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It’s just occurred to me that i haven’t seen any of his runners for quite a while, and must have missed some big news about him. Can anyone tell me ?
If you want to buy his stables and land, it’s on Rightmove for £2,420,000.
Poor Len, what a shame when Ashleybank Investments cut back drastically on their horse ownership, I think this was crucially what put Len out of business. Last I heard he was concentrating on other interests and was out of racing altogether. He has snooker businesses I believe, and you can see a prominent snooker table in a lounge area in one of the photos.
Crazy Horse was a favourite of mine, and nothing pleased me more when he won well at Aintree. I remember emailing Richard Hoiles on the old ‘Racing Channel’ to ask for a repeat of the video as it had paid off our mortgage. He read it out. Bit of an exaggeration but who cares
Mr Lungo also has the distinction of being the only trainer that has ever given us a winner during a visit to a stable. We had travelled a very long way for the opportunity and he told us to get on ‘DobiesGardenWorld’ in a bumper at Carlisle that day, it would pay for our petrol.
It duly obliged, I think at 9/4 if memory serves me well.THanks for that but my budget is £2m and not a penny more.
That’s a shame he was a big part of the scene for a long time, he seemed to be unlucky in that his better horses got injured and couldn’t fulfil there potential.
It looks as though Nicky Richards has benefitted by getting Skippers Brig who’s a serious horse, and with Money Trix he’s looks set for some good prize money this year.
The inference of his farewell interview in the Post a few months back was that he might train a couple of horses under permit, maybe even go pointing with them, but to all intents and purposes he’s given up the unequal struggle as a licensed trainer now.
One of the Ashleybank horses that won six or so races for him, Skippers Brig, obliged for new connections at Ayr today, I think I’m right in saying, so very timely to be asking after him.
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
Don’t know if it contributed to his decision to retire but recall him saying on RUK sometime last season that his stable had been ‘virus ridden for a long time’, or words to that effect.
I’d imagine that – like many another trainer – the struggle to make it pay simply became to wearing and the Ashleybank cut back was little more than the final nail in the coffin.
From a mercenary punting point of view I found his horses to be a tricky read, on the whole
apart from winning bumpers and novices events around northern gaff tracks, he did’nt really win much did he.
I don’t call 2 Cheltenham Festival winners not much, Celtic Giant in the 1999 Fulke Walywn Kim Muir, and Freetown in the 2002 Pertemps Final. The vast majority of trainers would give their eye teeth for just one.
It’s a shame for him
If he has suffered viruses for a long time
the name Lungo certainly hasn’t helpedIf nobody is going to mention the piece of trivia that he was the jockey on Martin Pipe’s first winner-Hit Parade in a seller at Taunton ’75- then I shan’t bother.
If nobody is going to mention the piece of trivia that he was the jockey on Martin Pipe’s first winner-Hit Parade in a seller at Taunton ’75- then I shan’t bother.
Rubbish trivia. The fact that he walked the track and loosened all the hurdles to ensure the dodgy jumping Hit Parade would win is much more worthy.
If nobody is going to mention the piece of trivia that he was the jockey on Martin Pipe’s first winner-Hit Parade in a seller at Taunton ’75- then I shan’t bother.
Rubbish trivia. The fact that he walked the track and loosened all the hurdles to ensure the dodgy jumping Hit Parade would win is much more worthy.
Yes,but that’s not trivia it’s urban myth.
From google Oct. 06 …
It looked a lot different back in 1975 when Hit Parade was make-or-break for Pipe. Len Lungo was the jockey on board that day and yesterday the Scot, who made his mark on Martin Pipe Day when training the winner of the third race, Monolith, recalled how important it was for Hit Parade to win.
"Without a winner Martin’s licence would have been restricted to amateurs’ races the following season," he said. "Before the race David Pipe [Martin’s late father] told me ‘Martin will never train a winner’. But I told him Hit Parade would win.
"The horse wasn’t always the best of jumpers," recalled Lungo. "So I got to Taunton early with a crowbar and loosened the inner flight of hurdles all the way round, just in case he hit one. But we made all the running and, in fact, he jumped well. The party went on for a week."
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I don’t believe him.I don’t call 2 Cheltenham Festival winners not much, Celtic Giant in the 1999 Fulke Walywn Kim Muir, and Freetown in the 2002 Pertemps Final. The vast majority of trainers would give their eye teeth for just one.
and some people call jonjo an under-achiever.
Despite the two festival winners, his horss never seemed to me to be great travellers. His stats for the last five NH seasons he was active seem to support that – if you draw a line across the country through Preston and York, he was 65/472 north of that line, but 7/141 to the south.
And if you aren’t producing winners at Aintree, Haydock, Doncaster, Cheltenham or any of the London/M4 tracks, then the big owners are unlikely to be knocking on your door.
It’s noticeable that in his final season, nearly half the horses he ran were down as owned by ‘L Lungo Racing Ltd’, which probably doesn’t pay the bills.
No denying his ability to do the job though – his win in the Northumberland Plate a highlight for me.
AP
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