Prof essor R H Graham Suggett OBE, the joint-founder of the National Equine Forum (NEF), died, aged 87, on 7 November following a long illness.
Graham founded the NEF, with the late Prof Sir Colin Spedding OBE, and the late Arthur George MBE. The three met in 1991 at the Royal Show to talk about how to assist the equestrian industry, and the following year discussions were held to identify ways in which it could “speak with one voice”.
The first NEF took place in 1993, with Graham holding the post of convenor from 1998 to 2008. He retired from the organising committee in 2009 and became an honorary fellow of the forum in 2015. The forum was honoured to celebrate Graham’s 80th birthday with him present at the event in 2016.
Graham was the driving force behind the development of education for those who wanted a career with horses. As principal of Warwickshire College (Moreton Morrell), he had the foresight to launch the first dedicated full-time further education course in equine management in the mid-1970s, subsequently developing the first UK equine degree.
Many colleges and universities now offer mainstream equine courses and Graham became known as the “father of horse courses”. He had a positive impact on many students’ lives, at Warwickshire College and through the other institutions that followed by establishing their own equine courses. Two members of the current NEF organising committee are his alumni, Georgina Crossman and Beth Maloney.
Following his retirement from Warwickshire College, Graham held the role of director of equine development and breeding at the British Equestrian Federation (BEF) pioneering the BEF young horse evaluations for four-, five- and six-year-old potential sport horses. This led to the Futurity, which is still running 18 years later.
As chairman of the National Equine Database, Graham’s foresight helped pave the way for the combining of pedigree, evaluation and performance data in the UK.
Both roles proved pivotal in advancing data collection and analysis in the horse world and built on his involvement with the NEF and Warwickshire College, further leading to the development of the BEF researching equines database, which contains the abstracts of more than 3,000 undergraduate theses.
Graham was a tireless driver for many positive developments within the equine sector and will be sorely missed. He is survived by his wife Inger, sons David, Iain and Arne and their families.
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