Bob Smart
Article by Chris Pitt
Robert (Bob) Smart started in racing as an apprentice and rode one winner on the Flat before graduating to the jumping game.
He worked for Frank Cundell, who trained at Aston Tirrold, and rode his first winner under National Hunt Rules for him on Dutchman, owned by Hugh Sumner, in a three-year-old hurdle race at Taunton on December 19, 1953. His second winner was on handicap hurdler Pommel, trained by John Waugh at Chilton, at Wolverhampton on March 8, 1954.
Bob rode a dozen winners over the course of the next three years, mostly for Cundell, but both his winners for the 1957/58 season were for the Findon maestro Ryan Price, scoring on handicap chaser Zivai at Wolverhampton in November and juvenile hurdler Record Strike at Taunton in December.
He had to wait until Easter Monday before getting off the mark for the 1958/59 campaign, landing a Chepstow handicap hurdle on Belliquex for owner-trainer Philip Bathard, who operated from Courts Farm, Almondsbury, near Bristol. Bob then doubled his score for the season by riding Gay Fox to victory in the Torquay Hotels Association Challenge Bowl Chase at Newton Abbot in May.
Gay Fox was trained by at Lye Grange Stables, near Badminton, by Charles Cooper, who also gave Bob the leg up on his next winner, Trim Ruina, in a Newbury novices’ chase on November 28, 1959.
He rode just one more, Philip Bathard’s handicap hurdler Shillingstone, at Chepstow on Easter Monday, April 18, 1960. He retired at the end of the following season, having ridden a total of 21 winners, 20 over jumps and one on the Flat.
In 1970 he was employed as a private trainer to David Robinson and sent out 28 winners but he had to give up the post after only one year when it was diagnosed he was suffering from cancer of the throat. After undergoing an operation in London, he lost the full use of his voice and set up in the horse transport business at Newmarket during what was to be the last year of his life.
Bob Smart died in August 1972, aged 43. He left a wife, Maureen, and a young son, Nicholas.