John Oaksey

He has been described as "quite possibly the outstanding racing figure of modern times, touching so many via his compelling writing, broadcasting, race-riding and tireless fund-raising".

[1] He was the son of the noted jurist Geoffrey Lawrence, 1st Baron Oaksey, and his wife Marjorie, daughter of Commander Charles Robinson, RN.

[3] At age 16 he spent the summer attending the Nuremberg trials at which his father was officiating, the family diaries and memoirs of which are on permanent loan to the National Justice Museum in Nottingham.

Once in the race, he was unseated by his horse and knocked unconscious, but still insisted on filing his copy to the Sunday Telegraph before being taken away by stretcher.

He has been called "more effective than stylish in the saddle",[11] or, in the words of fellow broadcaster Peter O'Sullevan, "He did not have any natural ability riding, it was pure application, but he did become most successful.

The BBC booked him four days before his Grand National ride on Carrickbeg to tour the site by helicopter and talk the audience through the fences.

[13] This was followed by his first regular television work which was with Pay-TV, a short-lived pay-as-you-view experiment set up by the boxing promoter Jarvis Astaire in 1965.

In the 1980s he also appeared on BBC Radio alongside Peter Bromley, and together they covered Bob Champion's famous win in the 1981 Grand National.

[14][15] He wrote for the Sunday Telegraph during the first 28 years of its existence and for a similar length of time he was the "Audax" columnist in Horse & Hound.

This started life as a section of dialogue from his BBC preview[13] and when that description was replicated by events on the day it was adapted for his newspaper column.

[6] The piece is most familiar within racing circles for its description of the closing stages: Round the last elbow into the straight … the final dregs of stamina are draining fast for horse and man alike.

A hundred yards to go and then Ayala’s head appeared like Nemesis at my knee.This has been described by fellow racing journalist, Brough Scott as "the greatest single piece of first-person big sporting event narrative in the English language".

[12] His commitment to his journalism was described thus by Peter Michell, the Telegraph's sports editor: "Oaksey would gallop for four miles, nip up Mount Kilamanjaro for a spot of exercise and then dictate a thousand words.

[3] The 2013 running of the National Hunt Chase Challenge Cup at the Cheltenham Festival (a race he won in 1959) was named in his honour.

They had two children: The couple split in public fashion when Victoria started a relationship with artist Maggi Hambling.