Turf writer, columnist Ray Kerrison dead at 92

Ray Kerrison, who covered horse racing for the New York Post for most of his nearly four decades as a journalist in the U.S., died on Sunday, according to family members and his former newspaper. Kerrison was 92.

Kerrison, a native of Australia, worked at the Post as a horse racing reporter and then a columnist from 1977-2013, retiring at the age of 83. He was known for his tenacity in pursuing stories, his work ethic, and his genteel manner.

“One of the nicest people I ever met in my life,” said Ed Fountaine, a former Post racing reporter who also worked at Daily Racing Form, in an obituary in the Post. “Nobody could say a bad word about him. Working with him was one of the pleasures of my career there. A real pro. At 82 years old, he was out at the track at 6 a.m. In the rain.”

According to the Post, Kerrison covered the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the 1969 moon landing, and the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorist attack before moving to the U.S. to cover racing at the Post. Among his notable stories in horse racing was his reporting on the Cinzano-Lebon incident, in which a champion Uruguayan horse ran under the name of a dead horse at Belmont Park and the Meadowlands.

One of Kerrison’s sons, Patrick, said in a social-media post that his father was “the single greatest man I ever knew.”

Kerrison was preceded in death by his wife, Monica, in 2012; a son, Gregory; and a daughter, Maria. He is survived by Patrick and another son, Damien, and daughters Catherine, Loretta, and Louise.