THE horses lining up for the 2.15 race at Ripon were, with respect, a pretty ordinary bunch: selling-platers competing at the lowest level of the sport of kings with barely a win between them.

But they were running in the name of a man of the highest calibre and in celebration of his extraordinary life.

Roger Murray, now 86, and living contentedly in the Wensleydale racing town of Middleham, was a stud groom by trade and a war hero by legend.

A native of west Ireland, horses were in his blood. He began his working life in 1932 at the Middleton Stud, owned by Captain Arthur Boyd-Rochford, brother of Cecil Boyd-Rochford, the great Newmarket trainer.

After a two-year grounding, Roger moved to the Aga Khan's Sheshoon Stud in Ireland and spent four happy years there before war broke out.

The groom swapped his peaceful, idyllic existence among racing's blue-bloods for life in the RAF as a navigator on Lancaster bombers - the workhorses of the Second World War.

Every day was the kind of gamble that those of a different generation, who wager a fiver each-way on a selling race at Ripon, could not imagine.

During one mission over Holland, Roger's aircraft was fatally hit. There was no way back.

He baled out and so began an epic story of survival and endurance which Hollywood would find difficult to surpass.

With the help of the underground movement, he walked from Holland to Portugal in a trek which took six months.

After the war, he returned to his beloved horses, transporting his skills abroad to work in Argentina's largest stud. Then it was back to Newmarket for a short spell with Sam Armstrong before he became stud groom at Cliff Stud, near Helmsley, in North Yorkshire.

This was the era of Sir Victor Sassoon and his trainer Noel Murless, when the winners flowed easily. Crepello, Derby winner in 1957, was broken-in by Roger, who also reared another Classics great in St Paddy, victorious in both the Derby and St Leger.

Nevertheless, he regards 1963 Ascot Gold Cup winner Twilight Alley as the best of the lot.

The Murless-Sassoon partnership folded when Sir Victor died in 1972 and, having married wife Vyvian, Roger returned to her home town of Middleham to set up a farm and bring up their four children.

Roger couldn't be at Ripon on Saturday for the celebration of his colourful life. At his age, the legs which once carried him thousands of miles to freedom weren't quite up to it.

But his family were there to see The Roger Murray Lifetime In Racing Selling Handicap Guaranteed Sweepstakes, over a mere mile and two furlongs, with Vyvian presenting the winning prizes to the connections of 9-1 winner Limbo Lad.

Roger, his Irish accent lilting excitedly down the telephone from Middleham, said: "I am deeply honoured. I'm a lucky, lucky man to have had such a life."

Asked about his wartime exploits, his voice was instantly quieter: "Ah, that's in the past now. I lost a lot of good friends. I'm a lucky man."

The race named in his honour is part of an admirable series dedicated to the unsung heroes of racing and was the idea of one of Middleham's best-loved characters, Raye Wilkinson, of Racing Welfare.

Brendan Holland, former head lad to Middleham's leading trainer Mark Johnston, and now running his own stud farm in Ireland, had flown in to be part of the tribute.

"There won't be half a dozen people in the whole country who know as much as Roger about horses. He's a great man," said Brendan.

Roger's son, also called Roger, a businessman in Middleham, said: "It's a wonderful idea to remember those at the grass roots of the sport and not just those who are in the headlines every day.

"It's a shame he couldn't be here but it's been a memorable day for us all."

For the great man's 12-year-old grandson Oliver, it was especially memorable. He had a pound of his pocket money on the winner of his granddad's race.

Luck, it seems, runs in the family.