Tributes paid to former trainer and owner Norma Macauley following death aged 88

One of racing's more colourful characters, Norma Macauley, has died aged 88.

Macauley came from a family steeped in racing history, with her grandfather James Scobie a legendary trainer in Australia. He won the Melbourne Cup four times and was inducted into the Australian racing Hall of Fame in 2001.

Norman Scobie, Macauley's father, trained in Britain for many years, and Macauley carried on the tradition with a lengthy career of her own before concentrating on ownership.

When training, Macauley enjoyed a steady stream of winners from the late 1980s through to the 2000s. Prolific duo Elton Ledger and Bentico won 29 races under rules between them when trained by Macauley.

Mi Odds, who was owned for a time by bookmaker Gary Wiltshire, was another to record multiple victories. What should have been her biggest winner, Fourwalk, lost the Listed Field Marshal Stakes at Haydock in 1987 after causing interference and was placed last after crossing the line in front.

Based in Sproxton, Leicestershire, Macauley was a big advocate of all-weather racing, and frequently had runners at Southwell and Wolverhampton.

Southwell was the setting for the beginning of a longstanding friendship between Ron Harris and Macauley, with the former eventually training her horses.

"I'd just started training when Norma was still training," Harris said. "She wasn't the best at reversing the horsebox, and one day at Southwell she'd got stuck at the entrance. I offered to move it for her, did so and we were friends after that.

"She moved to Gloucester, and Derek Shaw was training her horses. But when she moved she wanted to have her horses closer so she could see them and that's how I ended up training for her."

The pair would enjoy plenty of success, with Perlachy and Light From Mars recording multiple victories for Harris. While Macauley was considered by many a formidable woman not to be trifled with, Harris remembered a very different character.

"She was the perfect owner," he said. "She had her ideas of which horses she wanted, but in terms of where they ran and who was aboard she never interfered. She'd have her comment after a race, but there was never a problem and she was an ideal owner.

"She was a lovely person to deal with, we never had a cross word. She had her own ideas about racing, spoke a lot of common sense and had a lot of experience in the sport."

Sky Sports Racing commentator Robert Cooper enjoyed sparring verbally with Macauley several times on-camera, but the exchanges were nothing but good-natured.

Cooper said: "Her bark was definitely worse than her bite. She looked serious but you could have fun with her. She had an impish sense of humour.

"She was such a generous person, she left me a bottle of cognac at Southwell for my birthday once. After she'd done that I sent her a Valentine's card as a bit of fun. I never heard anything about it but I know she got it as I found her address.

"I think she would have been a very good stand-up comedian, she could deliver a deadpan one-liner."

Macauley is survived by her sons Andy, Chris, John, Sean and Simon, and daughters Di, Julie, Karen and Liz.