Passing of Playfair figures: Venerable trainer Roy Taylor, longtime jockey Clell Sherwood have both died

Death continued to thin the ranks of former Spokane horse racing figures late last month as a former longtime top trainer and a one-time jockey standout passed away.

Roy Taylor, who formed the formidable Taylor Brothers stable with his late twin, Troy, and their brother, J.D., died Wednesday in Spokane at age 90. Between them, Roy won the 1961 and 1962 titles at Spokane’s Playfair Race Course, finishing ahead of two other multiple champions, H.R. “Hump” Roberts and A.J “Dutch” Branenburg.

Taylor remained a title contender for more than two decades and placed fifth place as recently as 1985.

Clell Sherwood, the longtime jockeys room superintendent at Emerald Downs, Washington’s surviving track, died Feb. 17 at his home in Selah, Wash. He was 78. Four weeks earlier, on Jan. 18, ex-jockey Fred Lambert, 88, died at his home in Hayden, Idaho.

Sherwood, the region’s top apprentice jockey in the mid-1960s, enjoyed his best Spokane campaign in 1967, when he rode Just Like Uptown to victories in the Harvest Handicap and the Washington State Breeders Handicap. On Sept. 3, the day before trainer Bill Lanning Jr. sent out Just Like Uptown for his Labor Day win, Sherwood had ridden five winners. Lanning saddled three of those.

Sherwood and Lambert, who was often among Playfair’s leaders during his three-decade career, each won a pair of riding titles at Yakima Meadows.