John Adams was wheelchair-bound for the majority of his life, but legendary jumps trainer Eric Musgrove knew him before his life changed forever.

"I met him in the early 1980s and we became very good friends," he recalled.

"I remember going to New Zealand for a week with him to look at some horses.

"One day we were at the Trentham races at Wellington, and we were walking down the stairs from the grandstand. John wasn't moving that well and I asked him what the problem was.

"He said, 'I've got a growth in my back which is a bit sore sometimes. I'm going in for an operation in a couple of weeks. It should set me back for three weeks and then I'll be right again'.

"We didn't think anything else about it and enjoyed the rest of the trip."

As Musgrove explained, the operation didn't go as planned.

"He had the operation, and something went wrong," Musgrove said. "When he woke up the doctor told him that he was going to be a paraplegic (loss of muscle function in the lower half of the body) and unable to walk. He spent the next six months in hospital, then came out in a wheelchair, after going in for a routine operation. He was very unlucky."

Adams' bad luck didn't end there.

"The doctor died soon after, so he was never able to get any compensation for the mistake," Musgrove said.

LUCK TURNS

From my own experiences with John, it seemed he never outwardly let that setback bother him. He just adapted to his new life and pressed on. Musgrove and others I interviewed for this piece confirmed that impression.

"He had a great passion for jumps racing both as an owner and promoter," Musgrove said. "And he had a bit of luck with us. He part-owned Kosbar, who won the Von Doussa Steeple (1986), and Spanish Minstrel, who won the Harry D Young Hurdle (1989), both at Oakbank."

THE ADMINISTRATOR

Musgrove had no trouble reeling off some of John's achievements as an administrator.

"He joined the Australian Jumps Racing Association during the 1980s and was a tireless worker for jumps racing. He managed to convince the authorities in Queensland, Sydney and Canberra to run hurdle races. The promotions for those races were fantastic and they used to get good crowds.

"Another of his initiatives was Mooney O'Valley, when the Valley used to host the Irish jumps jockeys and the Guinness was flowing in the bars. They used to be great days with very big crowds.

"John also arranged for the Australian jockeys to head overseas and ride in challenges against the English, Irish, French and even the Japanese riders one year. And of course he had them come here as well."

THE MONEY MAKER

John's flare for promotion of jumps racing extended to raising much-needed funds for the sport. Musgrove fondly recalled one phase in particular.

"He was highly intelligent. Before poker machines were legalised in Victoria (1991), sporting clubs were allowed to have one or two slot machines, to help with their fundraising. John arranged for a few clubs to put in a machine where they'd get a cut and so would the AJRA.

"He was able to fund not only the association, but also his salary as executive officer. Some of those machines did so well we were able to sponsor some races with the profits."

John Rothfield (aka Dr Turf) also had memories of Adams' money-making skills.

"He used to run a bingo game in the 1980s, which was very popular," Dr Turf said.

"It was also quite lucrative for him with his fee as the compere," he added with a laugh.

THE WRITER

Like Musgrove, Dr Turf was a long-time friend of John's.

"The first time I met him, I was talking at a fundraiser for him to get a new car after his operation had gone wrong. I think it might have been at the Northcote footy club, which he was involved with. We got chatting and hit it off straight away. We had a shared love of racing and jumps racing.

"John used to love rorts in sports and racing. He'd regularly send me clippings of something that had happened somewhere. It might have been a driver pulling one up at the Swedish trots or a jockey jumping off in a Czechoslovakian jumps race.

"He gathered so many, we decided we should put them in a book, which we called Great Australian Sports Rorts," he explained.

A once-in-a-century pandemic prevented a second published collaboration.

"We were actually working on another book with the VRC (Victoria Racing Club) before COVID hit. It was going to be a social history on the Melbourne Cup. So, we'd mention the winner, but instead of giving the details of the event, we'd point out something different about the horse or the owner or the trainer.

"For instance, John had found out that the 1954 Melbourne Cup winner, Rising Fast, got his name from the front page of a New Zealand newspaper. The owner was struggling to come up with a name for his horse, when he noticed the headline, 'Wheat prices are rising fast' on the front of the paper.

"It was coming along quite well but then COVID hit."

THE SAVIOUR

Musgrove is adamant that without John's involvement, jumps racing wouldn't be around today.

"The sport was under a lot of pressure back in the 1980s, but John was outstanding at promoting the good aspects of the sport. He worked very hard with the VRC to ensure the programming was right for the jumps.

"He got the horses and riders promoted in the papers and on television. I'd go so far as to say that if he hadn't been in charge then, jumps racing wouldn't be around. It was through his enthusiasm and passion that we were able to keep going."

THE GOOD JUDGE

Former Australian Jockey Club chairman Bob Charley also recalls Adams fondly, particularly the day he received some astute advice from him.

"I first met John when I started to get interested in jumps racing. I bought a couple of tried horses and asked him for a trainer to send them to. I said I wanted to give them to a young trainer on the way up. "He said, 'There's this young guy down at Warrnambool who used to be a jumps jockey. I think he might go okay at it. His name's Ciaron Maher'.

"So I rang Ciaron up and sent two horses down to him. One was Brough Superior. who ended up winning a Hamilton Cup (2008) and finishing second in a J.J. Houlahan Hurdle (2009).

"The other was Man Of Class, who won the Grand National Steeple (2011) at 80/1, and I didn't have a zack on him. He also won the Great Eastern (2013) and had the Grand Annual won all the way down the straight until Banna Strand got him on the line.

"I ended up having a long history in jumps racing, all because John suggested I send my horses to Ciaron Maher."

THE HISTORIAN

John was instrumental in creating the Gallery of Champions, jumping's version of the Hall of Fame. He teamed with Ned Wallish (historian), Brian Meldrum (journalist), George Purcell (trainer) and Alf King (bookmaker) to identify horses, jockeys and trainers to be honoured. A wall in the Hill Stand at Flemington was adorned with pictures of the champions and unveiled at a 2003 race meeting.

TOO SOON

The news of John's death came as a shock to many, in particular Dr Turf.

"I caught up with him about a month ago. We had a great lunch and he mentioned he was going into hospital for an operation to have some gall stones removed. Next thing I knew, he'd apparently had a heart attack during it all and sadly we've lost a great man."