Racing: Legend of jumps racing will never be forgotten

Ken Browne in 1995. Herald file picture

Ken Browne couldn't have told you the rugby test score.

He didn't know the difference between a pinot noir and a shandy.

And fine dining meant a plate of ice cream.

But he was a genius.

When the 72-year-old yesterday died peacefully in the early hours of a freezing Cambridge morning, the world lost one of its true authorities on the jumping thoroughbred horse.

Ken Browne had been in a wheelchair since being paralysed in an innocuous fall jumping a horse over a log at home in May 2001.

At the time he was the world's oldest jockey riding in professional races.

In the final year of his riding before the accident, international news agencies carried stories of the remarkable 67-year-old regularly competing in one of the world's toughest endeavours, jumps racing.

He was officially an amateur, but that was merely a technicality - because he and wife Ann raced only their own horses he escaped the necessity to take out a professional licence.

But since Ken Browne was first licensed in July 1951, he was one of horse racing's true professionals.

The boy that ran away from an Auckland boarding school because of homesickness and returned to the parental Cambridge farm he was never to leave, rewrote the record book for jumps racing in New Zealand.

He and his wife nine times won jumps racing's icon event, Ellerslie's Great Northern Steeplechase, riding three of them himself, Ascona in 1977 and 1979 and Ardri in 1990.

He won the Grand National four times with Regal Mink (1978), Charlestown (81) and Crown Star in 1985 and 86, and rode them all.

Two things set Ken Browne apart - a remarkable intellect and a single-minded determination to further jumps racing.

He was tireless in his efforts to support those who followed the avenue of horse racing he devoted his life to.

Three weeks ago the Auckland Racing Club renamed the Queen's Birthday feature hurdle race the K S Browne Hurdles.

Jumps jockeys don't shed tears easily, but Jamie Gillies did when he narrowly won the race on the Browne owned and trained Waikiki Prince.

The extravagant wave Gillies gave as he went over the finish line was for Browne in his wheelchair in the grandstand and the tears were for the encouragement the Brownes gave the jockey to return to the saddle after the recent death of his mother.

New Zealand jumps racing would be on shaky ground without the Browne stable.

The time-honoured McGregor Grant Steeplechase, which the stable won nine times, had eight acceptors for the 2006 running on June 5, of which six were trained by the Brownes.

Their winner, the exciting Primo Canera, is the early favourite for Great Northern Steeplechase honours in September.

Browne served on racing's governing body, the then New Zealand Racing Conference, his intellect eventually tiring of the bureaucracy that pervaded such bodies at the time.

In 1987 when president of the Waikato Racing Club he rode his own horse, the mighty Crown Star, to win the Waikato Steeplechase.

Browne became one of New Zealand's largest horse traders to overseas markets. His credo was to never pillage the buyer. He believed in always leaving something in the deal for the purchaser. "They'll always come back", he used to say.

That repeat business made him a multi-millionaire.

Ken and Ann Browne lost a son, Roger, to an equestrian accident in Australia. Ken Browne is survived by Ann and another son, Alan.

The Cambridge horseman was unique. If jumps racing exists in 2539, there will not have been another Ken Browne.

LIFE AND TIMES OF KEN BROWNE

* The remarkable Cambridge horseman was the world's oldest jockey, riding in professional races until paralysed in 2001.

* Ken and Ann Browne won New Zealand's premier jumping race, Ellerslie's Great Northern Steeplechase, a record nine times.

* Ken Browne rode three of them.

* He rode all of his four winners of the Grand National Steeplechase, Regal Mink, Charlestown and Crown Star (twice).

* In 1987 he won the Waikato Steeplechase on Crown Star when president of the club.

* He rode 156 jumping winners in New Zealand, 102 of which were over steeplechases.

WIFE OF 47 YEARS BY KEN'S SIDE

Ken Browne's wife, Ann, says she was with him when he died.

"He'd just woken up and I'd spoken to him when he went back to sleep," she told NZPA yesterday.

"He'd had a bit of a cold in the last week and in the end his heart just stopped."

Ann Browne said there had been some difficult times since her husband's accident five years ago but she had been delighted to have those extra years with him.

"I think he did remarkably well in the last five years," she said of her husband of nearly 47 years.

"He had good people looking after him and he had quite a few moments when he really enjoyed his life.

"We had a few low times in recent years but a lot of good ones over the years."

- additional reporting: NZPA