Bill Turner dead at 78: Legendary horse trainer passes after ‘freak accident’ as his family pay tribute to him who ‘was everyone’s dad’

Bill Turner was described as a man who ‘gave his life to racing’ after he died following a catastrophic accident at his stables.

Turner was the kind of character who enlivened the horseracing industry but he passed away on after failing to recover from an accident on Monday, which left him with a seriously fractured skull.

The 78-year-old, who trained in Sigwell, Somerset was a master at preparing speedy juveniles – he won Doncaster’s Brockleby Stakes, the traditional first race of the flats season on six occasions – and had been sending out winners since February 1979. He had previously been a jump jockey.

The unfortunate incident involved a colt he had been reportedly riding at his Dorset yard. He had been on a ventilator since being rushed to hospital on Monday, but died less than 72 hours later.

His daughter Kathy revealed the news in an emotional interview on Sky Sports Racing: ‘Everyone in racing will miss him. I can’t get round this injury doing this to him.

‘I’ve pulled him out from under horses, he’s been up on roofs just last Sunday – that was him, you’d never change him.

‘Dad passed away about an hour-and-a-half ago – we had the phone call while on the way to Chepstow races. He slipped away this morning.

‘The messages and the support from everyone have just been absolutely outstanding.

‘I’ve tried to reply to as many people as I could but I’m so sorry if I haven’t replied.

‘The love that man had – he wasn’t just my dad, he was everyone’s dad. The people he helped all through his years. He was everyone’s dad.

‘He would have preferred to be going flat out up the gallops with something like this.

‘But it was just a freak accident. He was holding onto a cob, not on top of a racehorse going flat out, which he thoroughly enjoyed.’

In his memory, a minute’s silence was held at Salisbury Racecourse on Thursday.

Turner led a colourful life and once made it his ambition to ride a zebra; he bought one in 2009 for £1500 and, with perseverance, broke it in and was able to get a saddle on it.

‘Everything to them is a predator who’s going to come and eat them,’ Turner told the Racing Post in 2021. ‘But I was sure I could do it. Once I started long-reining him he just came gradually and I started riding him, all over the place, round the village.’

His daughter, Katy, said: ‘It was just a freak accident. Racing didn’t earn him a living, it was just something he loved doing.’

Brant Dunshea, the BHA’s Chief Executive, said: “Bill was a wonderful stalwart of our sport. We will do everything we can to support the yard during this incredibly challenging period.”

Turner was born in 1947 in Shropshire and ran his stable at Sigwells with his wife Tracy and daughter Kathy.

He looked after a dozen horses and held a combined licence with the British Horseracing Authority.

One of his more iconic ventures was when he tried to teach a zebra called Zebedee to run like a thoroughbred.

In 2009, he bought Zebedee for £4,500 from a wildlife park in the Netherlands after being told they were impossible to ride.

Within two-and-a-half weeks, he had stunned locals by riding Zebedee down to the Kings Arms pub in Sherborne.

‘The first two or three days I had him I thought to myself “you silly old devil, I’ve bitten off more than you can chew here.” We were having real problems,’ he said.

‘The landlord down the pub and customers reckoned it would take six months to train but after two-and-a-half weeks we did it.

‘When people saw me me going down the road they were stopping, jumping out saying “I don’t believe what I’m seeing”.

‘A few of the pub customers came out and saw him and quickly went back in saying “I’ll have another pint of that, it’s better than I thought it was”.’