Martin Pipe

As of 2019 Pipe is involved in racing as an owner and an assistant to his son. His horse Gaspara was trained by his son David to win the 2007 Imperial Cup and Fred Winter Hurdle. Winning both of these races gained Martin Pipe a £75,000 bonus. In 2009 Pipe was honoured with the creation of a new race at the Cheltenham Festival named after him, the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle.

Pipe announced his retirement on grounds of ill-health on 29 April 2006, handing over the reins to son, David Pipe.

Pipe was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to horse racing. He retired in 2006. His son, David Pipe, took over as trainer with Pipe assisting. As of 2021 he was the most successful trainer in the history of British jump racing.

On eight occasions Pipe trained over 200 winners in one season, with a record tally of 243 in 1999–2000 and an amazing lifetime tally of 4183 European winners. He saddled a total of 34 winners at the Cheltenham Festival, including two Champion Hurdles with Granville Again in 1993 and novice Make A Stand in 1997, though victory in the Cheltenham Gold Cup eluded him (Rushing Wild came second in 1993). He also won the 1994 Grand National with Miinnehoma for owner Freddie Starr.

In 1998 the Pipe-trained and McCoy-ridden Unsinkable Boxer won the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival and for years the win was described as "one of the biggest handicap hits at Cheltenham" and as late as 2021 as "one of the biggest handicap gambles landed".

The Racing Post called him "one of the greatest trainers ever" and his stables, Pond House, "legendary". Pipe's methods came into wide use and became industry standards throughout the racing world. By 1992, according to The Independent, he had "redefined the preparation of racehorses". In 2005 the Guardian called him "the man who changed jump racing for good" and in 2006, after his retirement, "the most successful trainer in the history of jump racing". In 2020, The Times credited him with professionalising National Hunt Racing and called his training methods the "blueprint that others now aspire to". As of 2021 he was still the most successful jump trainer in British history.

Teaching himself the job with no preconceived notions or received wisdom, Pipe changed his training methods, which started out following what was typical at the time, and when he started winning races others became suspicious of his methods. ITV did a 1991 Cook Report episode that according to the Racing Post "basically accused Pipe of every dodgy practice short of witchcraft" and according to The Guardian in 2006 was "a very spiteful programme without foundation". The Times, writing in 2020, called it a "savaging" and said of the insinuations of ethical violations and cruelty, "The truth, though, was that Pipe was just getting his horses fitter than anyone else, knew precisely when they were healthy enough to do themselves justice, and ran them in the right races." Pipe was so upset he had thoughts of suicide; he recalls being brought out of his despondency by the public offer a few days later from Percy Brown, a Jockey Club steward, to send Pipe a horse for training. In 2002, suspicions raised again by his successes, the Jockey Club made a "dramatic dawn raid" on Pond House and collected blood samples, all of which tested negative. The Independent, writing at the time of Pipe's retirement in 2006, called the various accusations and investigations a "shameful persecution".

Pipe was a "dominant force" as a trainer for runners in the Welsh Grand National from the late 80s into the early 90s. In 1991 Carvill's Hill, owned by Paul Green and under Scudamore, "demolished" the National, carrying top weight and finishing 20 lengths ahead going away in soft, heavy going. (See external link below.) It was Carvill's Hill's career-best performance and the best performance in the race's history, according to Timeform. In addition to the Carvill's Hill win, Pipe won the Welsh Grand National with Bonanza Boy in 1988 and 1989, Run For Free in 1992, and Riverside Boy in 1993.

Pipe's partnership with jockey Scudamore from 1986 through 1993 (when Scudamore retired) was particularly successful; the racing post wrote:"Many trainers have copied the methods of Martin Pipe in recent decades and several jockeys have superseded the numerical achievements of Peter Scudamore, but none can claim to have cut such a swathe through racing’s centuries-old idyll as the pair who arrived like an act of God in the closing years of the 1980s."

The first clue to the upward trajectory that his career would subsequently take came with the 66/1 victory of Baron Blakeney over red-hot favourite Broadsword in the 1981 Triumph Hurdle at Cheltenham.

Pipe's first winner was with Hit Parade in a selling hurdle at Taunton in May 1975, jockeyed by Len Lungo. Before the race, Pipe's bookmaker father announced “I intend to lay the horse to any punters who want to back it with me. Mark my words, Martin will never train a winner.” After Hit Parade won, Pipe's father told him "You never trained that horse. [Previous trainer] Gay Kindersley gets that winner." Fourteen seasons later Pipe was crowned champion trainer for the first time.

The son of a West-Country bookmaker, Pipe was an amateur jockey before turning his attention to training in 1974 at Nicholashayne, Somerset, near Wellington, England, at Pond House stables.

Pipe applied for and received a licence to train in 1974 and began training at his father's farm, Pond House stables, which Dave Pipe had converted from a dilapidated former pig farm to establish racing stables. Pond House is located in the hamlet of Nicholashayne in Somerset, near Wellington and the Devon border. He hired Chester Barnes, a former table tennis champion, as his assistant. Pipe knew nothing about training racehorses, and his initial efforts were conspicuously unsuccessful.

Pipe married Carol Tyson, whom he met while they were both working in the Pipe family's bookmaking business, in 1971. The couple had one child, David Pipe, who took over the training facilities on Pipe's retirement in 2006 due to health concerns involving a muscle-wasting disease that was causing him mobility issues. Martin Pipe's father died in 2002. Pipe was appointed a CBE in 2000 for services to racing.

Martin Charles Pipe CBE (born 29 May 1945), is an English former racehorse trainer credited with professionalising the British racehorse training industry, and as of 2021 the most successful trainer in British jump racing.