Clive Brittain: the Smiling Pioneer

THE AUTHOR Robin Oakley is the former BBC political editor and racing correspondent of the Financial Times and The Spectator magazine. Has written several books on politics and racing, including Frankincense and More: The Biography of Barry Hills.

Newmarket trainer Clive Brittain is not just the smiling face of the sport - he is one of racing's pioneers. He was the first trainer to have 100 horses on Newmarket Heath, the first at racing's Headquarters to install an equine swimming pool and other leading trainers pay tribute to him as the man who led the way in travelling horses abroad. It was six years after his victory with the wonder filly Pebbles before any other British-trained horse won at the Breeders' Cup in the USA. But Clive Brittain's story is much more than training statistics. A natural horseman who was always given the rogues to handle, he served 23 years as a stable lad with Sir Noel Murless before he defied tradition by setting up on his own and going on to train the winner of every British Classic, except the Derby. The book is packed with the racing characters whose stories have been intermingled with Clive's, like Willie Carson and Captain Marcos Lemos, Pat Eddery, Philip Robinson, Bill Gredley and Lady Beaverbrook.