26 July 2011 Libby Heath remembered
by Carolyn Tanner
Legbourne Church was packed last Thursday for the funeral of Libby Heath, who passed away earlier this month after suffering bouts of ill-health for several years.
Libby was one of the country's most outstanding Point-to-Point trainers of the late seventies and eighties, and was easily distinguished, especially to East Anglian followers, by the fur hat which she seemed to wear in all weathers and, when not busy supervising a runner, by the proximity of one of her long-haired miniature dachshunds, a breed beloved by her throughout her life.
Her successful training career began when she moved to Suffolk with her then husband, Nick Lees. Clare Villar's Mr Mellors was her top scorer numerically with 33 victories, but it was Lakin who Libby considered to be the most talented horse she had trained. Sadly his fragile legs never allowed him to fulfil that potential.
Among others to wave the flag for the yard were Corked and The Coalman, while Libby's own Clonmellon won no fewer than 20 races after he had reached his 12th birthday. She knew her horses, and their every quirk, inside out, the latter being a case in point. He used to lie down for long periods after his races, and she knew not to run him again until that stage had passed.
Libby took great pride in the appearance of her charges, wanting them to look as fit and well on the last day of the season as they had on the first. She did all the plaiting herself on racedays, and did not expect her staff to do anything that she herself could not.
She left Suffolk in the mid-eighties and moved to Hertfordshire with her second husband, Allan Heath, continuing to train Pointers until the end of the 1988 season, when she took out a full licence. One of her success stories in that sphere was with Double Turn, who was bought out of a Seller and whose jumping record made him every jockey's nightmare ride. Under Libby's care he was transformed, and shortly after he left her yard to be trained by his new owner, Derek Harding-Jones, he won the Aintree Fox Hunter Chase.
A few years late she and Allan moved to Lincolnshire, by which time she had handed in her licence and become a permit-holder, preferring to train just her own horses.
She loved seeing jockeys to whom she had given chances continue to do well. The 1980 and '81 national ladies' champion Lucy King (now Gibbon) was the main beneficiary from teaming up with Libby, but among others who enjoyed success on her horses were Simon Andrews, Don Cantillon, Simon Cowell, Perry Harding-Jones and Simon Sherwood.
As well as her husband Allan, Libby leaves a daughter, Charlotte, from her first marriage.
