On February 9, 2017, an inquest at Westminster Coroner’s Court heard that Walter Robert John Swinburn died on December 12, 2016 after suffering a fatal head injury in a fall from the bathroom window of his maisonette in Belgravia, Central London. He was found, wearing just his underwear, by his father, former Irish champion jockey Walter Robert ‘Wally’ Swinburn, on a courtyard 12 feet below the window but, while police and paramedics attended, he was pronounced.
Swinburn Jnr., a divorced father-of-two, had suffered post-traumatic epilepsy since seriously injured when his mount, Liffey River, cannoned into the running rail shortly after the start of the Alberta Plate at Sha Tin, Hong Kong, throwing him violently to the ground. One that occasion, he was knocked unconscious, broke some ribs and a collar bone, punctured a lung and was in a coma, in intensive care, for four days. The exact circumstances of his death remain a mystery but, returning a verdict of accidental death, Coroner Dr. Shirley Radcliffe said, ‘It seems to me there is little doubt this tragic death was due to an accident.’
Police constable Daniel Scott of the Metroplitan Police, who attended the scene, said, ‘There was no indication of third party involvement.’ Likewise, while Swinburn had been prescribed high doses of anti-convulsant drugs, toxicology reports showed nothing untoward in his system and, according to Dr. Radcliffe, ‘He was clearly not intoxicated.’
Of course, Swinburn will always be best remembered for his association with the ultimately ill-fated Shergar, owned by HH Aga Khan IV and trained by Michael Stoute, in the days before his knighthood. On June 3, 1981, as a lithe 19-year-old – nicknamed ‘The Choirboy’ because of his boyish looks – Swinburn steered the son of Great Nephew to an effortless, 10-length win in the Derby at Epsom. That record-breaking victory became all the more poignant when, in February 1983, Shergar was kidnapped from Ballymany Stud in Co. Kildare by an armed gang and never seen again. He is believed to have fallen victim to the Irish Republican Army (IRA), but no-one has ever claimed resposibility for his kidnapping and his remains have never been found.
Born in Oxford on August 7 1961, Swinburn become apprenticed to trainer Herbert ‘Frenchie’ Nicholson – the father of David Nicholson – straight from school and later to Reg Hollinshead, before becoming stable jockey to Michael Stoute, who, immediately after his death, said, ‘He was
The most amazing natural talent.’ Relatively tall for a Flat jockey, at 5’7″, Swinburn fought the control his weight throughout his career, but, at the time of his eventual retirement from the saddle in 2000, won a total of eight British Classics, including two more Derbies, on Shahrastani in 1986 and Lammtarra in 1995. Other international victories included the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe on All Along in 1983 and the Breeders’ Cup Turf on Pilsudski in 1996.
However, as Sir Michael Stoute later said of Swinburn, ‘The big days were what he lived for, and he produced the goods on them on so many occasions.’ Notwithstanding the fact that he was in direct competition with the likes of Lester Piggott, Pat Eddery, Willie Carson and Steve Cauthen, that propensity for the big stage may account, in part, for his failure to become champion jockey. Four years after hanging up his riding boots, in 2004, he took over the training licence from his then father-in-law Peter Harris and, in seven full seasons at the helm at Church Farm in Tring, Hertfordshire sent out over 260 winners. Ironically, Swinburn enjoyed his most successful season as a trainer in 2010, when he saddled 52 winners, but handed in his licence in 2011, when Harris decided to sell his string, thereby rendering the operation financially unviable.