Zoe Davison
Zoe Davison was truly one of a kind. She was loved and respected by everyone who knew her, and those that didn’t were missing out.
What Zoe didn’t know about racehorses wasn’t worth knowing, and her passion and commitment for them was only challenged by her love and dedication to her family, which explains why she combined them both, building her successful, family-run training operation, Shovelstrode Racing, with husband Andy, her mother in law Jacqui, and involving her daughters as soon as they were old enough to get involved.
Zoe tragically passed away on the 3rd January 2021 after a long, and brave battle against cancer. Here is a tribute to her amazing and fulfilling life.
A tribute to the late, great Zoe Davison
Zoe Davison was born on 23rd June 1960 to Gail and Albert Davison, their only child, and grew up just over the road from Shovelstrode at Homestall Stud Farm.
Zoe went to Notre Dame School but got caught doing a Ouija board which didn’t go down well with the nuns and she was expelled. So leaving school with no qualifications, it was inevitable horses were going to be her living.
Zoe took out her licence as a jockey when she was 16, but as she would often recount, Albert only ever put her up on the non-triers. So much so that she never rode a winner for her father. But her work-ethic was well and truly in evidence at a young age, as she mucked out 18 horses every day for her Dad.
She rode her first winner, Mr Caractacus at Plumpton on 25th August 1986, almost a decade after having her first ride. Zoe’s incredible dedication and determination to succeed was already clearly evident.
One of her finest hours as a jockey was winning on Panto Prince (a horse famous for running the great Desert Orchid so close at Ascot) at Chepstow on 29th November 1986. She was also pregnant with Gem although she may not have known it (although knowing Zoe, she might well have done)
Zoe and her then partner Gerry Gracey moved to Ireland in 1989 where they trained for a few years, and it was here that Gerry and Zoe learned all the skills and the knowledge to do horses backs from their great friend John Phelan, a skill that became one of the hallmarks of the Zoe Davison training ethos.
Zoe moved back to England with Gem and Georgie in 1996 and met Andy Irvine working at her Dad’s. Zoe and Andy started training at The Nash in Woldingham in 1997 where they trained their first winner Sails Legend ridden by AP McCoy at Towcester on 6th November 1997.
When the opportunity to buy Shovelstrode Stud presented itself, Andy’s Mum, Jacqui, joined forces with Zoe and Andy, and they pooled their resources and bought the property in 1998, and the Shovelstrode dream was started.
But this was not the incredible facility, with the beautiful house and amazing gallops you see today. Shovelstrode was completely run-down. The house was uninhabitable. Zoe and Andy lived in a mobile home. The stables needed work and they had no gallops, so had to transport the horses every day to work them. But to someone with Zoe’s drive and determination, and vision and creativity, this was a minor obstacle.
So of course another one was chucked in her path, when a virus hit the stables in 1999 and killed a couple of their horses including their best horse Summer Flower and left the others no longer able to race. Having got over that, they then got hit with another disease, Strangles, at the time of Foot and Mouth in 2001.
So whilst living in a mobile home, trying to rebuild their training operation after the devastation of the virus and then strangles, Zoe didn’t think that was enough of a challenge, so it was during this period that Andy and Zoe’s daughters Charlotte and Harriet were born.
Zoe then had her first battle with Breast Cancer in 2005. Needless to say she didn’t let it phase her and faced into it in her usual stoic way. She underwent surgery, Chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, and was then in remission for 10 years.
Just weeks after having the surgery, Zoe rode in a charity race at Goodwood, in the same race as Andy, and finished fourth. You’d think she’d be chuffed with that, but she was seriously pissed off, because Andy finished ahead of her in third. She said after all she’d been through he should have let her pass him.
In the years that followed the graft and investment in the yard continued. Every year Zoe insisted that the stables had to be repainted, and throughout the winter she’d be planning improvements she wanted to make, and Shovelstrode evolved into the incredible facility and home you see now. A great place to train horses, with her husband and family around her.
Shovelstrode was Zoe’s vision, her life’s work, and now her legacy, and Andy said that knowing she was leaving this legacy gave her great contentment in her last weeks, but as Gem said there was still always another ten things on the list to improve.
Zoe trained some lovely horses over the years, Spider Boy, Distant Romance, Summer Flower, Sherjawy, Just Beware, Frank N Fair, to name just a few, but her proudest moments were training Nozic to run huge races at three Grade 1 tracks with her daughter Gem riding him in each of them; at Ascot when 2nd in December 2012, then at Sandown broadcast live on Channel 4 Racing when 2nd again in January 2013, and then six weeks later when Nozic won at Kempton Park.
Zoe was totally committed to her daughters, giving them the upbringing that she had loved as a young girl, giving them ponies, teaching them to ride, taking them to shows, and ensuring they had the same opportunities as she had. And her grandchildren are getting exactly the same experiences now.
Gem talks lovingly about the incredible support her Mum gave her throughout her riding career and how much it meant to her when her Mum told her how proud she was of her watching her riding her winners. Gem speaks of the many hours they would spend working alongside each-other as a team, in the horsebox going galloping, talking about the horses and running plans. Quite simply she said, her Mum was her best friend.
Andy says that through all the many challenges and obstacles that they had to overcome in their lives, their relationship just grew stronger and stronger, full of love, quite a bit of bickering but lots of laughter, and quite simply she was a best friend as well as a wife.
In 2016 the cancer returned which was a huge blow for Zoe and the family particularly as this time it was terminal. It says everything about the way Zoe never let such huge life challenges stop her passion for her work, that 2016/2017 was the team’s incredible best ever season, winning 15 races from just 60 runners, a 25% strike rate.
The way Zoe dealt with her cancer over the last four and a half years with such positivity, courage, determination, never one iota of self-pity, and not for one moment letting it affect her passion for her work, her love and caring for her family and friends, and the joy she took from life, was utterly inspirational.
But even by Zoe’s standards, the events of 3rd January 2021 were nothing short of extraordinary. As Zoe lay at home seriously ill with Andy and her daughter Harriet by her side, she had two runners at Plumpton where Gem and Charlotte attended for the stable. Both had each way chances at best, but first Brown Bullet surged to victory, only to be followed by Mr Jack an hour later, landing only the third double of Zoe’s career, and at her favourite racecourse. Zoe then passed away just an hour later. It was a poignant day. Almost beyond belief.
Whether you are religious, believe in fate, destiny or karma, or are just spiritual like Zoe was, it is hard to believe that someone wasn’t looking down from on high saying “Zoe Davison, you deserve to go out in a blaze of glory”. And nobody deserved that glory more than Zoe did.