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Farewell to… Bonk Walwyn


  • A large racing crowd turned out to pay their respects to Virginia “Bonk” Walwyn at her funeral in Lambourn on 16 January.

    Bonk, wife of two-times champion Flat trainer Peter Walwyn, died suddenly on 2 January, aged 77.

    “She was the most wonderful woman and a very good rider,” said Peter, who married Bonk the year he took his trainer’s licence out, 1960. “She was also a very special mother and grandmother.”

    He added that her funeral was “enormously well-attended” with around 600 people there.
    She was called Bonk because her brother, Grand National winning-trainer Nick Gaselee, couldn’t pronounce her name when he was a child.

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