Wing Commander Timothy Ashmead Vigors, DFC (22 March 1921 – 14 November 2003) was a Royal Air Force fighter pilot and flying ace during the Second World War, in which he fought in the Battle of Britain and in the Far East.
In civilian life, Vigors began the development of the Coolmore Stud that transformed the breeding of thoroughbred racehorses.
Vigors's account of his wartime experiences was published posthumously in 2006 as Life's Too Short to Cry: The Inspirational Memoir of an Ace Battle of Britain Fighter Pilot.
He saw action over Dunkirk in May, shooting down his first Bf 109 on 30 May, at which he felt the same satisfaction, his obituary in The Daily Telegraph recorded him saying, as if he had "pulled down a high-flying pigeon flashing across the evening sky with the wind up his tail".
He once responded to a call for volunteers to intercept enemy bombers when still wearing his scarlet pyjamas under a green silk dressing gown, shooting down a Heinkel,[3] and during night-time scrambles was in charge of attaching Douglas Bader's tin left leg.
453 Squadron and Prince of Wales had previously agreed on a system of radio procedures, to facilitate air cover for Force Z.
As they attacked a large formation of bombers, Vigors was shot through the left thigh and his aircraft was hit in the fuel tank.
[1][3] Vigors was evacuated to India, where he held a number of training appointments and then assumed command of RAF Yelahanka, with responsibility for converting Hurricane pilots to the Thunderbolt ground-attack fighter.
[3] Vigors's account of his experiences in the war was published posthumously in 2006, 56 years after it was written, as Life's Too Short to Cry: The Inspirational Memoir of an Ace Battle of Britain Fighter Pilot.
Vigors inherited Coolmore in 1968 and began the development of the farm into one of principal stud operations in thoroughbred horse breeding.
[3] In 1973 Vigors sold a 50 per cent share in Coolmore to the legendary Irish trainer Vincent O'Brien, whose Ballydoyle stables were nearby.
[2][12] The Coolmore Stud also stood the American-bred milers, Thatch and Home Guard, both trained by O'Brien, while Magnier brought with him the sprinters Green God and Deep Diver.
[12] Coolmore became central to the transformation of thoroughbred horseracing, as Sangster, O'Brien and Magnier set out to capture the leading bloodstock lines, particularly of the stallion Northern Dancer, at increasingly dramatic auctions at the Keeneland Sales in Kentucky.
Initially many of their most famous acquisitions, including The Minstrel and Alleged, trained to success on the track by O'Brien, were sold to American syndicates, but Coolmore soon began to increase the quality and size of its breeding operation.
Later horses, including Sadler's Wells and Danehill, have made Coolmore perhaps the most successful, and financially remunerative, stud operation in the world.
[3][14][15] He continued to work as a bloodstock agent and in 1983 returned to Newmarket, Suffolk, handling the syndication of the successful sire Indian Ridge and helping to secure High Chaparral's dam, Kasora, at auction for Sean Coughlan.