Roman Warrior set a weight-carrying record by shouldering ten stone when he won the Ayr Gold Cup, Scotland’s premier flat race, in 1975. Not only that, he was the last Scottish-trained winner. Even more remarkably, he resided at the Cree Lodge yard across the road from the track in the care of Nigel Angus.
He’d finished third in the race as a three-year-old, no mean feat, and as he matured became bigger and stronger, the epitome of a ideal sprinter. He was thought to be the biggest flat race horse in training by the following season, when he was a close fourth in the July Cup before winning the Gosforth Park Cup at Newcastle carrying 9st 11lbs. Next time out he carried 10st 6lbs including a penalty, and trotted up in the Canada Dry Shield sponsored race at Ayr over six furlongs. The Ayr Gold Cup was an obvious target and though the TV commentator confidently called Roman Warrior as the winner it was only by a short head, separated by the width of the track from the runner-up. Lochnager, next year’s champion sprinter, was third, in receipt of 23 pounds. A week later Roman Warrior dead-heated for the Diadem Stakes at Ascot.
In 1976 he won first time out at Thirsk carrying ten stone – his ninth victory – but from then he had an almost impossible task in handicaps. Sentiment made him the 3/1 favourite for the Ayr Gold Cup, where he was inevitably burdened with ten stone. He was retired after finishing eighth, beaten a little over five lengths, conceding 37 pounds to the winner.
Ayr were prompt naming a race after him, introducing it on 22 July 1977 – suitably the Roman Warrior Shield, with a definite nod to the Canada Dry Shield on the same day, a race the big horse had won twice. The race lost its early prestige and it appeared for the last time on 21 June 1997 as the Roman Warrior Shield Maiden Stakes – an unsatisfying combination of words.