When Postdyne won a conditional jockeys’ selling chase at Huntingdon on January 29, 1987, it looked to have signalled the end of Wilmer Mann’s training career. He
had lost five of his nine horses at a stroke and the string had been further whittled down to just one, Postdyne. After 30 years as a trainer at least he had signed off with a winner.
But even though Postdyne was retired the following season, there was still reason to go on – a horse named Red Colombia. The winner of a minor chase at Southwell in May 1988, the following season he was shrewdly placed to finish third in the Brooke Bond Oxo National at Warwick, Haydock’s Greenall Whitley Gold Cup, and the John Hughes (Topham) Trophy over the Grand National fences, and was in the frame on four other occasions. Despite all that, Red Colombia was moved on to Banbury trainer Mark Wilkinson soon after.
Born on June 22, 1928, Wilmer George Mann could reflect on a lifetime in racing. He commenced his apprenticeship on the Flat in 1945 with M W Blackmore at Epsom. He took out a National Hunt jockey’s licence the following year and served his time with J L Hall and then Tom Yates at Russley Park, Marlborough, where fellow jockeys George Spann, Arthur Freeman, Jack Hyde and Johnny Bullock.
He rode his first winner on a chaser named In Any Case at Towcester on Easter Monday, April 7, 1947. Later that month, he scored an easy victory on the Tom Yates-trained Duharra at Wincanton, beating Jack Dowdeswell on Royal Mount. Forty-eight hours later, a crowd of 9,000 watched him ride Yates’ chaser Holbein to victory at the annual Beaufort Hunt fixture, beating Bryan Marshall on the odds-on Knight Garth by three-quarters of a length.
The next month saw Wilmer ride four winners from six rides at the two-day Whitsun meeting at Newport, another long-lost venue. He’d just been conscripted into the Royal Air Force to serve his National Service but had managed to get leave to ride at Newport. After racing, one of the winning owners drove him to Birmingham to catch the train back to Padgate, in Lancashire, where he was stationed.
National Service limited his riding opportunities over the next two years and it was January 1949 before he rode another winner. His best season thereafter was 1950/51 in which he had five winners, including the Earl Jones-trained Patrickswell, a useful chaser on whom he won twice in the autumn of 1950.
He rode just one winner in each of the next three seasons, the last being on Victory Salute in a Warwick selling chase on November 21, 1953. He retired from riding in 1954, having ridden a total of 20 winners, but was then struck down by meningitis, which incapacitated him for two years. Having fully recovered, he began training in 1956.
Three years later he took out a licence to ride again but it was the shortest of comebacks. It lasted just one race, on Shane in the Denstone Selling Handicap Hurdle at Uttoxeter on March 14, 1959. After finishing eighth of 11 finishers and thoroughly out of breath, Wilmer realised he was no longer fit enough and promptly hung up his boots for good. He must have imparted something to the horse though, for Shane returned to Uttoxeter a little over a fortnight later to score his first victory at 20/1, ridden by this time by Wilmer’s younger brother Geoff Mann, for whom it was the final winner of his riding career. Shane went on to be a good servant, winning six races, the last of them as a 13-year-old, and being placed many times.
Based at The Cottage Stables, Bishop’s Itchington, about five miles from Leamington Spa, Wilmer trained “just down the road” from his cousin Frank Mann (born August 16, 1920), who had begun training in 1950 and whose best-known horses included Lotoray, Mr Traddles, Leyland Jessica, Trickle-Charged, Rocky Dart and Simone Martini. Frank eventually relinquished his licence in the mid-1970s to concentrate on farming.
Among the best horses Wilmer trained, apart from Shane, Postdyne and Red Colombia, were Hedge Trimmer, Obadan and The Decca. The last-named won a Wills Premier Chase Qualifier at Doncaster in 1970 when ridden by Jimmy Bourke.
During the 1970s and first half of the eighties, the mantle of stable jockey was taken on by Wilmer’s son Robert. He gained his first riding success in unusual circumstances at Hexham in May 1973, being gifted a walkover on Kabab. They were reunited at Uttoxeter the following day, where this time they beat off the opposition to record Robert’s first ‘proper’ winner.
Having obtained planning permission for residential development of the stable complex at Bishop’s Itchington in the early 1990s, Wilmer moved base to Ken Wingrove’s former yard at Fox Farm, Bascote Heath, though he continued to live at his cottage in Bishop’s Itchington. He finally relinquished his trainer’s licence in 1997, aged 69, his training career having spanned more than 40 years.
Wilmer Mann died on Tuesday, August 20, 2013, aged 85, following a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. He left a wife, Betty, whom he’d married 62 years earlier (on August 11, 1951), two sons, Robert and Timothy, and a daughter, Georgina.
Wilmer Mann’s winners were, in chronological order:
1. In Any Case, Towcester, April 7, 1947
2. Duharra, Wincanton, April 24, 1947
3. Holbein, Beaufort Hunt, April 26, 1947
4. Duharra, Southwell, May 13, 1947
5. Luncarty, Newport, May 24, 1947 (walkover)
6. Baydon, Newport, May 24, 1947
7. Baydon, Newport, May 26, 1947
8. Mellish, Newport, May 26, 1947
9. Fellow Scot, Leicester, January 10, 1949
10. Blue Lias, Southwell, May 16, 1949
11. Merry Court, Chepstow, October 27, 1949
12. Lionheart, Southwell, May 27, 1950
13. Patrickswell, Stratford-on-Avon, September 16, 1950
14. Patrickswell, Worcester, October 24, 1950
15. Midwinter, Kempton Park, January 27, 1951
16. National Member, Southwell, April 14, 1951
17. Second Over, Hereford, May 14, 1951
18. Splash, Chepstow, October 5, 1951
19. Splash, Nottingham, October 27, 1952
20. Victory Salute, Warwick, November 21, 1953