President’s Award

So there we were, myself, ‘Sir Robin’ Gray, J. A. ‘The Croc’ McGrath and John Hanmer, perhaps the most unlikely quartet ever to set foot in a McDonalds.

We were there, just outside Aintree racecourse, about an hour after the bomb scare and evacuation of 1997, John, perhaps the most incongruous of the four.

As we sat trying to find out what on earth was going on it was hard to believe John had ever set foot in one before. He almost certainly hasn’t been in one since.

Aintree was also where I first became aware of John, myself sitting on the sofa, watching the 1973 Grand National, John on scaffolding somewhere near the third fence. Peter O’Sullevan says ‘they come to the first and we join John Hanmer... ’

As a non commentator who has been lucky enough to watch a National from that scaffolding, that strikes me as the most frightening moment for any caller, forty unseen horses going flat out, suddenly appearing over a hedge.

Any one of them could fall, and your role is to recall their name in an instant. The BBC had trialled several commentators in that spot in the years before John; that he was there for the rest of the century and into the new one is testament to his abilities.

For well over forty years John was a fixture in the Press room, a thoroughly reliable and generally calm presence, someone who was respected just as much by the participants in the sport as he was by his colleagues.

Commentary was John’s most public role, both for the BBC and on course, though for the BBC he acted principally as a ‘spotter’ for Sir Peter and later for Jim McGrath. He was the original safe pair of hands, there to take the catch on the rare occasion ‘The Voice’ or ‘The Croc’

fumbled the ball. Listen to BBC footage from the period; if you hear an off-stage whisper in a brief pause in commentary, it is likely to be John.

One occasion when John found himself the main man behind the mic

was at Ascot on the day of Frankie’s Magnificent Seven, when the BBC showed the first four races live on Grandstand, with Sir Peter commentating. Sensing the possibility of history in the making, the line was left open to record the last three, just in case. As usual, for races not shown live, John took over duties. With races five and six done and won, a frantic search was made for ‘The Voice’, but he wasn’t to be found (he was in the BBC’s hospitality box), so it was John who got to call Fujiyama Crest’s unforgettable completion of Frankie’s dream day.

As well as a commentator, John was a Raceform racereader for many years and a jockey’s agent, principally for Steve Cauthen and Cash Asmussen. His spell booking rides for Steve Smith Eccles perhaps wasn’t so successful. At Leicester one day, when booked for a novice chaser with more letters than numbers in its form figures, Smith Eccles stormed into the Press room to let his agent know exactly, and pretty bluntly, what he thought of the arrangement.

For Raceform, in the days that they employed a team of two racereaders at each meeting (imagine!), John was usually in the role of assistant to the staff racereaders, mainly to John Sharratt, occasionally to Di Matthews, later to Anthony Kemp. Sharratt, meticulous and short of fuse, Di, delightful but with a firmer grasp of the pen than of what had happened in the race, Anthony, the eager rookie, still learning the ropes; to an observer, it seemed each required a high level of tact to work alongside.

‘The Grand Old Man’ as someone, probably Steve Taylor, tagged him, his maturity – John’s not Steve’s – always there. Impeccably mannered, thoroughly professional, dry of humour, a credit to the sport and to the media, I hope you will agree John Hanmer is a most worthy recipient of the President’s Award.