Sir Anthony McCoy and Mick Fitzgerald are among the many stars from the racing world who are saddened by the news that Jim Old has called time on his hugely popular annual Injured Jockeys Fund Golf Day, and are now hoping that someone might come forward to take it on.
Last year’s 35th running of Jim’s Marlborough Golf Club day raised approaching £20,000 for the IJF and took the event’s earnings by his own calculations to somewhere north of £700,000. However, while taking part has lost none of its appeal – every year it still attracts as many as 50 teams of four – sponsorship has become harder to come by, and costs inevitably have risen.
On top of that, Jim points out that “everyone is getting older”, including himself, now 78 and for once not fit enough to participate last August, though happily still fit enough to help Nigel and Willy Twiston-Davies on the gallops every morning.
‘AP’, the IJF’s President, no doubt speaks for many when he says: “It’s a great shame that it’s finishing, but fair play to Jim for keeping it going for so long.”
He adds: “It’s not the only charity golf day of course, and you can’t do them all unfortunately, but it’s definitely among the best and the most long-standing and I’d put the first Monday in August in my diary every year and try to attend. It’s a great day and I shouldn’t think I’ve missed one since I stopped riding.
“Days like Jim’s are so important for the IJF, as much for raising awareness as for the money raised, although the funds are very important too. The IJF costs a lot of money to run, and I suspect some current riders don’t realise that it doesn’t come out of their pockets. It’s funded purely through donations and golf days like Jim’s.
“Jim is a very popular man, which helps with these things, and the time and effort that he and his team have put in over the years are hugely appreciated. It would be great if someone put up their hand and took it over.”
Mick is another big fan of the day, and not just because he and ‘AP’ have teamed up with notable success.
He says: “What Jim has done is nothing short of extraordinary. The calibre of people he has attracted to the day just tells you his standing in the sport, because the great and the good all turn out to play and it’s all down to him.
“It’s always been such a good day. It runs seamlessly from early morning until late at night and it’s all down to Jim and his team of helpers. I’ve played every year since I took up golf and I’ve been lucky enough to be on the winning team in three of the last four years I think, with ‘AP’ and Hughesie and co. It’s a great format, with the best two scores from each hole counting, but you’ve got to get it right on the day.
“It’s been a brilliant day and all for a very good cause of course. It’s amazing the faces that you see just that once every year, and because it’s such a big event and has so many players, people are filtering in and out all day. It’s unbelievable.
“It’s a big undertaking, I know, but I just hope it carries on, because it’s an institution, and it’s one we all love.”
Jim is saddened too, of course, but he knows it was the right time to draw stumps. He says: “I’ve enjoyed doing it and we’ve had fantastic support over the years, but we are all getting older and it gets harder every year. We were still raising good money, but £20,000 nowadays is nothing like the £20,000 plus we were raising 35 years ago, and I wanted to stop while we were still on top.
“I let everyone know that we were calling it a day a few weeks ago, and I had over 40 emails within three or four days, all saying well done, thank you, and so on.”
Jim, whose 1996 Leopardstown and Cheltenham Champion Hurdle double with Collier Bay was the highlight of a training career that in his own words featured “more snakes than ladders”, began his golf charity day for a different horse-related cause, following prompting from Sir Peter O’Sullevan.
He recalls: “I found myself sitting next to Peter O’Sullevan, as I think he then still was, at a dinner at a time when there was a big campaign to ban the export of live horses for slaughter, which racing had yet to get behind. I felt very strongly about it and he suggested running a golf day to raise awareness and get a petition up.
“He gave me a cheque for £500 and promised me that he’d get the same from Ladbrokes, William Hill, Coral and so on. Within a week I had £3,500 and so had to pull my finger out! That year we raised around £25,000, which was a lot of money in 1989, and so we did the same again the following year.
“Having won the horses for slaughter battle we did a similar event for jockey Nigel Coleman, who’d won a Triumph Hurdle on Ikdam but had a head injury, and we did another for Robert Alner, but for many years now it was just for the IJF, missing only one year through divorce and another through Covid.”
He adds: “John Francome would always bring a team of celebs and people like ‘AP’, Fitz, Richard Hughes and Carl Llewellyn were there every year. It was always a lot of fun and I’d try to organise it so that teams who were friends were teeing off one after the other and so they would keep meeting on their way around. We came up with a formula which always worked really well.
“We’ve had massive support from owners like JP McManus, who is invited every year and sends a cheque for £1,000 even though he never actually plays, plus from lots of others like Ray Green, Michael Wates and Shadwell. In the last three years we’ve also had a generous £5,000 from the Sir Peter O’Sullevan Trust, but that was due to end.”
Support, both in terms of financial donations and a great many prizes, has come from all manner of other sources too, and the running order for last year’s 35th Injured Jockeys Golf Day reads like a Who’s Who of some of the biggest names in the racing world. Sadly that looks like being the day’s last hurrah.
Jim concludes: “It’s been great fun and we’ve all enjoyed doing it, but my whole team – people like Les Trute, Charlie Fawcus, Chicky Oaksey and my sister Cherry Ludley – were all telling me to stop while we were on top. Sadly that’s what we’ve done.”