Robin Oakley

Racing loses its Voice

Goodwood was a glorious and fitting celebration of Britain’s greatest racing journalist

issue 08 August 2015

Reviewing a biography of Arkle, Peter O’Sullevan wrote, ‘He had an obit to die for.’ So did The Voice himself. It could have been a sad Goodwood with the death of the greatest racing journalist and the retirement of champion jockey Richard Hughes, the stylish equine burglar who stole so many last-gasp victories on the difficult undulating track, but instead it proved to be as Glorious a week as ever celebrating those two fantastic careers.

Peter O’Sullevan (like his late friend Lord Oaksey) drew countless thousands of us into racing with his ability to convey the excitement of the sport in print or behind the microphone. He then kept us there with his wit, his compassion and his instinctive ‘sens du cheval’. Among my treasured racing memories is a visit to Peter’s art-studded Chelsea flat and the long liquid lunch that followed: not only could he have called every faller in the Charge of the Light Brigade, the subtleties of timing and emphasis in his telling of an anecdote made him as much the master of that art as his friend Lester Piggott was of the saddle.

The series of admiring obits have testified to Peter’s immaculate sources, especially in France, and his successful punting.

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