Former top Sydney trainer (Victor) Paul Sutherland died on Monday, aged 71, after a long battle with illness.
VP Sutherland trained a host of outstanding racehorses in his time, winning big races with the likes of Bold Troubadour, Sound Horizon, Mother Duck and Wong in the 1980s.
Sutherland was also the original trainer of Red Anchor, winning the QTC Sires’ Produce Stakes before his switch to the Tommy Smith camp where he won the Caulfield Guineas, Cox Plate and Victoria Derby as a three-year-old in 1984.
Sutherland had great success with champion jockey Malcolm Johnston, who told Sky Racing the trainer was not one to dwell on bad times, preferring to get on with his craft.
“He was a toiler,” Johnston said. “And I tell you something he was, he was a very, very good horseman and a very good horse trainer.
“He would get them ready as two-year-olds and get them shaping up week after week after week.
“He got very big in the last 80s from (19)86 through to the early 90s. We ended up at one stage with 80 horses in work.
“There was some great trainers around at the time and he was banging heads with the best of them.”
Sutherland later moved to the Sunshine Coast before finishing his career back at Rosehill.
Sutherland wrote a short autobiography titled, “My Life and Racing”, which can be purchased online through the Google Play electronic bookshop.
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