That magnificent success was the height of his training career. He subsequently relinquished his licence, returned briefly between 2000 and 2002 then settled down to the quiet life of an Irish country gentleman – the hunting might have ceased when he was in his mid-sixties, but, the shooting and and occasional fishing continued until his final illness.

Racing has produced many characters over the years, as has Eton College. Quite clearly Fergus Sutherland, a positive, charismatic man who loved horses of all kinds, labradors and spaniels, shooting and life in general, was just such a person.

He is survived by Ann, his four children from his first marriage and Cara, from his second.