Syndicate ownership pioneer Henry Ponsonby has passed away. He was 74. His white and red silks were carried to victory in the Ebor and Cesarwitch handicaps, among others. In 2020, Ponsonby celebrated a Royal Ascot double with Scarlet Dragon (GB) (Sir Percy {GB}) and Hollie Doyle in the Duke Of Edinburgh S. and then took the Queen Alexandra S. with Who Dares Wins (Ire) (Jeremy) and Tom Marquand.
Eve Johnson Houghton, who trained Scarlet Dragon for Ponsonby, said, “My first job in racing was working in Henry's office and in those days he had horses with dad [Fulke Johnson Houghton].
“He was larger than life, and all the way through he was a good winner as well as being a good loser. He supported me from day one when I took out a licence 15 years ago. To all his trainers he was always on the phone, and would call me up to four times a day.
“He's a huge loss to racing, and I would use two words to sum him up–irrepressible and unreplaceable.”
She added, “Before racing [on Friday] I got together with Alan King and Nicky Henderson and we all had a big boohoo.”
Added Derby-winning trainer Paul Cole, “We were together as good friends right from the start in the early 80s and I set him up to run syndicates for me. It was for selfish reasons really, but it all worked out. I can't remember how many good little horses he had but there were a lot of them, and then he went forward on his own.
“In those early days we were big friends with no worries. He had a wonderful sense of humour and everything was an adventure to him. He enjoyed everything he did, and put everything into it.
“Some of the stories should be spared from the print, but I remember in the early days at Whatcombe we put him on a fat filly and told him to trot her outside. As he was doing that the fog came down and we went to breakfast and forgot about him. It was only half an hour later that we realised he was missing, and had to send a search party to find him.”
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