Laurie Morgan

1915 - 1997

Australian Lawrence Robert Morgan was born on February 5, 1915. A sheep farmer from New South Wales, he is best known for his achievement in winning two gold medals in the three-day event at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. Prior to that, he’d played Australian rules football with Fitzroy in the late 1930s.

He is the only Australian sportsman to have played AFL football and won an Olympic gold medal.

He was also a leading amateur rider under National Hunt rules in Britain during the late 1950s and early ’60s, winning the Cheltenham and Liverpool Foxhunters twice each on that fine chaser Colledge Master.

A chestnut gelding by Grandmaster out of a Columcille mare named Collence, Colledge Master had never appeared on a racecourse when Laurie Morgan (who had just arrived in England from Australia) bought him for 300 guineas at Ascot Sales in February 1955 as a five-year-old. That same year he rode Colledge Master in several one-day horse trials, and in the winter the horse was hunted with the Earl Bathurst’s V.W.H. and the Beaufort in preparation for starting out in point-to-points.

Laurie and Colledge Master had their first race together in a division of the open race at the Oxford University meeting at Lockinge in March 1956, finishing second. They then won the maiden race at the V.W.H. (Earl Bathurst’s) fixture, and this was followed by success in the open at the V.W.H. (Cricklade) meeting the day after Laurie had finished third on another horse in the Badminton Horse Trials. Laurie then won two more races on Colledge Master, an open race at the Tedworth (left) followed by a hunter chase at Taunton on April 26, 1956, their first victory under National Hunt rules.

Laurie had two lifetime ambitions. The first was to breed a Derby winner, which he had duly achieved in 1947 when his Valiant Crown won the A.J.C. Derby at Randwick, Sidney. The second was to win a chase over the Grand National fences at Liverpool. In 1957, he achieved that second part.

Laurie had just four rides during that 1956/57 campaign, all of them on Colledge Master. Having won hunter chases at Newbury and Windsor in February, they finished second to the top-class hunter chaser The Callant in the Cheltenham Foxhunters’ Challenge Cup. Just over a fortnight later, Laurie and Colledge Master scored an easy victory in the Liverpool Foxhunters’ Chase.

Laurie wasn’t around to partner Colledge Master in 1958. John Lawrence won on him at Wincanton, while Bill Rees rode him in that year’s Grand National (they were never going well and pulled up at halfway) and also in the Whitbread Gold Cup (finished 13th). Laurie was still absent in 1959 when John Daniell rode Colledge Master in the Cheltenham Foxhunters’, falling at the last fence when disputing the lead. John Lawrence then rode him to victory in a Warwick hunter chase.

In 1960, at the age of 45, Laurie collected two equestrian gold medals at the Rome Olympics, winning the individual three-day event on Salad Days and the team three-day event on the same horse, alongside Neale Lavis on Mirrabooka and Bill Roycroft on Our Solo. They were the first Australians to win an equestrian gold medal. Although the Australian Olympic team included many big names, such as Herb Elliott, Dawn Fraser and Murray Rose, Laurie was the country’s only dual gold medallist in 1960.

He rode Salad Days in hunter chases in 1961, finishing second at Wincanton, fifth in the United Hunts’ Challenge Cup at Cheltenham’s National Hunt meeting, and winning at Stratford-on-Avon on April 6. Remarkably, within a fortnight of riding Salad Days in a hunter chase, he then partnered him to victory in the world-famous Badminton three-day event.

Laurie and Colledge Master were reunited in 1961 and proved to be at the peak of their powers. Having won a hunter chase at Wincanton followed by the Royal Borough Hunters’ Chase at Windsor, they then won the Cheltenham Foxhunters’ Challenge Cup, beating previous winner Whinstone Hill and the Liverpool Foxhunters’ Chase for a second time.

They followed up by winning the John Peel Cup Hunters’ Chase at Manchester at odds on 4/1 on.

In April that year, Laurie rattled off three wins in as many weeks on Bogdan Lubecki’s novice hurdler Caduval, twice at Bangor-on-Dee and once at Woore. He ended that season with a tally of twelve winners.

After two disappointing efforts in hunter chases early in 1962, it appeared that 12-year-old Colledge Master’s best days were behind him, but he and Laurie then combined to win Cheltenham’s Foxhunters’ Challenge Cup for the second time, taking the lead at halfway and staying on gamely to score by a length and a half. It was also Laurie’s second winner of that year’s Cheltenham National Hunt meeting, for on the first day he had ridden Caduval to victory in the Broadway (now RSA) Chase. Laurie then rode Colledge Master in the 1962 Grand National, finishing in a distant fourteenth place behind Kilmore.

Colledge Master failed to add a third Cheltenham Foxhunters’ to his score of 12 hunter chases, being pulled up when favourite in 1963. However, Laurie did achieve further success that year on Caduval, winning two valuable races, namely the Capital and Counties Handicap Chase at Newbury on March 27 and the Daily Express Chase at Cheltenham on April 11. Those were his last two winners on British soil.

Laurie’s somewhat agricultural riding style was frequently criticised in the British press for its’ roughness’, and not everybody appreciated the triumphant grin with which he favoured his opponents as he left them trailing in his wake. However, the fact remains that Colledge Master went better for Laurie Morgan than for anyone else. Perhaps, though, the most surprising thing is that when Laurie offered Colledge Master to the Australian Olympic team the offer was turned down.

Laurie Morgan died on August 19, 1997, aged 82. His biography, entitled Too Tough To Lose, written by his son Warwick Morgan, was published in 2012 by Forty Degrees South Publishing.