Bill Marshall the trainer of Raffingora and My Swanee

Bill Marshall the trainer of Raffingora and My Swanee died in 2005 and this interesting article appeared in the Telegraph obituaries at the time of his death in Nov 2005...

Bill Marshall, who has died in Barbados aged 87, flew Spitfires and Hurricanes in the Second World War and later became a well-known racehorse trainer - he holds the record as the only person to have saddled winners from stables on four continents.

As a fighter pilot in July 1944, Marshall dived his Spitfire on a V1 flying bomb in the skies above Kent. He was about to back off to give himself shooting space when the V1's engine cut out over the town of Lydd. Realising that, unless he took immediate action, the bomb would fall directly on to the village, he opened fire from close range and destroyed it.

The blast blew a large hole in the Spitfire's radiator, and Marshall was fortunate to get back to his base at West Malling in one piece. Four days later, he received a message from Gordon Paine, Lydd's mayor, congratulating him on his bravery and expressing gratitude from the population of the town, which had suffered nothing worse than a few broken windows.

William Cyril Marshall was born in Newcastle upon Tyne on August 14 1918. Three months later, his family moved to a farm near Chichester, where he developed his love of horses. His father, Cyril, who had been invalided out of the Navy in 1918 after almost choking to death from fumes when the submarine he commanded was hit by a depth charge, bred shire horses and was keen on hunting.

By the time he was 12 Marshall was obsessed with horses and, as an amateur, rode his first winner in a Sussex point-to-point; for the son of a retired naval officer, however, to become a professional jockey was out of the question. Bill's great-grandfather, grandfather and father had all attended Rugby, and he was due to follow in their

The youngster cycled from Chichester to Portsmouth and joined a tramp steamer bound for Australia, a country he had read much about and where he was determined to earn his fortune. During the journey, the ship put into Hamburg. There Bill enjoyed a few drinks before paying his first visit to a brothel. Marshall recounted in his later years how an able seaman had that night given him the best bit of advice he had ever received: always to visit the whorehouse before the pub, not the other way round.

Having reached Australia, he found a job as a jockey, but soon turned his hand to training and established a travelling stable, taking his horses to "bush" race meetings the length and breadth of the country. Then, aged 17, he moved to South Africa, where he found a job in a gold mine and accumulated sufficient funds to set up a successful training yard near Johannesburg. It is likely that Marshall would never have left South Africa had it not been for the outbreak of the Second World War.


A staunch patriot, he was determined to join the RAF. He learned to fly, bought a Tiger Moth and, in September 1939, flew it back to Britain - a journey that was fraught with danger. Not only was his flimsy aircraft susceptible to bad weather, but he also had to exercise extreme caution when deciding in which countries he could safely re-fuel.

Marshall landed in England eight days later, after touching down in eight countries, none of which was sympathetic to the Germans. He joined the RAF and became a fighter pilot, first serving with No 91 Squadron in the Battle of Britain and later with No 253 Squadron in North Africa.

He principally flew Spitfires and Hurricanes and was shot down twice. His DFC citation credited Flight Lieutenant Marshall with having destroyed two enemy aircraft, seven flying bombs and sharing in the destruction of one midget submarine. It commended his "fine leadership, outstanding skill, courage, and fine fighting spirit".

But it was a non-combat flying incident that propelled Marshall into the newspaper headlines in 1943. Flying back from a mission over France, he realised that he was going to be very late for a date in Buckinghamshire. He was supposed to land at Tangmere, in Sussex, but diverted to Marlow, where his date awaited him in the Compleat Angler Inn.

His daredevil act of flying his Spitfire under a bridge and performing a roll impressed his girlfriend, but not an air commodore who happened to be in the bar. A report was filed, but Marshall escaped a court martial because it was wartime.

He then settled back in England, where he became one of the leading racehorse trainers between the 1950s and 1970s. His first yard was at Chichester and later he trained in Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Newmarket.

The first of his winners came with Danger Light at Windsor in 1951. At first, he concentrated on National Hunt horses, sending out the remarkable Hindhead (who went on winning until the age of 15) to score 23 victories. But it was as a Flat trainer that he would make his name.

The two horses for which he will be best remembered in Britain were both greys, the multiple-winners My Swanee and Raffingora. The former became a public favourite by winning six handicaps under ever-increasing burdens in 1969; but My Swanee's achievements were overshadowed by those of Raffingora.

That giant sprinter, which had been bought cheaply by Marshall, won 17 of his 28 outings in two seasons. In 1970 he scorched home in several of the premier races, but his most memorable victory came in the Cherkley Sprint Handicap at Epsom on Derby Day.

Carrying 10 stone and ridden by Lester Piggott, a lifelong friend of Marshall, Raffingora won by a short head in a then world record (electrically timed) for five furlongs of 53.89 seconds. In 1972 the trainer enjoyed his best season for winners with 63 successes.

This was remarkable because, in June of that year, Marshall and his wife, Pamela, had had a narrow escape from death when the light aircraft in which they, the racehorse-owner John Howard, and the jockey Joe Mercer were travelling to Belgium crashed after take-off from Newbury racecourse.

The pilot was killed instantly, but all the passengers survived, although the Marshalls were seriously injured.

In 1981 they moved to Barbados, where they made a considerable impact on the island's racing industry. While Pamela, as a director of the island's Turf Club, sought and found new sponsors for races at the colourful Garrison Savannah racecourse, her husband launched his new training career.

During the next 13 years he saddled seven winners of the Sandy Lane (formerly Cockspur) Barbados Gold Cup, the most prestigious race in the Caribbean, and nine Barbados Derby winners.

He was champion trainer no fewer than 11 times and was awarded the Silver Crown of Merit for his services to Barbados racing in 2003, the year in which his biography, You Win Some, You Lose Some (co-written by Julian Armfield and Fred Langan) was published.

Among the many owners for whom he trained in Barbados were Sir Martyn and Sally Arbib; Derrick and Gay Smith; Vere Davis; Gill Wilson; and the late Paul Locke. A statue of Sally Arbib's Blast of Storm, the Gold Cup hero of 2000, 2001 and 2002, was unveiled at Garrison Savannah by Barbados's Prime Minister, Owen Arthur, in March 2003.

Up until his death on Monday, Marshall rose at 3.15 am six days a week to supervise his horses' training. At lunch time he could be found in the bar of the Barbados Yacht Club, where he would entertain friends and visitors with a rich tapestry of tales from his life in racing. Most Sundays, he lunched at Sandy Lane where he persuaded the restaurant manager to include his beloved jellied eels on the menu.

Bill Marshall is survived by his wife and their daughter, and by a daughter and five sons (three of them named Tom, Dick and Harry) of his first two marriages.