There was a sadness across the sport of racing on Friday as news emerged of the death of Alastair Down, one of the finest chroniclers of the sport for 40 years and a great friend of Ireland and the sport here.
I was lucky enough to know him well for nearly half of his time at the top of his game and there was never a dull moment in his company.
As a broadcaster with Channel 4 but primarily as an opinion writer with the Sporting life and the Racing Post he captured the highs and lows, the dramas and the dreams of racing in a way that was unmatched.
Cheltenham was his mecca, as it is for son many within Irish racing and the connection. formed between the two was unwavering. He took great in being part of the circus as ireland went from no winners in the 1980’s to total dominance in more recent times and he was a regular visitor to these shores, always singing songs of praise to the trainers and the jockeys the moments of glory at Punchestown and Leopardstown.
But it was always to Cheltenham that his eyes and his heart were drawn.
“Everybody can recall their own moments when the spine surrenders to the shiver, the throat struggles and the eyes fight a losing battle with the blur of tears,” he wrote in 2012.
That love letter concluded with the words “And when the time comes I suspect my ashes will find their final resting place at the top of the hill – a place of solitude and skylarks in summer but where the denouement begins to boil to brutal in winter. At the top of the hill all the dreams are still alive, the triumphs and tragedies of the long swoop down and hard haul up the hill to victory yet to unfold before the rapt ranks in the stands.”
“On a quiet day, a few souls who share my blood, and some of those friends who truly understood why that blood was ever quickened in that place in the month when the hares go mad, will perform a simple ceremony. And that will be me done and literally dusted – forever lodged somewhere I believe I belong.”
That this moment foretold should have come at the age of only 68 and mere days after a celebration of the naming of the Cheltenham Press Box after him, a celebration in which he took full part, is desperately sad.
He lived life to the full and the cigarettes and the celebratory glasses have never been the foundation of a long life but still, his passing leaves the world a quieter and a sadder place.
Down’s own world became a little of that after losing his youngest daughter in a terror incident in London in 2019, the kind of thing that is hard to imagine anyone bouncing back from.
He leaves us with his twinkling sense of mischief and his words. For that he made the world of those who knew him richer and more full of zest. For that we will be forever grateful.
May he rest in peace, hopefully at the top of the hill.
Sport for Business and CapGem will host a special breakfast in the old Dublin Stick Exchange Building on the morning of Thursday November 7th to discuss investment in the League of Ireland. If you are a sport for business member and would like one of a limited number of invitations to join us please email rob@sportforbusiness.com.
