An Interview With Clive Brittain

Horse Racing

Michael Wale meets Horse Racing's underdog king in the lead up to The Epsom Derby.

He's 74-years-old, has been working in horse racing since he was 14, and gets up at 4am every morning. Clive Brittain remains unique in the British horse racing scene.

It is The Derby, the great event in British flat racing, on June 7th and this year Britain does not have a runner. Even so, Clive believes it’s still the jewel in the flat racing calendar.

“This is the greatest race you could ever win on the flat. It is still the Blue Riband, whatever anyone says. I would love to win it. For a flat race trainer it means as much as winning the Grand National,” says Clive.

He came from Calne in Wiltshire, and at the age of 12 was earning money looking after and breaking in ponies from owners who were unable to do so themselves.

“I was paid two half crowns to look after these ponies, and that is how I made my money. I had more bad falls off ponies than I ever did from racehorses,” he tells 50connect.

At the age of 14 he joined the stables of Sir Noel Murless at Beckhampton in Wiltshire, with the most wonderful, historic, gallops.

They were the days when trainers were martinets, although Clive doesn't look at in this way, except there was real discipline which he still believes in.

“We had to polish our boots and make them gleam, and have a clean shirt before we were allowed out in the morning. I lived at Beckhampton in the stable hostel. They were hard days, there was no television, and you had to make your own fun."

“But the stable discipline did you good. Our stable jockey was the great Sir Gordon Richards. Although I was apprenticed, I never got any rides, because we had the best jockey riding for us and they did not need to give an apprentice a ride."

“Sir Gordon was very straightforward, and if you made a mistake when riding out in the morning he let you know. If you did something wrong, he didn’t tell you a second time. It was a very big stable with very big owners, and they did not allow apprentices to ride for them - not when you had Sir Gordon, the champion jockey.”

Amazingly, he stayed 23 years with Sir Noel and was quite happy.

The stable won 19 classic races, yet as an apprentice he never got a ride because of the dominance of Sir Gordon.

It was only when he realised that Sir Noel would be retiring that he took the plunge and moved to Newmarket to take over the Pegasus stables, formerly the base of Bill Watts.

“I took a lease on it for three years. It was really run down and I spent the first year re-painting and mending everything,” says Clive.

In those days it did not take the amount of money it would now to set up training. Nowadays he has 80 horses and a reputation for having a go in races where the alleged experts do not rate his chances.

It was The Derby in 1989 that he nearly caused the biggest shock by adopting these bold tactics. His horse “Terrimon” came second to the well fancied “Nashwan” at the odds of 500-1.

“I remember the bookmakers on the hill in the middle of the course were still there at 8pm that night working out how they could pay out so much money. It cost them because punters had each way bets."

“We did think that he was capable of getting a place. Nashwan was home and dried as far as we were concerned but I didn’t think there was much else in the race.”

Clive gets up at 4am every morning.

"Animals like being up early, just listen to the birds - when it is light they are all singing at that time. Our first lot pulls out at 5.30am and we are usually first on the gallops. I prefer it that way. You don’t see many strings out at that time.”

And in Newmarket, known as headquarters in the racing world, there are plenty of other trainers ready to use the same gallops.

His greatest horse was the flying filly “Pebbles”, who was the first English horse to win a race in America.

She also won the 1,000 Guineas, the Eclipse and Champion Stakes.

He also produced another outsider two years ago “Kandidate” who came third in the 2,000 Guineas at 100-1.

When you see Clive Brittain enter an outsider in a big race, you can do a lot worse than back it each way!

By Michael Wale