Gordon W. Richards

Who was Gordon W. Richards?

Gordon W. Richards was a British racehorse trainer specialising mainly in National Hunt racing. He trained two winners of the Grand National with Lucius in 1978 and Hallo Dandy in 1984.

He was born in Bath, Somerset and was apprenticed as a flat jockey to Jack Waugh. His middle initial, W., was allegedly inserted in his name by an official at Salisbury Racecourse at the start of his career to differentiate him from the champion flat jockey Sir Gordon Richards. The W. was apparently taken from Waugh's surname. Becoming too heavy for the flat, he rode as a National Hunt jockey for Ivor Anthony and Johnny Marshall; his career as a jockey was ended by a fall at Perth Racecourse in which he broke his back.

In 1964 he took out a licence to train, initially at Beadnell, Northumberland before moving to Greystoke Castle stables near Penrith in Cumbria in 1968. He subsequently moved to a new purpose-built stables at Greystoke village in 1988.

As well as his two Grand National winners he gained major successes with One Man, dual winner of the King George VI Chase and winner of the Queen Mother Champion Chase, and Titus Oates, also a King George VI Chase winner.