Peter Bromley (30 April 1929 – 3 June 2003) wasBBC Radio's voice ofhorse racing for 40 years, and one of the most famous and recognised sports broadcasters in theUnited Kingdom.[1]
Born atHeswall onthe Wirral (then inCheshire) Bromley was educated atCheltenham College andSandhurst. He served as a lieutenant in the14th/20th King's Hussars, where he won the Bisley Cup forrifle shooting and came close to qualifying for Britain'smodern pentathlon team for the1952 Summer Olympics. He subsequently became the assistant to the Britishracehorse trainerFrank Pullen, and rode occasionally as an amateur jockey until he fractured his skull when a horse he was riding collided with a lorry.
In 1955 he became one of the first racecourse commentators in Britain (his first commentary was atPlumpton on 23 March that year - delivering the immortal line 'Atom Bomb has fallen!', after earlier test commentaries at the now-defunctHurst Park and atSandown Park), and in four years he commentated at every course apart fromCartmel. He had also begun to commentate on television, initially (briefly) forITV, but from 1958 for theBBC. On 13 May 1959, atNewmarket, he gave his first radio commentary. From 1 December 1959, he became the BBC's first racing correspondent, the first time the corporation had appointed a specialist correspondent on any sport. This was a full-time job: no commercial involvements or advertisements were permitted, and even opening fetes was frowned upon. He would remain in this position until the summer of 2001, calling home the winners of 202 Classics, with the exception of the 1969St Leger when he was on holiday - BBC colleagueJulian Wilson covered for him - and the 1997St Leger whenLee McKenzie stood in for him when he hurt his knee and could not climb up the stairs to the commentary box in Doncaster.
By 1960, criticism from the racing fraternity ofRaymond Glendenning's commentaries - he showed little interest in the sport and required the assistance of a race reader - was intensifying, and the rise of television was making the field of commentary more specialised. Bromley was advised byPeter Dimmock not to go to radio becausePeter O'Sullevan could not go on forever (O'Sullevan was only 42 at the time) and he would be the next in line, but after commentating for radio on a number of races in 1960, Bromley became BBC Radio's main racing commentator from the beginning of 1961 (Glendenning's last racing commentary was on theKing George VI Chase atKempton Park on 26 December 1960, although he would continue to commentate onfootball,racing andtennis until the early part of 1964). Bromley would, however, continue to commentate forBBC Television on occasions until around 1970.
For forty years from 1961 to 2001, Peter Bromley gave the radio commentary on virtually every major race in theUnited Kingdom, plus theIrish Derby andPrix de l'Arc de Triomphe on many occasions, and races in theUnited States,Hong Kong andSouth Africa, where he stayed for some time in late 1974 and early 1975. He covered 42Grand Nationals, 202Classics, and over 10,000 races in all. His commentaries were heard on theLight Programme,Network Three,Third Network,Radio 2,Radio 5 andFive Live, and his voice became instantly associated with racing among listeners all over the world as his commentaries also went out on theBBC World Service.
His stentorian, almost military tones - which could turn almost instantly from calmReceived Pronunciation to a roar of grand excitement - captured the drama and potency of horse racing, and his tireless championing of the sport within the BBC led to a dramatic expansion in the number of races covered - from only 50 a year in the early 1960s to over 250 by the 1980s, although in his later years that number would decline again. He was also responsible for the launch of a daily racing bulletin in 1964, which was cancelled in June 2007 when the bulletin was broadcast onFive Live.[citation needed]
The more memorable the race, the more memorable his commentary seemed to be:Shergar'sDerby in 1981 was heralded with the words "It's Shergar ... and you'll need a telescope to see the rest!", encapsulating how far ahead of his field the horse was. The epicGrand National of 1973 was another example: "Red Rum wins it,Crisp second and the rest don't matter - we'll never see a race like this in a hundred years!". An emotional piece of Bromley's commentary was his call in 1981 ofBob Champion winning theGrand National onAldaniti.
Bromley, who never seemed to betray his partial deafness, was a conscientious professional, working hard to prepare for each commentary, often presenting winning trainers and owners with his charts, featuring the colours of each horse in a race, as souvenirs. In his later years, he was especially angered when his broadcast of theDerby began as the runners were going in the stalls (French Open tennis had interfered), and when he was told through his earphones, near the end of a race atRoyal Ascot on 16 June 1998, to finish immediately after the race becauseFive Live needed to go over to theUnited States for the result of theLouise Woodward trial.[citation needed]
In his later years Bromley seemed to work less, giving much of his previous work over to commentatorLee McKenzie and reporterCornelius Lysaght. He had intended to retire when he turned 70 in 1999, but continued until the age of 72 mainly because the BBC wanted him to commentate on 200 Classics, a record which is unlikely to be broken. He finally retired afterGalileo'sEpsom Derby victory on 9 June 2001, 40 years after his first Derby commentary onPsidium's shock 66–1 win.[2]
Bromley's main pastimes were traininggundogs andshootinggame. He had hoped to continue these when he moved fromBerkshire toSuffolk on his retirement, but he began to suffer frompancreatic cancer less than a year after his final broadcast, and fell victim to the cancer 15 months later. He was survived by his second wife (his first wife had been killed in a car crash in 1960) and his three daughters.