Roger Mortimer

Major Roger Francis Mortimer (22 November 1909 – November 1991), was an English horse-racing correspondent, Coldstream Guards officer, prisoner of war, and author.

Son of Haliburton Stanley Mortimer (1879-1957), of 11 Cadogan Gardens, Chelsea (a London stockbroker), and Dorothy Blackwell, of Crosse & Blackwell, he was educated at Ludgrove, Eton and Sandhurst, and joined the Coldstream Guards in 1930. He was a Captain at Dunkirk (BEF, 1940) but was captured unconscious, all his men having been killed. Sir Frederick Vernon Corfield, QC, PC, and Freddy Burnaby-Atkins were among his friends made as a prisoner of war (no. 481, in the various Oflags and Stalags). He left the army in 1947 having post-war served in Trieste, and took an appointment at Raceform.

For 29 years, from 1947-1975, he was the Sunday Times' racing correspondent ( Fairway). He was succeeded by Brough Scott. ); The History of the Derby Stakes,Cassell (publisher) 1962 updated edition Michael Joseph, London, 1972; The Jockey Club, Cassell, London, 1958; Anthony Mildmay, MacGibbon & Kee, 1956; Twenty Great Horses, Cassell / Littlehampton Book Services Ltd, 1967; Twenty Great Horses of the British Turf, A. S. Barnes and Company, South Brunswick, NJ., 1968; The Flat: Flat racing in Britain since 1939, Allen and Unwin, 1979; Biographical Encyclopaedia of British Flat Racing, (Roger Mortimer, Richard Onslow, Peter Willet), MacDonald & Janes Ltd./ TBS The Book Service Ltd, London, 1978; Encyclopaedia of Flat Racing, Howard Wright & Roger Mortimer, Robert Hale, 1971 & 1986; Derby 200. The Official Story of the Blue Riband of the Turf, Michael Seth-Smith & Roger Mortimer, Guinness Superlatives, London, 1979. The Epsom Derby , Roger Mortimer with Tim Neligan , Michael Joseph , 1984.

External The Spectator's review of Jane Torday's book Review in The Guardian Telegraph review John Karter: 'Mortimer: never at a loss for words', Mortimer's obituary in The Sunday Times, 1 December 1991