‘The Captain’
Timothy Arthur Forster was born at Cold Ashby Hall in Northamptonshire on 27 February 1934. He served in the 11th Hussars from 1954 to 1960, in Malaya, Cumbria and Northern Ireland, which is why the racing world always called him ‘the Captain’. After leaving the army he learned the training trade and took out a licence in 1962.
Letcombe Bassett
In 1963 he moved to the Old Manor House stables at Letcombe Bassett, on the downs above Wantage, where he trained for more than thirty years. The gallops of the Letcombe and Lambourn downs suited the steeplechasers he specialised in, and he built a reputation for patient handling of big, slow-maturing jumpers.
His first Grand National came in 1972 with Well To Do, a horse he had been left by its owner, his friend Heather Sumner, shortly before her death. In 1980 he won again with the American-owned Ben Nevis, ridden by the amateur Charlie Fenwick; Forster, famous for his gloom before big races, is said to have told the jockey simply to ‘keep remounting’. The third, Last Suspect, won in 1985. Other good horses from Letcombe included Martha’s Son and Dublin Flyer, and his stable won major races such as the King George VI Chase, the Queen Mother Champion Chase and the Tingle Creek Chase.
In the summer of 1994 he moved his yard to Downton Hall near Ludlow in Shropshire. He retired in 1998 with 1,346 winners, was appointed OBE in the 1999 New Year Honours, and died at Ludlow on 21 April 1999.
Racing around Wantage
Forster was one of many trainers who have used the downs south and west of Wantage. Lester Piggott was born in the town and grew up at his father’s Lambourn stables, and racehorses still work on the gallops above the villages most mornings.
What to see locally
- Letcombe Bassett: the Old Manor House is a private property; the gallops can be seen from the Ridgeway and public rights of way. Please give way to strings of horses.