Death of PTP trainer Sheila Crow

ONE of British point-to-pointing’s greatest trainers, Sheila Crow, has died. She was 87. Based at Hadnall in Shropshire, Crow handled numerous multiple winners, guided her children Alastair and Lucy to national riding championships, was a key factor in the four title races won by Richard Burton and helped Alastair’s son Henry at the start of his riding career. It was fitting that while in failing health she witnessed Henry’s memorable wins this spring on the Joe O’Shea-trained Barton Snow at the Cheltenham and Aintree festivals. Crow’s own highlight came in 2009 when the Burton-ridden Cappa Bleu won the Christie’s Foxhunters’ Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, while two years later the same rider partnered the Crow-trained My Flora to victory in Stratford’s champion novice hunters’ chase for the John Corbet Cup.