{"id":166990,"date":"2025-06-08T07:06:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T07:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/166990\/"},"modified":"2025-06-08T07:06:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T07:06:11","slug":"horse-racing-community-rocked-by-tragic-sudden-passing-of-trainer-robbie-laing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/166990\/","title":{"rendered":"Horse racing community rocked by tragic sudden passing of trainer Robbie Laing"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"mol-bullets-with-font\">\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>\u00a0Tributes have flowed in for Robbie Laing<\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>\u00a0Laing passed away in his sleep aged 67<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"author-section byline-plain\">By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/profile-143\/james-cooney.html\" class=\"author\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">JAMES COONEY FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"byline-section\"> Published:  01:31 EDT, 8 June 2025   |  Updated:  02:32 EDT, 8 June 2025   <\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The racing community has been rocked by the sudden death of Group 1-winning trainer Robbie Laing, who passed away in his sleep overnight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Laing, 67, won five Group 1&#8217;s and notched up a total of 930 winners throughout his legendary training career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">He trained Roman Arch to an upset victory in the Australian Cup at Flemington in 2006.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Seven years later, Laing&#8217;s powerful Polanski claimed victory in the 2013 Victoria Derby.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">In recent years, the horseman had come back from bankruptcy to return to the top ranks of racing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Tributes have flowed in from racing personalities following the tragic news.<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-e0227b2cbb554b7e\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/99148541-14791229-image-a-85_1749360378107.jpg\" height=\"412\" width=\"634\" alt=\"The racing community has been rocked by the sudden death of trainer Robbie Laing\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">The racing community has been rocked by the sudden death of trainer Robbie Laing<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-667412412c262dee\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/99148537-14791229-image-a-86_1749360382322.jpg\" height=\"920\" width=\"634\" alt=\"The legendary 67-year-old horseman passed away in his sleep on Saturday night\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">The legendary 67-year-old horseman passed away in his sleep on Saturday night<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;Thoughts to the extensive family and many friends of legendary horseman Robbie Laing on hearing his sudden passing,&#8217; wrote journalist Bruce Clark.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">RIP Robbie Laing &#8211; a great horseman and such a likeable bloke,&#8217; posted Peter Angus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;Often I would tell Robbie Laing he should write a book. Highly entertaining, great storyteller, incredible knowledge and not afraid to be different,&#8217; posted presenter Ben Sporle.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Ex-jockey and trainer Gavin Bedggood remembered the trainer as &#8216;a man who was very good to me&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;Gave me my first horse as a trainer, many winners as a rider and plenty of advice over the years. Was never given the credit he deserved as a trainer \u2014 always had a good two-year-old, handicapper and jumper. Rest easy,&#8217; he posted to X.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Robbie Griffiths, Australian Trainers&#8217; Association president, also paid tribute.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;He was an outstanding trainer who always thought outside the square, producing some incredible feats including winning the Grand Annual over 5500 metres first-up from a spell with Sir Pentire,&#8217; Griffiths said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;Robbie would win the first two-year-old race of the season and everything in between.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;He mastered beach training long before the modern trend, and had an incredible eye for value purchasing VRC Derby winner Polanski for only $4000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;He was a great historian with unbelievable passion for his roots and his love for the Epsom training centre, where he began his training career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;An exceptional footballer, champion trainer and pedigree guru all rolled into a colourful and resilient character who was never short of a story to tell. Robbie will be sadly missed and fondly remembered.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>                    Share or comment on this article:<br \/>\n                        Horse racing community rocked by tragic sudden passing of trainer Robbie Laing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0Tributes have flowed in for Robbie Laing \u00a0Laing passed away in his sleep aged 67 By JAMES COONEY&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[92,1071,93,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-166990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-racing","10":"tag-sport","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114646481941271773","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}