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2025 In Memoriam (Racing People)

Brian Rouse has sadly passed away at the age of 85. Best known for being the rider of my beloved Stannera who famously won two at Royal Ascot in the same year firstly in the Prince of Wales Stakes where she bettered Grundy's course record and later in the week when she won the Hardwicke Stakes. She then went on to become the firs European winner of the Japan Cup. I never thought she really got the credit at the time.

Anyway this is a nice obituary of Brian. His second winner came 15 years after his first. I am not sure if that is a better pub quiz question or the fact that he rode Desert Orchid in his sole Flat start (the horse not the forumite - that would be just a tad weird...!)

Stanerra was incredible -why were you so fascinated with her Jinny.
 
Stanerra was incredible
Won twice in a week at Royal Ascot in a year where the ground was like a road.

She must have had legs like iron - all the inbreeding and overwatering has driven that hardy type of horse out of the breed in recent years.

I find it very sad.
 
Stanerra was incredible -why were you so fascinated with her Jinny.
Probably because I backed her - I was 17 and at school doing my A levels and she broke up a pretty rigorous revision period. I was at boarding school so it was a question of sneaking off to find a tv to watch her - that was after I'd very illegally managed to get a bet on up the William Hill shop in the Old Bath Road in Cheltenham (it was easier at my previous school in Bath as the under gardener was happy to go and put bets on for me!). But I was mesmerised that any horse was tough enough to win two races within a week as it just didn't happen.
 
Compare the colour of the grass infield then with Royal Ascot the last few years; any ground not watered is completely burned nowadays.
Stanerra was five, had been given a chance to mature through her formative years ( was she unraced at 2 and 3 ?) and had the summer off after a muddling Eclipse Stakes run behind Solford before unseating Brian Rouse in Joe McGrath that autumn if memory recalls.
Tough, tough mare all told, bred by Moyglare Stud.
 

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