One of racing’s true characters Lenny Taylor passed away suddenly on Tuesday reportedly from a heart attack.

Taylor was born into the racing game as his father was a breeder who also trained a bit. His first experience of the sport was at the Darling Gymkhana where, incredibly enough, he was riding in races when he was about five or six years old. He was unable to control a racehorse at that age so they used to lead him to the start and at the finish people would wave plastic bags at the horse to stop it.

Taylor started training in the Cape in 1971 and had some good horses like Horatius, who was a Grade 2 winner and finished second in the Cape Guineas to Bold Tropic and second in the Met to Foveros, Supreme Sovereign, who won the Grade 2 Clairwood Gold Vase, Bless My Soul, who finished second in the Queen’s Plate to Foveros, Free Enterprise, who did the Grade 2 Merchants and Grade I Cape Flying Championships double, Bold Messenger who won the EP Derby and Condorman who won the Winter Challenge at Kenilworth.

Taylor bought a number of value horses back then and Supreme Sovereign cost only R300 while Horatius cost just R1000.

Taylor left for Australia in 1994 and had about 40 winners out there.

He had a country-training license in Geelong.

One of his highlights was sending out a horse called Pride Of Pyrmont to run second in a Listed event on Melbourne Cup day. He also won a race at Moonee Valley with a horse called Regal Ruler from the very outside draw.

Taylor also trained standard-bred trotters in his time there.

He also spent a short time in New Zealand before returning to South Africa in 2003.

He renewed his training license in 2006 and trained from a Private Establishment in Mooi River that was formally used by Nick Robb.

He later managed a stud farm across the road, and helped in the preparation, breaking in and pretraining of another stud farm’s racing stock and helped transport horses to the races.

Taylor was a horseman through and through and his presence at the races in his cowboy hat will be missed by all in the racing fraternity.

By David Thiselton

Featured Image: Lenny, Marie, Nicole (SportingPost)